The Salt Flats, Uyuni, Bolivia

The rumors are true: the roads here are terrible. Riding a little red wagon down a cobblestone street would be smooth sailing compared to the bumps and kicks these “roads”  have to offer. Both in the overnight bus from La Paz to Uyuni and during the countless hours spent in our trusty carriage, a 1990 Toyota Landcruiser, during our 4-day tour of Salar de Uyuni, I was taken back to my last trip to Disneyland and the antiquated “Mr. Toad´s Wild Ride,” except there were no bars (or seatbelts) to help you stay in your seat. But I can´t honestly say it wasn´t fun, at least for the first few hours.

Uyuni, as a city, is nothing to write home about, so I´ll move on. We spent a day organizing our tour plans and left early the morning after we arrived. Our first stop was the “train graveyard,” a glorified junk yard that´s only interesting because of its link to the rich natural resources of Bolivia and the amazing effort that went into exporting them in the past.

Thanks to some English tourists we were with, Michael and I had our first experience chewing coca leaves. Michael experienced a slight numbing of the cheek in which he stored the chewed leaves; I felt like I was chewing a bunch of leaves. While I don´t personally understand the national past-time of chewing coca leaves, I have to agree with Bolivia´s stance that coca leaves in the raw are a completely different substance than the cocaine that (with many chemicals and much environmental harm) can eventually be manufactured from them.

The main event was our first afternoon and evening at the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in Bolivia (and possibly the world). At this time of the year (the end of the rainy season), the salt flat is covered in 2 to 3 inches of water. When we visited, the sky was bright blue with some dynamic clouds, and the surrounding mountains were still snow-capped. Pink flamingoes dotted the landscape, both near and far. But for the slight wind, the landscape was almost perfectly reflected in the water, making the horizon difficult to distinguish. It was truly a magical, surreal world.

We stayed the night in the Playa Blanca, a hotel in the middle of the salt flat made almost entirely out of salt: salt walls, salt bed frames, salt seats, salt statutes, salt tables…  I was truly missing pepper. Both Michael and I agreed it was one of the most special places we´ve ever been. The hotel is run by a family with two energetic young boys that crawled all over the salt statutes as if they were their personal rocking-horses. What a crazy way to grow up. The Israelis gave way to the Japanese in this little oasis, making Michael and I (again) the only white folks of the group.

The sunset was a photographer´s dream that Michael took full advantage of. I went along as assistant and prop until I couldn´t take the freezing cold water and wind anymore. I cannot wait for Michael to show off his pictures, which probably won´t be until we return this summer, but just as a teaser, they are truly amazing. After the sun went down, we had a hearty communal meal of flamingo soup and quinoa, a delightfully local dinner.

The next afternoon we left the world of salt by joining a typical 3-day tour of the Bolivian altiplano (think the exact opposite of the jungle). EVERYTHING we owned was covered in salt, which turned harder than cardboard after it dried. We´re crossing our fingers that the laundry ladies in Uyuni have better luck extracting salt from our shoes and clothes than we did, or we may have to replace a fair amount of stuff.

The next three days were spent in the company of our Bolivian driver, a Dutch mother-daughter team, and two solo men from Argentina. The seven of us packed into the dilapidated landcruiser and headed South to within a few kilometers of the Bolivian-Chilean border. The driver took us to numerous lagoons, all with different bright colors including blue, green, white, and red, all with flamingos. Laguna Colorado was especially intriguing, being bright red and home to over 70,000 flamingos. We also got to see some colorful mud pots and geysers and lounge in a natural hot springs next to a blue lagoon, with the huge sky above us and 20,000-ft snow-capped mountains in the distance.

“High dessert” is one of the greatest understatements to describe this area. Most of our time was spent at an altitude equal to or higher than the highest point in the continental United States.  We even surpassed 5000 meters – roughly equal to 16,500 feet (the highest Michael and I have ever been).  Michael was especially excited about this. However, the altitude, when combined with the unfettered sun, is not a good combination for sensitive skin, as my now-bright-red nose and sun-burned legs can attest. The endless stretches of sand were periodically obstructed by huge rock formations that we constantly tried to make into different objects or animals, like you would with passing clouds. Other than these rocks, there was no shade within miles.

While there is not much vegetation in the altiplano, there is a surprising amount of animal life, including many llama and vicuna (a gazelle-like animal), along with weird rabbit-like animals with curly rat-like tails.
The altiplano is a wild, barren place – a land of true wilderness and many superlatives.  There is likely no bigger sky in the world than here.  It is a dreamscape for photographers and bird watchers.  However, Michael and I miss water and green, and will be happy to return to a place with a bit less exposure…God did not make the altiplano with human beings in mind.

We´re taking the overnight bus back to La Paz tonight, and aren´t entirely sure where we´ll go to next. Michael has been in-and-out of extreme sickness, likely caused by hours of taking pictures in the freezing temperatures of the Salar and our often less-than-fabulous meals on the road. I expect that a few days of resting in La Paz are in order, and then we´ll be off to… somewhere interesting.