Pessimism and despair it seems, is a feeling that is completely useless. Of course I was able to take my bus out of Potosi. But let’s go back a bit.
I spent the time in the afternoon with some of the friendly guests of my hostel, who also were trapped, but tried to get to Sucre and La Paz instead. While talking with two of them, I told them about my past adventures, including the Overland Track in Tasmania. The guy, he said that his girlfriends parents were also on the Track in December. I could have met them, I thought. So I got out my laptop, and flicked through the photos until the girl exclaimed: These are my parents! Two of the photos depicted them (I copied the pictures to her camera), and she took a photo of me and her to send it to her parents. How funny is that? To meet the daughter of someone five months later on a different continent?
Later I walked down to the bus station with all my backpacks and yes, the busses were leaving Potosi. In fact, I was able to take a bus at 18:00 that arrived only four and a half hours later in Uyuni (the usual time is six hours). The bus ride would have been adventurous if I had been able to see where we were driving. The only annoyance were two women behind me that constantly opened my window and though the smell of some passengers was rather breathtaking, yet nobody would died from it whereas pulling the temperature inside the bus down to the outside temperature of about 5 deg C for all the people in the bus was not really considerate. I put on every layer I could and still was freezing.
The night was cold as the heating only was available for the lower bunks and the warmth did not reach my top bunk bed. The next morning I checked in for my tour in time and got my exit stamp for Bolivia. We were six people on the four wheel drive: A Dutch couple, a Danish guy (Rasmus) and two Indian girls from the UK. Most of the time, the small Indians and I were crammed together in the backseats as we were the smallest ones. Our guide, Israel, and the driver, Alex, made a good impression although the tour. Lucky.
The tour started out with the train cemetary close to Uyuni. Dozens of tenders and wagons were rusting silently in the desert. Israel asked us if we had a similar place in Europe. Uhm… no, not that I can think of. I got on a seasaw with a Korean (?) girl who was obviously unprepared about the feelings of acceleration that such a device could cause. She didn’t stop screaming hysterically until I let her off the jig saw, friendly as I always am.
We continued our trip to a small village (with souvenir shops) and most buildings were made out of salt-bricks. Israel explained the unbelievably complicated process of turning the salt from the salt flats into a product on sale. It works like that: Excavate the ground containing the salt, dry it with heat, add jodine, package it. Tadaa! There is no cleaning involved, you’ll eat whatever residue was also washed into the salt flats. This could also be healthy indeed, as the ground contains a high amount of lithium (which is also used in some drugs against forms of light depressions).
The next stop was a salt hotel where we had lunch. The prices for the rooms in these hotels are ridiculuously high, so we could go around and have a look. Among statues of bears and santa clauses, there were benches and other furniture all made of salt. Nice!
We continued our way further into the salt flats where we could see how the salt was excavated to cones and pre-dried, causing puddles of water around these cones.
At the first hotel of the salt flats, there was a salt figures museum that could be visited after buying something in the shop. So I got a lollypop for 1 Bs. and went in. It was nice, though the lighting of orange was a bit odd. The lollypop would come in handy later on. We got the chance to try out to do some fancy pictures, though it sometimes seemed difficult to explain what was the intention. You can’t be both in the photo and behind the camera. For example, I would have liked a photo of me trying to climb the side of a barrel. Instead I ended up inside it. Okay, it’s not bad either, but…
The colours in this place are just eerie. Everything appears brushed with subtle pastel tones, like a drop of pure colour dilluted in a glass of milk until it becomes just a faint illusion. As if any contrast would make the whole ambience irrate.
The white of the salt on the ground makes blindingly bright. Often, it looks like snow. When it intermixes with puddles or lakes of water, the scenery could easily be mistaken with the Antarctic. But not only for the colours: The temperature was very low and the harsh winds would cause us seek shelter whenever possible. The air is so dry that my lips cracked. There is no visible life out here, except for the tourists.
