May 17 – 20 – The magical land of make believe

Today started our three day tour of southwest Bolivia. This is a very remote region in Bolivia that holds most of the natural beauty of Bolivia. As there aren’t many people in the region, the roads are either very basic or non-existent, thus 4WD vehicles are required to navigate the region. Three 4WD vehicles arrived at the hotel around 10:00 and Chris, Dee, Martin, Emil and I crawled into a vehicle with our driver Juan (who turned out to be a mad man behind the wheel) to head out on our four day journey into the unknown, unpopulated land ahead.

The first stop on our tour was just outside Uyuni in an area known as the train graveyard. When the salt mining was at it’s peak, and before the roads were built, trains moved frequently between Uyuni and other points in Bolivia to move goods about the high country. Now, with the number of roads built in the area, the trains are no longer needed, and as such have been left to rust away in the train graveyard. The intention in the beginning was to build a museum to show off the vast collection of different trains, but due to lack of funding (and South America’s approach to getting things done whenever they get around to it) this museum was never built. So about 20 trains sit in the dirt rusting away, and as they are next to the world’s largest salt flats, they are rusting at a phenomenal rate as some look like they have been there for 50 years, but have only been there about 10. And the haphazard way they have been thrown about and the various stages of decay give it the look of an apocalyptic wasteland.

Since we were on a tight schedule, our stops along the way were very short and felt almost like we were a group of Japanize tourists who stop for two minutes, take all their pictures of the site, get back on the bus and head off. So, after about 10 minutes exploring the train graveyard (where some people only had enough time to climb on a train to have their picture taken) we climbed back into the 4WD vehicle to head off to Colchani.

Colchani is a town on the edge of the salt flats, about a 20 minute drive away from Uyuni. To call it a town would do Colchani too much justice, but instead it was a collection of a few buildings where salt mining continues in it’s traditional ways…all by hand. Part of the stop included a visit to a small salt museum (more like an old abandoned factory…and calling it a factory is a stretch) where they have a couple of pictures of what happened in the factory, and a pile of salt in the corner (see what I mean….calling it a museum is a long stretch). The interesting thing about this place is they still had the salt drying facilities in place, which, though basic, were very effective. It consisted of a table which was heated by a fire burning underneath, but instead of having the access to the fire inside (thus filling the building with smoke) the fire place was outside the building where a separate person would take care to tending to the fire.

Probably the most impressive thing about this town was that the main material used for building was salt. The locals would go out to the slat flats to cut bricks of salt to form the walls of their houses. They also used this salt to create various gifts to sell to tourists as souvenirs. The only problem with these beautiful salt crafts (pots for plants, dice, statues) was that the salt would not stay white for very long and most of these crafts would have to be thrown out within 6 months, something that you could only find out from talking to the locals for a while.

Shortly after we left Colchani, we reached the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flats in the world. These salt flats are up to 20m deep in some places and cover an area of over 12,000 square kilometers at an altitude of 3,653m. This extensive salt flat (and the other smaller ones around it) were formed thousands of years ago when the Andes started to rise out of the ocean. At that time, the eastern part of Bolivia was underwater in a shallow basin that covered most of Argentina. When the mountains started their rise, the waters around this part of Bolivia were traped in a valley without any escape. Over the years when the rains came, they would erode the salt out of the mountains and collect in the lake that only lost water through evaporation. Since that time the lake had evaporated and formed again about three times and the last evaporation created the salt flats as they are seen today. As this part of Bolivia is technically a desert (without the extreme heat, but instead extreme cold…..well, cold for that latitude, not Canadian cold) the salt flats have remained and has not been flooded for a couple thousand years.

Our first stop on the salt flats was at Bloques de Sol, one of the main sites where the local people mine the salt. The mining process is all done by hand as the locals are unable to afford any more advanced technology to help with the mining process. Now, the salt is quite wet so the miners don’t want to take it to be dried while it is so wet, as such they have to do some drying of the salt before they move it into town. As such, they select a small area of the salt and scrape the surface into a pile and leave it for a while so that all the salt can drain out before loading it on the truck (when you touch the salt flat, it feels very much like wet, icy slush). All of these white mounds of “snow” are then shoveled by hand into various trucks and taken to the town where it will be dried and bagged.

Close by to the Bloques de Sol is the Salt Hotel. This “luxury” hotel is more of a novelty eco-hotel that is entirely built out of salt. One of many salt hotels around the area, they have been built by the surrounding communities as a source of income to help keep some of the tourist money within the area. Though not much to look at, it is located in the middle of the salt flats and created the perfect location to take some fun pictures. Because the salt is so flat and large, it creates a smooth background for which to take pictures without any perspective. This means you are able to take pictures of people standing in a bottle, picking someone out of their ear, or (my favorite) three guys sailing away in a boot. We must have stayed there for an hour taking pictures with all sorts of different scenarios. I spent a lot of time lying on the wet salt taking all the pictures.

