The last part of my traveling adventures occurred in Bolivia which is a stunning country in landscape and equally fascinating in culture. My last couple of weeks I took in the town of Tupiza, the Salar de Uyuni, Potosí, La Paz and Copacabana.
The Salar de Uyuni is a high altitude salt flat located in Southwest Bolivia in the departments of Oruru and Potosí. It is the largest salt flat in the world and quite impressive to see, but I think many of the tourists who visit the salar are mainly there to take crazy perspective photos. I had read that the scenery between Tupiza and the Salar de Uyuni was amazing so I decided to start my tour from Tupiza rather than Uyuni which is a lot closer (that and there are significantly less tours that start from Tupiza so you run into fewer tourists). I chose the tour company that was run out of my hostel in Tupiza and I ended up in a jeep along with a really fun woman from England, Anna, and a couple from Montreal, Eman and Sara. Our driver was David who was quiet and no nonsense, he had many years of experience driving through the mountains, high desert, and salt flats and he suffered no fools. I liked David. Oscar was our cook and English speaking guide (the Canadians did not speak Spanish and they were working on their English during this trip since French is their first language, thus they paid extra for an English speaking guide). Oscar was a people pleasing guide who wanted everyone to be happy and whatever he had to say to accomplish that he was willing to say, whether it was true or several degrees removed from the truth.
We happily started our adventure on a Monday morning, getting up bright and early, and in true Bolivian fashion we meandered out of town at the ripe old hour of 10 a.m. David tried to make up for our lost time by speeding us along the foothills into the altiplano, but much to his chagrin his passengers did their best to slow down his efforts at every stop with copious photos and frequent bathroom breaks. The scenery right outside of Tupiza was lovely and everyone enjoyed the first half of the day, but by mid afternoon we noticed other jeeps zipping by us and the scenery moving by slower and slower. I glanced up at the speedometer and found that we were traveling at a crisp 10 km/hr. No one said anything, but we exchanged glances in the back. Oscar brushed off Eman's concern about the car at the first stop of the afternoon, but 45 minutes later as we crawled along slower than the grazing llama alongside the car, we knew we had a problem. Eventually David pulled the car over to have a look at it and Oscar jumped out as well (more to evade questions than anything else as he didn't seem to know anything about the jeep), not to be left behind, Eman also jumped out to inspect the engine, kick the tires, and to offer his suggestions. The rest of us who knew we didn't know what was wrong and did not feel the need to pretend that we did, stayed in the jeep.
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| Anna |
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| Eman and Sara |
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| The speedy grazing llama |
Once the men had finished disagreeing about what was wrong with the car, we started off again at a cool 15 km/hr and were told by Oscar that he had an announcement: we would not be going as far as we had planned that day. Indeed. The land in Southwest Bolivia between Tupiza and Uyuni is sparsely populated with a few tiny villages dotting the space between mountains, volcanoes, and lagoons, so we were lucky that there was room for us at one of the villages. The accommodations in these villages are basic with a generator that produced light for 3 hours at night, blankets on the beds (no heating so extra blankets were appreciated), and a clean toilet. Oscar made us tea while we headed out to watch the sunset. The sunset appeared to be visible just over the ridge above town, but after climbing over two crests at 13,000 feet and finding that the sun was still hidden by yet another ridge we settled for watching the changing light on the nearby mountains. That night we were going to celebrate Anna's birthday, but Oscar and Eman got into a heated discussion about what the plans were for the last day of our tour (apparently what Oscar had promised he had to revise slightly). It was painful to watch someone who is normally non confrontational like Oscar trying to work things out with someone who is confrontational by nature like Eman. Anna, Sara and I watched this go on for 45 minutes until David strode in authoritatively from the freezing desert night where he had been working on the jeep.He looked at straight at me and said "I have a plan and you are going to translate for me." I straightened up a bit in my chair. David explained that his jeep could not be fixed on the road and another jeep was being sent through the night to pick us up in for the morning to continue on our way to Uyuni. David then proceeded to outline what the plan for the last day was going to be. No one argued.
The stars were gorgeous in the altiplano and even after a freezing night at high altitude with little sleep it was a gift to just look up at them and enjoy the stark contrast of a dark and cold sky and fierce burning balls of gas light years away. Our driver Marcelo, the owner of the new red jeep, had just a few hours of sleep under his belt as he drove us out of the village. Marcelo was much younger than David at 28, but he had nearly as many years of experience driving in the solares; he also was a bit of an enigma as I never saw his face. Throughout the entire journey he wore a black hoodie with the hood up, dark black sunglasses, and a baseball cap. To add to the aura of mystery he had a cold and talked in a raspy voice. Intrigued by those who do not talk, I made it my mission to understand Marcelo better by the end of the week and my persistence paid off as Marcelo had a lot of valuable knowledge about the area and interesting stories about the perils of jeeps loaded down with tourists and tricky weather conditions. We visited Incan ruins that day and saw blue, green and a red lagoon and many flamingos. We had no trouble reaching our destination that night and the next day we were gifted another beautiful day of driving through the altiplano gazing at volcanoes, geysers, layers of ice that crunched under the jeep's tires as we woke up sleeping streams, and more lagoons. We stopped for lunch at a hot spring and took a dip. The scenery was gorgeous and it was really cold out so I stripped off my seven layers as quick as I could and entered into the warm waters. There were no changing rooms and I wondered how I was going to exit the pool in the cold and towel off with my tiny shammy towel (thanks Beth for letting me borrow it!) and put on clothes while retaining an appropriate level of modesty. Luckily the whipping desert winds and dry air proved to be more effective than a life sized blow dryer and I was completely dry within 90 seconds of exiting the hot springs.
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| Dali Desert |
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| Incan Ruins |
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| Hot Springs |
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Lagoon in front of hot springs    a 
Our last night of the tour we stayed at the salt hotel outside of the solar and we had a shower for the first time (which called for both celebration and a long queue). The salt flats were beautiful at sunrise and we enjoyed taking the cheesy tourist pictures and visiting the cactus island.
          
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