It’s been so long since I have been in a place where the connection is fast enough to upload pictures! I’ve been in Bolivia since May 10 and am still in La Paz. This post is going to skip northern Argentina. I may try to get to those pictures, but I don’t know, where else in Bolivia is there going to be another connection even this fast? The first thing I did after crossing the border was take my first train ride in a long time. Bolivia has a couple of lines. One is from Villazon on the Argentine border to Oruro, passing through Tupiza and Uyuni. It’s clunky but still better than the bus, I took it to Tupiza.
On the way to Uyuni it goes through wilderness like this. If you read my San Pedro de Atacama entry, you may say to yourself this looks a lot like that. San Pedro, Chile, is quite close to here. At times we were only a few hundred meters from the border. I could have come here from there, but was misinformed about getting a visa into Bolivia at that border crossing. That’s a lot of the reason I went back to that northern tip of Argentina. That said, I did enjoy seeing that part of Argentina. I’m not that busy.
THE thing to do down here is to either go on a one or two day tour from Uyuni town to the Uyuni salt flats, known as the Solar de Uyuni, or to take a four day tour through the extreme southwest of bolivia and see the vivid terrain and lagunas there, then the salt flats, then wind up in Uyuni. I took the second optiion.
At first the landscape looks a lot like this.
Later on there are interesting rock formations.
And the road is pretty good, though a four wheel drive is necessary in any places. Most of it is at 4300-4900 meters (about 14,000-16,000 feet) above sea level.
Four of us in a mid-nineties Land Cruiser (back when Land Cruisers were built to endure this kind of use) caravaned with another from the same tour company. Still, we got one flat. Also, we got a short circuit to the water pump. Here the two drivers are fixing the flat, getting to the fuel pump under the middle seat, and hot wiring it directly to the battery. After that, you got a shock every time you touched metal in the Cruiser. That vintage Cruiser is almost all metal inside.
By the way, that woman in red was the cook for both vehicles. We definitely came to appreciate her as well as the two guys. In my vehicle were a couple who are videographers. They would like to quit their day jobs in New Jersey and live off income from their website. Jason and Aracely’s site is pretty good. You might want to go there for video of this eight month trip they are on in Latin Aerica. Unfortunately, they are way behind and, last I heard a few days ago, they still had only Centra America ready for views. They are at www.twobackpackers.com . The other companion is a Bulgarian woman, Draga. Aracely and Jason and I stayed more or less together till Sucre. Draga went to LA Paz with her boyfriend, but maybe she and I will hook up here in La Paz now that I am here. I haven’t heard from her yet, though.
In the far southwest there are several villages. This is one of the larger ones. Note the solar panels. In the US most people in bright sunny places still don’t use them. And silly Americans want Obama to save them from the Gulf oil spill. We’re supposed to be all about personal responsibility but can’t save ourselves.
Here’s a cute village. They have a dam to make the water level even this high.
Along the way, there are some geysers. They don’t shoot up like Old Faithful in California or in Yellowstone National Park, but they are dramatic steaming cauldrens of bubbling mud and sand.
There are several beautiful lagunas. Most are filled with mineral deposits. The flamingoes like to feed off the tiny crustaceans that live there. In the first picture, that is steam rising off the water in the early morning. Like any other arid place, it warms up considerably as soon as the sun rises. Oh, those nights were cold up at that elevation!
There is a hot spring at one place, all tricked out for tourists. I didn’t go in. The thought of getting out into the cold air and dealing with my dirty, wet feet cooled me on that plan.
Okay, then we got to the Solar de Uyuni. It’s one of those World Heritage sites that deserves the billing.
It’s the larget salt flat in the world, a couple hundred kilometers by about a hundred and something. The Bonneville salt flat in Utah is the econd largest in the world. You just head out over it like you’re trying for the land speed record at Bonneville. It is F-L-A-T, but there are “islands” of rock and vegetation. From there you can climb up to get some persective on the expanse around you. One island is the top spot the tours from the town of Uyuni and the Tupiza to Uyuni converge. We park in the shade to get out of the glare, the cooks make lunch, and the guys work on the vehicles while we romp around working up an appetitie.
There are outposts around the edge of the Solar where they harvest salt. Many, if not most, of the buildings are made of salt blocks.
We didn’t sleep in that bulding, but one much lke it. Here was our room one night. It had electricity from a generator for about three hours and everything. What else along with four bottles of wine for four people do you need? A pad of blankets between the salt bed and your body made it at least two stars. This is not a tourist thing. The locals do this. They also have salt tables and chairs as well as salt play yard stuff for the kids.
That just about does it for now. From there we went to Uyuni. I’ll blog about Potosi and Sucre maybe tomoorow. I’ve got the pictures all uploaded. Be well, all of you.