As we are driving off road we can’t be outside after dark, and as such have to keep moving, so we didn’t get as much time as we wanted at the salt hotel, but our next stop was probably more impressive than the expansive amount of salt. A half hour away from the hotel is the Isla Incahausi (Inca for “house of the king”…..but it is more commonly known as Fish Island, even though it is 20km to the north). This island (they call everything that isn’t covered in salt an island on the slat flats) is quite the anomaly. Most people come here for the cactuses, but what most people don’t realize is that it is actually a coral island. At over 3,600m above sea level, you can walk around a coral island, it is completely unbelievable to think that at one time, the land where you are standing was at one time underwater.

While we were there we took a hike around the island looking at the main point of interest, the cactuses. The island is literally covered with them. They even use dried cactuses as wood to make signs. Now the interesting thing about the cactuses on this island is that they grow 1cm a year and appear to live for ever. One of these cactuses was over 12m high which means it’s over 1,200 years old (it looked really old and was rotting away).

We had another stop on the salt flats before leaving them behind. This stop was in the middle of nowhere, which is quite an easy place to stop. The nice thing about the salt flats is that you can drive in any direction and it will be completely smooth. The only way you know where to go is that you follow the tire tracks of the hundreds of 4WD vehicles that have gone by over the years. This stop was to serve two purposes: take some more pictures and to observe the geometric shapes formed when the salt dries out completely. For as far as the eye could see, the salt flats had broken up into hexagonal shapes, they might not have been perfectly shaped, but everyone had six sides.

As the sun was getting low, we had to rush to Bellavista where we were spending the night. Bellavista is located on the western side of the salt flats in a very small community nestled in the side of a hill where it is protected from the wind. This meant the night would be a little warmer than the rest of our nights, but that didn’t mean it was warm by any stretch of the imagination. Since this part of Bolivia is quite remote, there isn’t any electricity available in most of the towns in the southwest corner. Instead, these communities have their own source of power, and in this town is a community generator. When we arrived, the owners of the lodge (a large building with beds for about 30 people) went over and turned on the generators for us, but as it would only run for a few hours, we would have to turn the lights out at 10:00, not that we had much of a choice as the power would be shut off. It was an interesting experience to live for a few days with electricity available for only a few hours a night….but there would be no running water, or hot water for that matter.

The next morning we had to make a very important stop in San Juan. As this was the only town we would visit during our entire trip through the southwest corner, we had to make this stop in order to get some supplies and provisions to last us the rest of the trip (mainly wine and chips). This was also our first bathroom stop of the day and while waiting for my turn, I spoke with the girl who ran the washroom. She told me that the town consisted of about 90 families, which is quite the substantial sized town for this part of Bolivia.

Today’s plan was to drive around looking at various geological formations and hopefully find some flamingos in the various lakes we would visit. Unfortunately, because it was so cold, the driver felt the flamingos would have migrated north to warmer weather and it would be unlikely if we would see any. To me, as a Canadian, this idea of heading north for warmer weather is an interesting prospect, but I’m not going to argue with the birds.

The first geological formation we visited was called the Valley of the Rocks. This formation of rocks was formed by a volcanic eruption that had lava spread over the region, which consists of very loose and soft ground. Since then, erosion has removed much of the soil beneath the lava leaving large overhangs of lava crust balanced precariously on the soil. Some of these formations look like waves cresting before they crash on the shore. We spent a fair amount of time climbing over these rocks looking at all the different formations before climbing back into the cars.

As we drove around the region we had a fair number of stops at various lakes surrounded by volcanoes and mountains. These lakes were in various states of evaporation and contained various minerals which were valuable to mine by the local people. It was in these lakes that we were looking for the flamingos, with no success. But the view these lakes provided made up for any flamingos that were missing.

The volcanoes also added a lot to the scenery, especially with the rock formations they created in the valley below. As you were driving around, you would notice, on flat plains, large boulders, many larger than cars, were thrown from the volcano during eruptions. As you looked at these large rocks you could not imagine how they got there, even by an erupting volcano. But I can assure you, I don’t want to be around when the next one erupts.

One such rock formation was our next stop of the day. This was at the rock tree. Formed in much the same way as the Valley of the Rocks, this rock actually looks like a tree. Sadly, it’s the only rock like this in the area as the rest of the rocks surrounding it look like everything else with no special characteristics. One thing you do notice around here is that it is an important pit stop for all the groups and everyone has to use the washroom (when you drive on the bumpy roads, five minutes after you get in the car you have to go pee, and you’ve still got another 2 hours until the next stop….very painful). I made the mistake here of going for a walk around the other rock formations, and everywhere you turned someone was using the bathroom behind another rock…at one point I had to stand still and wait because every where I turned had another person using the washroom. Even with all the peeing going on, the rock tree was a very unique thing to see.

