Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay

Salt Flats and the Bolivian Desert

I hopped on to a three-day tour of the "Salar de Uyuni" salt flats and
other sights in the deserts of southwestern Bolivia.

The entire first day of the tour was spent driving on the salt flats.
Cutting across, first this way and then that, in an old Toyota Land
Cruiser. There seems to be some effort to have "roads," with most
vehicles following the same paths. This helps with navigation, on a
landscape with little or no way markers, and with preserving the look
of the place so you can continue to draw tourists. There seems to be
little else in this entire corner of Bolivia, save these bits of
natural beauty.

The salt flats themselves are stunning and absolutely worth the money
and effort. They're the largest salt flats in the world, the result of
a gigantic lake draining some 40,000 years ago. There's hardly
anything to take photos of, as every direction is a burning expanse of
white leading to a fuzzy horizon. Of course, the lack of depth cues in
the landscape and an indistinct horizon line lend themselves nicely to
photos that taunt our depth perception. I tossed a few in the gallery.

In one spot, there's a hotel and restaurant where everything, from the
walls to the furniture, is made of blocks of salt cut out of the
earth. The result looks like adobe, only whiter. It's not, though,
anything like a "crystal palace." The architecture is still just a
series of shabby rectangles, slapped together, and the bricks, while
whiter than adobe, have a sort of dirty grayish tone.

There's also an island, ostensibly shaped like a fish to give it the
name "Isla del Pescado," which is covered in cactus from edge to edge.
From a distance, the salt formations at the edge of the "island" give
the effect of water lapping against its shores.

The second and third days were spent off the salt flats, further
south. Lagoons of different colors, some volcanoes, mountains colored
by mineral deposits, geysers of gurgling mud spewing their sulfuric
stench into the air, a few species of flamingos. Some of the other
tourists in my group were quite taken by these things, but I felt
somewhat underwhelmed. Of the twenty or so geyser pits, only one
releases steam in a concentrated jet -- and it's fake, created
artificially for photo ops. Further, the vividness of the colors of
the lakes changes by season, maybe by week or by day. If there's no
wind, the water is placid and its glassy surface reflects nearby
mountains beautifully (I'm told). If it's windy, as it was for us,
this effect is lost and you're left with a lagoon, surrounded by a
white shore of borax deposits, that just has a bit of a tint to it.
Pretty, but not stunning. The waters of Band-e-Amir, in the Hindu
Kush, are tenfold more visually striking.

A note on temperature: The Bolivian altiplano is cold. Every Bolivian
I talked to mentioned how cold it was, as did all the other tourists,
the guide books, the tour agencies, etc. I'd heard rumors that it
often dropped below zero, centigrade. One guy reported that he woke at
3am a few weeks earlier to find the thermometer was pegged in its
lowest position: -25 C. During the day, I wore a normal pair of socks,
a knee-high pair of knit socks over them, long thermal underwear under
my pants, a skin-tight long-sleeve base layer on top, two t-shirts, a
loose air-trapping long-sleeve layer, a third long-sleeve layer with a
faux turtle neck, my TNF waterproof shell, Marmot gloves, and a knit
hat with a polar fleece liner. At night, I went to sleep wearing all
of that, plus a fleece neck warmer, in a sleeping bag that I rented,
which was itself underneath the three or more heavy blankets provided
by the hostals we stayed in. I was warm enough, but only by a small
margin.

On the last day, we ended up at a small hot springs just below 5000m
elevation. It was intensely cold, of course, but the promise of the
steam rising off the water was too much. Smarter people had changed
into their swimsuits the night before; I stripped naked in the dirt,
put on the pair of underwear that most resembled shorts, and hopped
in. The feeling was glorious. I probably spent half an hour in there,
soaking, alternating between enjoying the heat and loathing what it'd
feel like to eventually get out.

When I finally did, I was pleasantly surprised. My body temperature
had increased enough while in the water that I felt like I had some
reserve heat. I took my time drying off, put my clothes back on layer
by layer, and found I was, in the end, far warmer than before I got in
the water. I was reminded, then, of being at a family reunion in
British Columbia, in a back yard hot tub, and jumping out of the tub,
racing up the snowy hill barefoot, rolling down it, and then jumping
back in the tub. If you're quick, you hardly feel it.

On whole, the area is awfully pretty and was a welcome respite after
spending a few days in La Paz, choking on exhaust fumes. If I had it
to do over again, I think I'd have done a one-day tour of the salt
flats alone, preferably on a cloudy day with a stunning sunrise and
sunset. There're hot air balloon "tours," or ascensions, available on
windless days, though I didn't realize this until later. That would be
a pretty stunning way to view the scenery there.

Since I was already within a few kilometers of the Chilean border, at
that point, I crossed over into Chile. This was supposed to be a
shortcut, avoiding a nine hour drive back north to Uyuni, where I'd
catch a bus south to Salta, Argentina. This almost ended up being a
disaster as the town in Chile, San Pedro de Atacama, was ridiculously
expensive and only had bus service out three times a week. Luckily, I
managed one of the last seats on a bus leaving a day later for Salta.

posted by daviduri @ 10:31 AM