I started my journey into Bolivia on a three day tour of the Uyuni Salt Flats, leaving from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. The name of the tour is slightly misleading, since the first two days were not on the salt flats, it was just the third when we explored the famous flats. That's not at all a bad thing though, I had a great time on the first two days as well as I'll explain. It was an early start in Chile to get taken to the Bolivian border, this journey involved a 2200m climb within one hour in the bus, the altitude was definitely noticeable. After a short wait on the Bolivian border we were introduced to our guides for the next days and the other passengers we would be sharing the cars with. My guide was a young Bolivian guy called Alberto. Since the 3 day journey would involve a lot of off-roading, we had to use 4x4s for the tour. In my car there was a young French couple, a lone French traveler, and a German guy. The other jeep in our party carried 4 Brazilian tourists.
Day one we passed a load of interesting places. The vastness of the park is incredible. We passed by a series of lagoons, many of which were frozen over. The area was experiencing the most snow they'd had in 40 years!!! This meant that the park had been closed for a while, and we were only the second group to be allowed into the park. We had our lunch stop at some natural thermal baths, which was a welcome relief from the bitter cold. The final stop of the day was the 'Laguna colorada', which is a bright pink lake home to lots of flamingos. The lake gets its colour from the red algae that provides food for the flamingos, it was so strange. Our hostel for the night was literally in the middle of nowhere... Bit of data for you: the temperature overnight was -20C and inside our room was 0C, that is definitely the coldest room I've ever slept in. Thankfully, I was well wrapped up in my sleeping bag and mountain of blankets, so I didn't feel it too much.
 |
| Thermal baths were good to get out of the cold |
 |
| Yes, it really is that colour! |
 |
| This was night one's freezing hostal. 4400m altitude |
Day 2. This day was more about taking in the beautiful scenery rather than stopping to see lots of sights. It's the weirdest feeling driving through what is essentially a desert, but with a knee-deep layer of snow. We were well over 4400m at this point, and people were starting to get headaches from the altitude. The Bolivian cure is to chew coca leaves (yes, the leaves used to make cocaine), it was surprisingly effective and everybody's headaches disappeared pretty quickly. We stopped to see a set of weird rock formations, including one that looked like a tree. We also stopped at a salt flat that was in formation, this means that the layer of salt was only centimetres thick and it didn't appear that white, but was definitely very flat. A railway crosses this flat and is used to transport minerals and salt from Bolivia to Chile. That night we slept in a salt hostel, everything was made out of salt, including the chairs and tables! Apparently they only last 5 years due to the natural erosion. Luckily , ours was only 1 year old.
 |
| Our 2 jeep party had to do a lot of off-roading in the snow |
 |
| Though there were also desert sections |
The third day of our trip was a very early start, 5am to be precise. We wanted to get to the salt flats before the sunrise. We drove to an island in the middle of the salt flats, literally an island of rock surrounded by salt as far as the eye could see. After a short climb up the cactus-filled island we sat at the top in silence to take in the magnificent sunrise. It's a pretty powerful moment when all you can see is horizon, it's freezing cold, and you can feel the energy and warmth of the sun as it makes its first appearance of the day. After breakfast in the shadow of the island, we set off to find a quiet spot in the salt flats to take the traditional photos. This salt flat is the largest in the world, 180km by 150km, with a 5-6m deep layer of salt. We found a spot where we were the only part of civilisation in view. 360 degrees of horizon. The salt forms hexagonal indents where the summer rain evaporates. Since the area is so consistently flat, it makes for some fun photos since you can play with the perspective. We then headed to Uyuni, the town on the edge of the salt flats where we saw all the abandoned mining trains in a kind of Train Cemetery. The day finished with a buffet lunch all together, before we said our goodbyes. This was for sure one of the most stunning places I've ever seen.