Our final stop for the night was the Laguna Colorada. This particular lake is clear on a windy day, but when it is a calm day, the algae and minerals make the lake look red. Unlucky for us, today was a very windy day so only one part of the lake was actually red, while the rest of it looked like a normal lake. The wind also had anther negative effect, the standing around waiting for the sunset was incredibly cold. We were told that the sunset was remarkable from the lake and that we probably should head up there to watch the sunset. We waited in the cold wind for at least an hour before the sunset, which turned out to be very unimpressive and was, after all the waiting, quite a let down. On a brighter note, our night at the lodge was a lot of fun, filled with tons of bonding with the other travelers.

The next morning we had our early departure in extreme cold (about 10 or 20 below zero) and truly understood what cold was shortly after we left. As we were driving behind one of the other vehicles, we noticed it started to smoke quite a bit and had to stop. After looking at the car, we found out that one of the water pipes had burst. As Juan headed back to town to find a replacement part (it turns out they took the replacement part off another vehicle in town) we hung around the lake taking the pipe out of the engine. When Juan returned, it took us only a few minutes to replace the part and we were back on the road.

10 minutes later, when the lead car finally decided to turn around to come and find us, we the car started to smoke again. When we pulled over again we found that the water was overheating and forcing steam out the release valve. This was because the radiator had frozen, so only a little bit of water was actually circulating the engine to keep it cool. Now, if you are in the middle of nowhere and you have to melt a radiator, what can you do but set a fire underneath the car to melt the ice, and that’s exactly what they did. Juan went back to soak a rag in oil and then lit it on fire and used it as a torch to melt the water. Once it was melted we headed off only to stop yet again with steam pouring out of the car because we forgot to put the radiator cap back on. But once we sorted that out we had no more problems with our vehicles.

Now back on the road, we made our way to the first stop, Sol de Mañana Geyser, an active geothermal geyser. The first place we visited in this area was a man made vent out of the ground to help release some of the pressure from below. After that we moved over to the mud baths that were bubbling away and the air was filled with sulfur fumes and steam coming off the mud baths. Unfortunately for us, Emil slid in the mud and his shoe was covered in the foul smelling mud for the rest of our ride today. Not only is the site an interesting place for tourists to visit, the Bolivian government is also looking at developing electricity plants that will harness the geothermal energy which they can then sell to Chile to help the local communities.

Then came the best part of Southwestern Bolivia, the Thermas de Polques, hot springs located on the shores of a lake. The water was incredibly warm and made for a great way to spend a bit of time on a cold day. Unlike most hot springs , this one was in the middle of nowhere, just on the side of the road, but the view was probably the best you can have…even if you had to change behind the car because there was no other place to change.

From the hot springs we made our way down to Laguna Verde. As we drove down we went through the Rocas de Dalí, a surreal grouping of rocks and mountains that look like they came out of a Salvador Dalí painting. The mountains all contained different shades of red and green that were created by various different mineral compositions and all blended together to create a rainbow of colours in the mountains. The rocks, for which the valley is named after, were seen from a great distance and looked like they were the size of small houses, forming different shapes that looked almost impossible to not be man made.

Once through the valley we arrived at the southern most point of my travels, the Laguna Verde….almost 23˚ South of the equator. This lake is situated at the food of Volcán Licancabur and due to the algae and mineral content of the lake, it turns green when the wind is up. Lucky for us, the wind was blowing quite strong while we were three so we were able to see the lake in its emerald green form. Complete with black volcanic rocks, this lake looked, like everything else in this part of Bolivia , like it was out of a surreal painting or magical land.

As this was our last stop in Southwestern Bolivia, when we got back in the car we started our 7 hour drive back to Uyuni before getting on the bus to Potosi . Today we were only able to drive for 4 hours before it got dark and spent the night in Mallcu Villa Mar, a small town just south of the salt flats. This was a very cute town built into the rocks of the canyon it occupied where the rock face formed one of the walls of the house. I guess a few years before we arrived there was a plane crash close by, and one of the people decided that the fuselage would be a very good decoration for their property and decided to drag it back and now, up on the hill behind one of the houses, they put the back end of the fuselage sticking out of the mountain….a very unique decoration for a very unique town.

The next morning we had an extremely early start to the day as we had to catch our bus at 9:00 in the morning, as this was a 4 hour drive away we had to leave before sunrise. The drive there was very uneventful, but when we did finally arrive we found the bus was delayed getting started. This was because one of the towns outside Potosi was protesting poor bus service and as such had blocked the road to all the busses. Apparently our bus was one of the good companies (you would never be able to tell if you looked at the bus we rode….probably the smallest one I have ever been on) and it was allowed through after a bit of negotiation. Our arrival in Potosi (after 8 hours with no bathroom, rest stop or leg room) was well received by all as we were highly anticipating a shower that no one had seen for four days.