Hmmm Salt

Trip Start May 13, 2007
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46
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Trip End Aug 17, 2008


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Flag of Bolivia  ,
Monday, May 26, 2008

Aaah culture shock! 2 months in Argentina/Chile kinda made me forget that I was in fact in South America, the developing world n all that. One short walk across the bridge (yep you actually walk, the Argies arent prepared to bring their nice swanky double-decker-cama-seat buses into Bolivia) and suddenly things have turned a bit more basic, a bit more rustic and a helluvalot more cold.

Bolivia, it nearly killed us all with CO poisoning on the bus. That was the observation after one hour. Bolivia, its boiling, its freezing, its cheap. Those were the observations after about 24 hours.

After a week: its beautiful, stunning, friendly, inspiring, challenging and more freezing than boiling. Really freezing, literally. 6 blankets and a sleeping bag and three layers of clothing freezing There
There
 .

This however relates not to Bolivia as a whole, how could it, only been here a week, but rather to the Salar de Uyuni and related areas.

2 Aussies, 2 Colombians, 2 Bolivians and a Welsh guy (thatll be me in case there was doubt) climbed into a nice comfy jeep 4 days ago and headed from the small dusty one horse town of Tupuzi to the small dusty half a horse town of Uyuni. Luckily we took the scenic route and passed some of the most incredible scenery this fine planet has to offer (please help to take care of it). We really lucked out with the group; we had a sort of 4 day language exchange with English and Spanish being abused from all sides. The guide and cook were great; I ate better during these four days than I have since, well the Inca trail to be honest. Maybe theres something in these tours...

We drove upto 5000m, slept at a little less than that, saw rock formations of bizarre and beautiful sizes and vivid and alluring colours. We saw flamingos flying, we bathed in a thermal bath near a still frozen lake. We saw mud and water exploding out of the Earth. We saw lakes of vivid green red and blue. We saw dramatic harsh peaks reflected softly in the surface of smooth clear lagoons once
once
 . We saw cacti that were born at the time the Roman Empire was emerging, and rock formations that were being etched as humanity itself was emerging.

We saw salt, lots of it - the biggest salt flat in the World in fact (12,00 sq km if you were wondering). Salty. Salt on the ground, salt in mounds, salty bricks, salty walls, salty chairs, tables and beds. Did make me wonder why we bothered bringing some in a shaker to be honest, but felt churlish to ask. We saw some of the work being done to harvest the salt - looked a bit on the tough side to me; 3500m above sea level in the freezing cold/blazing sun. With a shovel. And for that the workers get 9 Bolivianos for every 50kg they produce (including drying, purifying and packaging). Thats about 70p.

We saw a thousand kilometres of dusty, pot holed roads and paths and tracks. We saw hundreds of flamingos, thousands of llamas, millions of stars, one bright clear moon and one searing welcome sun. We saw the sun rise to illuminate the hills in a deep soothing red and then fall to leave a sky layered from red to pink to clear blue to black. We saw all the colours of the rainbow, without ever needing the rainbow.

I also stayed in probably the nicest place Ive stayed in S.A was
was
 . and it cost the princely sum of about 3 pounds fifty. Plus its great, the menu is more than pizza and pasta. You get vegetables, lots of them and fruit, lots of it. Of course on the other side it can take an hour and a half for an omlette to arrive, but thats the whole relaxed way here. Tonight slumming it a bit, down to a 1.75 bed, but at least theres hot water. I´m not gonna be able to survive UK prices again.

I think I can go home now, Ive seen it all. That said, off to Potosi tomorrow to probably crawl around in a silver mine and (in a slight jump in time frames) maybe heading back to the UK via NZ and OZ. In November. Plans changing a bit due to inconsiderate gets getting married in Australia of all places. Ive checked on a map and with a flight centre and it seems that Ecuador to the UK via NZ/Oz is a far more sensible route than Ecuador to the UK, then Oz and back. So looks like I´ll have to hang out in S.A a bit longer. Ho hum. And now I have two mates in Bogota, Colombia may be on the cards...

Any suggestions for Colombia/NZ/Oz would be welcome.

I should apologise for the amount of photos I will inevitably end up loading on here, I just wish they could in some way convey the stunningness of the journey (yes I know its not a real word but I´ve been running empty on superlatives for quite a while now, I need a thesaurus).

To sum up, chévere.
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