Land of Salt

October 27, 2011

We weren’t sure the plane we had chartered was going to make it. The air vents had turned off, the cabin was shaking, and we were way too close to the runway to come in for a landing. The 20 passenger Cessna then pulled up and circled around the town of Uyuni before making a second attempt. All’s well that ends well, but I’m glad I heard about this airline’s safety record after my feet were on the ground. (Eight people died when one of their planes crashed in September.)

Group photo getting on the plane

Are we really flying on this?

Off we go!

View from the plane

That's not snow! TheUyuni Salt Flats from the plane

But why were we flying on this plane in the first place? The short answer is Bolivians like to protest.

Originally, we were to leave Sucre after three nights and take a three-hour bus ride to the mining town of Petosí. (We watched the movie The Devil’s Miner in preparation, which I recommend. It’s a documentary about a 14-year-old boy who works in the mines to support his family.) However, the day before we were to leave, President Evo Marales signed a new law taxing the miners, a law the miners weren’t happy about. So, they decided to block the roads to Petosí in protest. And as they have been known to use dynamite to prevent cars from getting through in the past, our tour guide decided it was best to wait to see what happened with the protests instead of trying to go to Petosí as originally planned. (According to our guide, a few days before another group had protested a different law recently signed by the president, and they day after they began protesting, the president rescinded the law. Now, I believe in listening to the will of the people, but no wonder there are so many protests in this country!)

Well, no progress had been made with the protests by the following morning, and the length of the protest was deemed indefinite. And, at this point, even if we could have gotten to Petosí there would be little point as the mines we were going to see would be closed because the workers were protesting. So we began thinking about going directly to our next destination, the salt flats of Uyuni. Unfortunately, it turns out that the route to Uyuni is through Petosí. This meant our options for getting to Uyuni were either taking a $57 22-hour bus ride or a $158 hour flight to Sucre. (The flying option involved chartering a flight and assumed that we could sell the four extra seats on the plane.  At this point no mention of the quality of the airline we were using was made.) I am on a budget tour and the decision to take the flight wasn’t unanimous, but after putting the travel time in perspective and being reminded that we would have three days of travel in 4x4s and soon there after a 16 hour bus ride, the group opted for the flight.

And we made it. So that’s the important thing. But it did feel a little sketchy at times.

We made it!
Just moving to the back of the plane to get our luggage.

Uyuni looks like a town you’d find in an old western film: dusty roads, unfinished cement buildings, everything a shade of brownish gray. There are 5000 residents (and a Mormon, a Seventh-Day Adventist, and a Jehovah’s Witness church to meet all of their religious needs) and a whole lot of tourists passing through. The town is nice, but our time there was mostly just a stop on the way to the salt flats. After a night in the hotel, our group divided up into three Land Cruisers to explore the flats.

Town of Uyuni

Our first stop on the first day was a train graveyard where trains have been put to rest since the 1860s. Bolivia has a colorful history with trains. Evidently Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were the first Americans to arrive in this place. They were trying to rob a train but got a little confused by the South American use of the word “plata.” The word is used to mean money, but it also refers to silver. They tried robbing the train thinking it was full of money… only to be disappointed by its mineral content…or so sayeth our guide at any rate.

Some of these trains have been here since the 1860s!

Anyway, nowadays, the yard is full of rusty train engines and cars. Bolivia is a complicated country. Thirty-six languages are spoken here and each region has its own history and traditions and goals for Bolivia. This results in difficulty getting things done. Case in point is the train yard. While the metal of these trains should be melted down and reused, the country is unable to organize to get the equipment for doing so to Uyuni. So, now there are rusted trains in the desert that have been there for over 120 years that people from town come to take parts from.

All aboard!

From the train graveyard, we headed to the salt flats. The Uyuni Salt Flats are the largest salt flats in the world with an area of 12,000 square kilometers. At their longest point they are 180 km, and they are 120 km at their widest. There are 11 different layers of various minerals each between 2 and 10 meters deep, and the maximum depth of the flats is 120 meters. (Don’t try to do the math on that one—I’m just passing on what the guides say.) During the rainy season, after there has been 30 cm of rain, these flats are the flattest surface on earth, and they are used to measure how precise GPS systems are. The Uyuni Salt Flats produce 25,000 tons of salt per year. Fifty kilos (110 pounds) of salt sells for about $2.

