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10 - Southern Bolivia-Potosi annd Salar de Uyuni
October
18, 2003
Hello guys,
I am currently typing from the beautiful and pristine Galapagos Islands. I
am REALLY HAPPY to be here bc of course it is a wildlife oasis, but even more
so, the past few weeks have been INCREDIBLY TRYING and downright a pain in
the arse! I have gone thru roadblocks in LaPaz and more recently Ecuador,
so needless to say I am a little worn for wear and this six day sailing and
diving cruise will not be taken for granted. But in the usual Talbot fasion,
we need to pick up in when I flew into Sucre on Thurs, Sept 25. Hopefully
towards the end of this journey, I will have caught up on my journal so it
isn´t so far behind. Enjoy.
The hour long flight
from LaPaz to Sucre was pretty nonchalant. Even as we landed, I still was
unsure if I was going to stay in Bolivia´s colonial capital of Sucre
or move onto Potosi, which would be much closer to my
destination of Uyuni and the salt flats. As soon as I got off the plane, the
geography of the southern Altiplano (meaning high plains) revealed itself
to be even dryer than the LaPaz area. There was a giant statue of a dinosaur
there to greet me and remind me of the fact that the area is famous for its
escavations of dinosaur bones. As I was getting my luggage a petite woman
was yelling through a open door in the tiny airport that she was offering
rides to Pôtosi. Another gringo had already committed to going and I
asked if he wanted to split the fare. His name was Tom, and he was a Vancouver
Canadian that had been living in Bolivia for about a year with his Dutch girlfriend.
He quickly agreed and we were off in the taxi. I have heard that Sucre was
a nice, clean city from other tourists. The quick drive thru town proved that.
Our driver also made a few stops. One involved him breaking up a fight with
a drunk coming onto a girl he obviously knew. Who says that machismo chivalry
is dead? The 3 and half hour drive to Potosi was on some of the nicest PAVED
roads I have encountered on this continent. We came really close to splattiing
into a few cows on the way, but other
than that, the ride was quick and painless. Arriving in the highest city of
the world (4824m) Potosi does have that post colonial fee, with a quaint plaza
and colonial architecture which gives the impression of its rich past.
Potosi was once the largest and wealthiest city in the Americas. As soon as
the Spanish discovered the vast of amounts of silver and other valuable minerals
in the Cerro Rico (the rich mountain) they waisted no time on
enacting a brutal system to estract them from the mnt that overlooks the city.
But today, I was exhausted and made my way with Tom towards a hostel his girlfriend
had already been staying at. It was a nice enough place with a courtyard,
fairly clean rooms, aguas caliente, a nice courtyard, and these cute propane
heaters that were necessary to combat the frigid chill of being in the world´s
highest city. I caught a much needed 3 hour siesta and went out with Tom and
his Dutch girlfriend to some dinner. We also spoke with the owner of the hostel,
who runs tours of the mines on the side. We decided to arrange for a tour
for tommorow afternoon. That night I slept like a baby with the cozy heater.
Friday, like Rip Van
Winkle, I finally arrose after about 10 hours of delicious slumbers. I decided
to go for a little walk around the plaza and check out the view from the top
of a refurbished church that´s now a
theater. I really liked the town. It was much less chaotic than LaPaz and
much cleaner than many places I had been. The view up top was cool and this
tourist guide approached me and asked me if I had done a mine tour yet. I
told him whom I had already booked with and he disparranged my guide and tried
to get me to go with him. Tourism can be fairly cut-throat. Anyway, I said
no and went by the internet cafe for some yummy apple pie and surfing. Met
Tom and the tour guide back at the hostel. About four more people had joined
the group- a british bloke, a Frenchman, a Swiss lady, and even another American
from Chicago. We put on these funky yellow jackets and pants with rubber boots
and drove up to Rico Cerro. Halfway up, we pulled over to buy some gifts for
the miners, which was traditional for visiting the mines. The items we purchased
were a little disturbing: coca leaves (to help the miners bear with the harsh
conditions. The spanish use to regulate it to passify and make the Indian
miners more productive.) alcohol, and dynamite! Not exactly what I thought
would be all that safe. A minor drunk and coked up with explosives? Anyway
our guide went over the history of the mines, which was pretty deppressing.
The spanish used to lock up Indians and Africans in the mines for as long
as 12 months! They halled out as much silver as their ships could carry and
make coins for the new colony. Most of the Bolivians never saw a cent from
their toil. But that wasn´t as bad as actually getting to meet some
of the people that still work the mine. . Cerro Ricco has long been out of
most of its silver and the other minerals found there are almost worthless.
Still there are at least 10,000 people that depend on the income that they
derrive from the minerals they can mine. There was this 75 year old lady that
walked around and hammered rocks that she found for literallly pennies a day.
She lives in a cave a few feet away from where she works. You could see the
years of sweat and toil that had wrinkled her leathery brow. There was a bunch
of
kids running around outside the mines to sell tourists a few rocks a day.
