“This is unreal” I
found myself exclaiming enough times this past weekend that I would have lost
track counting with my fingers. I,
however, wasn’t counting with my fingers, or at all, for that matter because I
was too busy burning the countless surreal panoramas into the back of my eyes
(and my 8 GB memory card which is now full for the first time ever). This trip goes down as one of the most
amazing of my life and yet, with the exception of the Bolivian Salt Flats I had
never heard of any of the places I visited before coming to Bolivia.
Vivian and I left
Cochabamba Thursday morning and after being set back a half hour by the first
time in history anything in Bolivia happened early (our bus leaving without
us), we drove the four hours from the bustling city of Cochabamba to the not so
bustling city of Oruro. Oruro, a
mostly dead mining town, is famous for one of the largest and most intense
Carnival celebrations in the world.
As Vivian said, “Oruro has 3 seasons: before carnival, during carnival,
and after carnival”. We arrived
well into the after carnival season and not much was going on to say the
least. We soon caught the 7 hour
train ride to the equally bustling city of Uyuni, in the department of
Potosi. Potosi and Oruro both were
major population and economic centers of Bolivia during the silver and tin
eras, but now are the poorest regions in the country.
Friday morning we
were picked up from our hotel in a white, Toyota offroad vehicle with massive
tires that are common (however unnecessary) in West Virginia. My sense of adventure sparked as we
tied our bags on the roof rack and piled in with our guide (also the driver and
cook) and tour mates; two Swiss and two Brazilians, all of which ended up being
excellent travel companions and awesome and interesting people.
Our first
destination was a train cemetery in the middle of the desert, where hundreds of
train cars and engines sit gathering rust. I had a blast exploring the train yard, climbing the cars,
and posing for those stupid jump pictures (which would become a theme on the
trip).
As fascinating as
the train cemetery was, the highlight of the day was the famous Uyuni Salt
Flats. We sped seemingly randomly
across the largest salt flats in the world until we stopped for lunch with only
salt and sky as far as the eye could see (with my fake ray ban sunglasses from
la cancha: the sun’s reflection off the salt made it so bright the eye couldn’t
see much of anything without sunglasses).
Staring off at the endless salt was the first of many times I would
utter “this is unreal” to myself this trip.
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| Yes: That is a house made of salt |
We stayed that
night in a tiny town in an incredibly disorganized hostel. This was my first real taste of rural
Bolivia: forget cell service, this town had no electricity or phones at all for
that matter. Nearly all of the
buildings in the town were built of mud bricks. However, the beds were welcome
after a long day and I saw 10x as many stars that night than I have ever seen
before (topped only by the next night).
There were so many stars that the gaps between the stars were nearly
impossible to make out. I tried to
take a picture but my $100 point and shoot couldn’t handle it.
The next day we
really started to test the off-road ability of the Toyota. We drove randomly across the desert for
hours at a time and when there were roads, they would definitively be too much
for my 4WD Volvo. Across the
massive desert of the Bolivian altiplano were scattered geological wonders so
awesome they even fascinate the non-geologist, striking snow-capped mountains,
still-active snow capped volcanos, and beautiful and unique lakes like I have
never seen before.
First we explored
and climbed in a garden of convoluted boulders formed by the still active snow
capped volcano on the horizon and shaped by the ruthless altiplano wind.
After driving for
a while across the moon-like desert we came around a hill and saw an absolutely
surreal lake. As if the
snow-capped mountains reflecting off the glass-like lagoon weren’t enough,
thousands and thousands of bright pink flamingos were scattered around the
lake. We would stop at many lakes
that day, all as surreal as the first (and all inhabited by thousands of
flamingos). For the last however,
el lago Colorado, the water was a bright reddish orange color from an algae that
inhabits the lake. Only the pink
of the flamingos was brighter than the color of the water.
We visited two
other desert rock gardens where I meandered amoung and climbed on more
convoluted rocks. I also reached a
new high of over 4,500 meters (nearly
14,000 feet); the snow capped peaks seemed so close.
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| Llamas |
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| Vicunas |
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| Flamingos |
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| Who needs roads anyway? |
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| Bizcacha |
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| The coolest rock ever |
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| Jumping over the coolest rock ever |
Luckily that night
we had electricity to charge my dying camera (but only for two hours in the
evening). They however did not
have heat, and even with two jackets on, 4,300 m was cold once the sun disappeared. Again the stars were unbelievable.
We woke up, or rather got out of bed, at 4:30 AM in the freezing
cold. We hit the road, or rather
the lack of, (in the cold) well before the sun peaked over the horizon. Perhaps the most unreal scenes I have
perhaps ever seen was our first stop that morning. It was like the earth was smoking; massive geysers spewed
into the air and giant pits of boiling mud littered the moonlike landscape. The sunrise painted the sky behind the
foreground of thick water vapor whooshing out of the earth as we carefully
stepped among the geysers and boiling mud pits.
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| El Lago Colorado |
At our next stop
(still in the cold) I took off my hat, scarf, two jackets, jeans, and full
layer of underarmour into just my swimsuit. I posed briefly for a picture as I froze before I joined the
others in my group in a natural hot spring swimming pool on the shore of yet
another beautiful lake (complete with the snow capped peak reflections and
flamingos). We stayed in the hot
water for well beyond the half hour our guide had originally allotted for that
spot. By the time we left we had
the hot spring all to ourselves aside from the birds. What I was thinking when I brought a swimsuit but no towel I
don’t know but getting out was much less pleasant than getting in. In the cold, I dried off with a fleece
blanket (which for the record make awful towels; they are terribly
unabsorbant).
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| The view for swimming |
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| Cold, Very Cold |
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| Theres way too many Flamingos |
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| El Lago Colorado |
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| Me visiting Chile; for about a minute |
We then visited la
laguna verde (the green lake).
While it wasn’t very green in the morning, the 360 degree panorama of
the snow capped mountains and volcanos on the Bolivian-Chilean border was awesome. I also visited Chile (extremely)
briefly.
The remainder of
the day was spent driving the seven hours across the surreal desert landscape
back to Uyuni. The final stop was
a rock garden the topped the previous three. I could have spent a week just there climbing on the rocks
and ambling amoung them trying to convince myself I was awake.
Even the crappy
electric shower (with electric showers more pressure=colder water) at Hotel
back in Uyuni was extremely welcome and probably one of the longest of my
life. Only a few hours and an
awesome (hot) dinner later we caught the 1 AM train back to Oruro.