I hung around with the French couple for a while, catching up on emails and messages after 3 days without outside contact. We waited for our night bus to the Bolvian capital, La Paz. We arrived about 5am and checked in to our hostels. I then met up with them again later to look around some of the sights in the city centre. We went to look around the Witch's Market, which is where they sell all kinds of weird potions, creams, and powders to cure various things. Perhaps the weirdest thing we saw was a basket full of dried llama fetuses, god knows what they're used for... We also looked around the Coca Museum, which was a really interesting look into the medicinal benefits that the Bolivian people have gained from chewing coca leaves, as well as the devastating effects that the hard drug derived from the lead has had worldwide. We learnt all about how cocaine was made, its history (including in Coca-cola), and how governments worldwide are trying to combat its use. Though it was interesting to see that the majority of modern anesthetics are derived from synthetic cocaine, apparently anything ending in -caine owes its existence to coca leaves (e.g. Lidocaine). I also booked my trip for the next day to Death Road, I was really excited.
 |
| The infamous Witch's Market |
Yesterday, I set off early to meet the bus to go off and cycle down the infamous Death Road. It's a very narrow road with a horrifying drop off one side that goes along the side of a Bolivian valley. After arriving to the start point we got kitted up and had to offer a blessing with alcohol to Pachamama, an Andean godess, who would offer us protection during the ride. The ride was 67km of almost entirely downhill riding. The first part was asphalt, very grippy and it meant that the faster group I was in reached a top speed of 75kmph! The road then got a lot worse, steep and twisty, loose rock and gravel was the theme of the day. The group split into a faster and slower group and we hurtled down the hill as fast as we felt comfortable. I didn't have much mountain biking experience, but two Kiwis that did were happy to show me some techniques and I was soon chasing them down the mountain as high speed. The drop off is up to 300m in some places and the little memorials that line the road are a constant reminder of the countless deaths and injuries that the road has caused. Thankfully, I felt very safe under the guidance of Jubi our guide and apart from a few skids on the loose ground, didn't get anywhere close to crashing. One guy in our group did crash, thankfully into the wall rather than the drop... The strange thing is that the downhill riders must stick to the left, the cliff side... So it's a constant balance between staying close enough to the edge that you can see uphill traffic, and staying far enough away that you don't fall off. We ended the trip with a relaxing couple of hours in a swimming pool, massive lunch, and beers on the journey back. Funilly enough, it was only after we'd completed the road that the guide told us about the many clients that he's had to rescue from the cliffside and the horrific incidents that have happened. To be honest, all these incidents seem to have happened when people get over confident, so there is a simple solution. This was one of the most exhilarating things I've done in South America so far, I'd really recommend it! Photos to come...
I've just got back to my hostel after going to listen to a guy called Crazy Dave. Dave was raised in New York, and having fallen into cocaine addiction was convinced to go to Bolivia and smuggle drugs back in the late 90's. He was caught by the Bolivian authorities and sentenced to 16 years in San Pedro Prison. He got released over two years ago now and makes his living talking about his life inside the prison every day at 1pm. San Pedro Prison is located right in the centre of La Paz and sounds like no prison I've ever heard of before. Crazy Dave told us that inside the prison there was a whole different society. You had to buy your own house in the prison, pay your way for everything, earn respect from the drug lords, the escape attempts etc. This is also all talked about in a book by a Brit put in the same situation called 'Marching Powder'. Dave himself worked for over a year as an English tutor, doing the English homework of the convicts kids (over 150 kids lived in the prison with their convict parents), paid 1g of coke per kid. He quit teaching, saying that 6g plus of coke a day doesn't do much good for your head. He then did 3.5yrs of cocaine production, the purest coke you can get in the world is rumoured to be made inside the prison. It was a really interesting insight into another part of Bolivian society, and Crazy Dave's part rap, part rant, part theatrical style of storytelling made it very entertaining. Although it was slightly sad to see a man in his mins-50's, still addicted to coke, living on the streets and not back in his home country. He assured us he's sending his story to 'Banged up Abroad' to earn the money to fly home. Also, for those interested, he told everybody exactly where to source cocaine in La Paz, the going rate, and how to test its purity...
So where next? My next destination is Cusco, Peru. I have a night bus booked for the 12 hour journey tonight. In Cusco I plan to go up to see Machu Picchu and generally soak in as much Peruvian culture as I can. I guess it'll be a couple of weeks until I post again, but I will try to post before I leave Peru.
No comments:
Post a Comment