Then when we finally went inside the mines, that was when things got really
emotional. As we went deeper and deeper into the mountain with my feet trudging
thru the mud and very little light except the torches on our hard hats, I
could not imagine working in such conditions. A few times we had to run out
of the way of an oncoming cart full of rocks heading for the
surface. One cart actually capsized with a ton of rocks spilling into the
mud. We could hear the shouts of despair from the miners trying to fix the
cart. There was also an interesting chamber with a statue of the devil and
many offerings of coca leaves. The miners say above the ground is God's world,
but below it, diablo reigns supreme. My claustaphobio was getting worse as
we went in the mine deeper. We also had to crawl thru all of these small doorways
with 100 m deep shafts precariously dangling below. We also met an older miner
who had been working the mines for over 20 years and he looked the part. It
was pretty horiffic conditions, for anyone to work. It was like going into
Hell and it really started to get to me. An hour and half later, I was very
thankful to finally see daylight again. The group was taken back into town
and later the guide took us all out for dinner. Tom declined to go bc he was
suppose to meet his girlfriend, and that was the last time I saw him. The
restaurant was actually quite nice. After dinner, the Frenchman, British bloke,
and the two Americans (myself and Jim from Chicago) headed out for some drinks
and local music. Jim kept raving
about the homemade red wine which I didn´t try due to the altitude and
wine already gives me headaches. The British bloke, Sten, was a doctor and
had been in Bolivia for several months researching aclimatation drugs. We
had some great conversations and the Frenchman was one of the nicest guys
I have run into.
My bus was leaving
for Uyuni on Sat around 12 pm, so I had some time to check out the La Casa
Real De La Moneda, the old coinery that had been turned into Bolivia´s
finest museum. I missed the first half hour of the
tour, but I was fine with it considering all they saw was a bunch of colonial
paintings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. "Jesus is just alright with me"
but I have seen my fare shair of that style, thank you very much. Although
there was an interesting painting that depicted the mountain and the relationship
of silver and god with the people of Potosi. The history of the Casa was equally
as moving as the tour of the mines. Thousands of
African slaves had been chained up to the huge wheels that help press the
silver into coins. All of this human suffering for a few lousy silver coins,
pretty sad if you think about it. There was a room that contained other artifacts
not related to the Casa. There were some shrucken mummies that they had found
in some local churpas that were a little disturbing. As I was walking out
I noticed at the front of the museum, there is a painting of a smiling face
that was a colonial gift from the French. I thought it was a little ironic
and not very appropriate considering the history of strife bc of the Casa
and silver. I almost missed the bus to Uyuni. I went
to the wrong spot and got lucky and asked around and someone got me a cab
in the nick of time. Sure enough, guess who was also waiting for the bus but
Jim. Little did I know that we would be traveling together for the next few
weeks. The 7 hour bus ride to Uyuni was long to say the least. And the road-if
that is what you call it- was mostly dirt and bumpy. The scenery was serrene
though, as we passed llamas and deep canyons that the bus seem to narrowly
avoid at the last second. On the way, there were also signs for tourists noting
that this was the region that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their
infamous end. As we pulled into Uyuni, a dusty and isolated town, you got
the sense that we were definately on the Bolivian frontier. I checked into
a hostel and my guide office to tell them I wanted to go the following day.
After dark, the town died out and it was a little quiet in a weird kind of
way.
Sunday morning I went
directly to the travel agency that I had booked the tour. The owner told me
that she was having problems booking tourists for the tour bc of the roadblocks
up north. About a third of the toursits that
are around this time of year. She would have to pool together with 3 more
agencies just to fill up one Toyota land cruiser that takes about 8 total
persons. As I gathered my things and walked over to the group I saw a
familiar American face smiling at me, Jim, asking me if I was following him.
I told him that I thought he was following me and a few minutes later, we
were off. The other folks in the group were only going on the three day tour
getting off at the Chilean border while Jim and I rode back with the guide
to Uyuni. There was a pair of Scotish girls that were rather aloof for the
first day or so. And then there was a French couple and another
American girl from Seattle named Jill. I cannot remember the last time Americans
were actually in the majority. I am so used to being the sole American and
having to break stereotypes that everyone has of us. It was
nice to bond with someone from the northwest US for a change. The irony here
was that I found out that Jill´s brother also works for Magnolia Hi
Fi up in Seattle and he just came down to Ecuador to meet up with her. Small
world huh? It was about an hour drive of Yankee bonding til we came up on
the Salur de Uyuni. The Salur is a huge salt flat (the largest in the world)
that is a rement of a huge lake that used to dominate southern
Bolivia. It is extremely flat, but the coolest thing about the flats is the
otherworldly scenery that it creates. Our first stop was the small village
of Colchani where they produce all of the salt for Bolivia. All they do is
dig about 3 meters into the salar and then dump it into trucks. Not much further
refinement is needed except some grinding. There were a few bubbly springs
that were at the weakest point in the flats. As we drove, the contrast of
flat, white, hexangle patterned flats stood out with the blue sky and surrounding
red volcano cones was almost blinding. The next stop was the Hotel Palacio
de Sal, a hotel entirely constructed (beds, walls, roofs, furniture, EVERYTHING)
of salt. People used to stay there but the govt shut it down for sanitary
reasons. Then onward to the Isla de Pescadores that get there name bc they
look like two fish in a white sea from the air. The isles boast a huge forrest
of cacti, the only earthern oasis in the salt flats. As we walked overtop
up the isle, it seemed like the ground was like coral or something with some
of the largest and oldest cacti I have ever seen. They supposedly only grow
a mm a year and live for hundreds of years, no one really knows how old they
are. Our eventual destination for the evening was the village of San Juan
where simple acccomadations awaited us. On the way our guide/driver Andre
was driving everyone on board crazy with the two music tapes that he possessed
and repeated over and over. One had some really bad heavy metal: the Scorpians
and the Eagles- Hotel California-Agrhh!!!! Before dinner, the Scots, Jim and
I went out to the only bar in the village. It was a self serve bar bc there
was no one around. So we grab some beers and left the $ on the counter. A
few minutes later the bar maid came in with a British guy who bright red bc
he had been bicycling thru the Salur. He had been biking all the way from
Lima for the past 3 months. Man, some people are just freaking crazy, but
you got to respect them. On the way back to the hostel, Jim and I gazed in
amazement at the Milky Way cloud that was brighter then I think I have ever
witnessed. It was funny, bc Jim had thought that it was actually a cloud that
was in the sky every night. I believe you can only see it from the southern
hemisphere.