We drove to a spot in the middle of nowhere and started taking out photos. We could have been a lot more creative, but it was fun anyway. I think it would take a second take with a collection of things to make more stunning pictures. We also took a video of us getting out of an improvised tube but the screen script was a bit flawed. Still, the result was funny to watch (Happy Hobbits – Take Two).
On our way to the hostel we saw another jeep being stuck in the mud. The salt and the sediment form a deadly disguising form of surface. If it’s just slightly wet underneath, it almost becomes worse than quicksand. We tried to help them out to no avail. After about an hour we had to give up and drove to the hostel. Alex, the driver drove back to the spot but it took them until 22:00 before they successfully got the jeep out of the mud.
We played Uno until the lights went out. It was great fun, especially after adding the throw-in and thank-you rules. The diesel generator power supply just stopped in time before the game got a bit too heated.
This night was not too cold thanks to the sleeping bag and a lot of blankets. We got up at a reasonable time (6:30am) and headed to the next salt flat. The scenery was absolutely stunning — a flat valley amidst of a volcanic mountain range. The wind was getting stronger and colder so it was a good thing to wear four layers of clothes instead of three the day before.
We stopped at interesting rock formations with the view of the only remaining active volcano with a perfect cone shape in the background. It was sending tiny clouds of steam and smoke into the air. The road further led us to a green lake with a few flamingos, where we had lunch (served from the back of the jeep). Again, the pastel tones of the mountains, the lake made you think your camera was broken.
Rasmus and I were the only ones who walked along the lake to be picked up by the jeep about half’n’hour later. We were wearing all we had, but still we were ice blocks when we got back into the car.
The amount of flamingos was not yet satisfying, so we had some more breaks at lagoons of different names, including the oxymoron of a “deep lagoon”. The views were stunning and the flamingos not too bothered about the tourists walking around, In fact, even trying to get them fly away to obtain photos of their wings was not possible. The reason was simple: There was a sign forbidding the birds to actually fly! Well obeying flamingos indeed.
Finally, we reached the national park and came upon the tree rock that is featured in most brochures. Rasmus and I climbed around some other rock formations, but every additiona second on the top of these rocks with icy winds was just pure pain.
The biggest attraction in the national park is the red lake. It is fed by warm water heated by geothermic activity and leaking from the rocks and red algea and flamingos are very fond of that. The sun was about to set and we had to get to our hostal.
Did I mention that it was cold? Well, it was cold. We had quick games of Uno while waiting for the very basic dinner (a small portion of spaghetti with tomato sauce) before we slipped into our sleeping bags with all the layers that we had. At around 4:15am our alarms rang to make sure we could leave as early as possible to the geysers and hot springs. The geysers at around 4900m were uhm… stinky, but we could not see a thing in the dark (really, that was a bit useless).
Around 6:20am, we reached the hot springs, got undressed in open air at most minus five degrees celsius and jumped into the hot water of about 38 deg C. It was still dark, but in the distance, the sun was already heating up the clouds. Everything was in tones of grey except for the fire that spilled from the red glowing clouds, tinting in the lake in purple. My hands were freezing from holding the camera all the time. Watching the sunrise was breathtaking though. You may get a glimpse of what I’m talking about when looking at the pictures.
As breakfast was ready, it was time to get out of the water. Because the air was so dry it was no problem drying ourselves up. Standing around naked for several minutes while getting dressed was not so bad except for bare feet on the freezing ground. All the clothes were ice cold, too. We survived it and the breakfast was our reward.
The last few hours heading to the border of Bolivia and Chile we crossed a dessert that they call Salvador Dali dessert. And really, it has a striking resemblance to his paintings. And the final stop was a brilliant blue lake that contains a lot of manganite. The strong winds whip across the water, causing major waves like it was an ocean.
At the border we said bye to Alex and Isreal and waited for the bus to take us to San Pedro de Atacama. So this was my fantastic time in Bolivia. The landscapes are just so weird that you wouldn’t find them anywhere else on this planet. You might find them on a different planet though. Except for the political unrest, I can really recommend to go there. It is a must see and it is probably the cheapest country in South America. I had a great time.