Monday, after desayuno,
we were off to the Laguna area just southwest of the Salar. There was a military
checkpoint about an hour into the drive. We were only 20 km from the Chilean
border and it hasn't been that long since the two countries battled and Chile
took Bolivia's only access to the Pacific. The Bolivians have not forgotten.
There was an impressive large red cinder cone volcano named Volcan Ollague
that we stopped at. The largest volcano in Bolivia also had some smoke fuming
out of its top. Then begin the day I have taken more pictures than possibly
any other. We entered into Laguna region with some of the most surreal scenery
I have ever scene. The 1st, Laguna Hedianda, had tons of pink flamingos, beautiful
miror-like reflections of the red mnts in the background, and the aroma of
sulfur. Each lake that we visiting outdid the previous with better
reflections and pink flamingos that you could get closer too. It was like
another planet, simply etheral! It was getting easier to ignore the reduntant
heavy metal music and our guide's lack of any bedside manner. He
was more of a driver than a guide, which I guess I can't complain considering
all of the horor stories we heard of guides being drunk, unruley, and even
reports of some rapes. The next attraction was a strange rock formation known
at the Arbol de Piedra bc it looks like a tree. Then we officially entered
the Eduardo Avaroa Bird Reserve and had to pay the manditory 30 Bolivianos
entrance. It was only a few minutes from the entrance to the park to the Laguna
Colorada where we would spend the night. It was incredibly windy and cold
as we walked up to the strange red lake created as a result of rust. On the
way to the Laguana, Jill brought up
that she has really enjoyed traveling with Israelis and everyone just looked
at each other with that ok, it's time for that Israeli discussion, huh? For
dinner, was the worst spagetti I have ever had, and I could not even eat it.
HOW CAN YOU SCREW UP SPAGETTI?? Anyhow an uncomfortable moment came when the
park rangers came to retrieve the entrance fee from the French couple. We
were all playing cards and everyone was finally
losening up. The French claimed that it was part of their tour and they did
not have the $ and would not pay. So Jim and I offered to pay for them just
to fix the situation. The French guy was very apologetic but the girl did
not say two words to us!
We got up way early the nex morning. It was too cold to take a shower anyway so by 5 am we were on our way. We had to get up early this time for the geothermal area of the park. Similiar to Yellowstone, the earth's crust is really thin so there are a few geysers, mud pots and most importantly thermal springs. It was FREEZING and 7 am but I did not give a damn and hopped right it the soothing, shallow springs that were a lake. It was AMAZING!!! Eventually, the other tour groups arrived and it got really crowded so we left, but not before a 30 minute soak. The final laguna before the Chilean border was Laguna Verde-you guessed it, this one was green. I was just in shock at the scenery for the entire three days. We progressed to the border and dropped off everyone but Jim and me. The drive also decided to pick up another Bolivian passanger, who was actually a really nice and pleasant young lady. Spent the night in a really small village. But before we crashed, Jim and I played a little b-ball at one of the most scneic courts I have encountered. Needless to say at 4500m the game was short, and I won. The kids at the guest house were also a lot of fun to chase around.
The last day of our
tour wasn't as interesting as the rest, but it was only 3 hours in the Toyota
as opposed to the normal 6 hours til your butt is numb. We stopped by a church
and a village that had been entirely relocated
by the gov't bc they discoverd gas underneath. The last stop of the tour was
the railroad graveyard that was just outside of Uyuni. There must had been
at least 50 rr cars about 50 years old or more. We got into town
around 1pm and discovered that the train was screwed up bc of the blockades,
so I would have to take the overnight bus that Jim had already booked. Did
I ever tell you I HATE NIGHT BUSES!!!!!!!!! Til next time in LaPaz and the
Jungle.
Happy Trails,
Talbot