Salt piles being prepared for collection

When you see the flats, it’s like seeing a snowfield. It’s a plane of white in all directions. Depth perception is thrown off a bit, and the flats provide fun picture taking opportunities.

 

We also visited an “island” in the middle of the flats which had cacti over 900 years old.  Indigenous people sacrifice two llamas there each August for the pachamama (mother earth) in hopes of having a good harvest. I didn’t realize that animal sacrifices were commonplace.

An oasis in the salt flats

Lunch settings--a lace tablecloth and all!

Llama steak

Being silly

Floating hat

The dots on the flats are Land Cruisers taking tourists along the flats

This cactus is about 900 years old.
(They grow about a centimeter a year.)

 Our first day ended in a salt hotel. Yes, the hotel was made of salt. It wasn't the sparkling white palace I had imagined when I had pictured a hotel made of salt, but it was pretty neat. The walls and beds were built using blocks of salt (the beds had mattresses on top and the salt blocks in the walls were joined by mortar). Rock salt covered the floors. There was electricity from 7:00-10:00, and you could pay 10 bolivianos to charge a camera or iPod and/or pay another 10 bolivianos to use the one shower in the place. (Fortunately, the shower walls were not made of salt.) There were probably 25 people in the hotel, and we slept in dorm-style rooms of two to seven people. Each group staying at the hotel traveled with their own cook, and we ate on tables made of salt while sitting on salt chairs. How do you top that? J

Raking the floor

Another beautiful sunset

Salt walls

The dining room

The dining room. Not sure why Lucille is frowning. :)

Sucre

October 26, 2011

It was a somewhat uncomfortable 13 hour night bus ride from La Paz to Sucre. We paid an extra 20 bolivianos ($3) to upgrade to a bus where the seats would recline to almost 180 degrees, which was great, but there were vendors and beggars coming aboard at the different stops and we were told to be very vigilant because it’s not uncommon for people to steal things when they get on the bus. Then, once the foot traffic stopped and the lights were out and we were on our way for the night, I needed to use the restroom. But, I was sitting in the window seat and I didn’t know how I could get out without waking up the person next to me, and I felt bad about waking someone up in the middle of the night. After a couple of hours when I finally decided I couldn’t wait any longer, however, I woke him up and made my way to the restroom only to discover it was locked. Dismayed and a little annoyed (The bathroom didn’t have a light, but still, isn’t it kind of silly to lock it?), I went back to my seat and continued trying to distract myself. After a couple more hours, to my great relief, I heard someone leaving the bathroom. It was unlocked! When I got there though, I still couldn’t open the door. Until I pushed instead of pulled on it. Wow. Did I feel a little silly! As could be imagined though, the final couple hours of the ride were much more comfortable than the first eight. Anyway…

Although the national government functions out of La Paz, Sucre is the capital of Bolivia. It’s a beautiful hilly city with a much more European feel to it than La Paz. It reminds me a little of Buenos Aires. At 2200 meters above sea level, it’s also significantly lower in altitude than La Paz. (I went for a run the first day we arrived and I felt like I could run forever—amazing what your body adjusts to!)

View from the top of our hotel in Sucre.
Amazing sunsets in this region!

Me at sunset

 After being on the go all the time in Peru, Bolivia has felt much slower. Part of it may be our new guide who is very nice but is a little more relaxed about his job than our last one was. We arrived in Sucre on Friday and had four days and three nights scheduled there. There are some tours and things to do around the city, but a lot of the tourist attractions are more active activities like biking or horseback riding or hiking.

The group decided to go on a mountain biking, hiking, and then paddling excursion. Despite my experience on the Death Road, I decided to give the mountain biking another try. (My opinion on it remains.) This excursion added a new element to the experience though: faulty bikes. We had two bikes with no hydraulics, three bikes with flat tires at some point, and countless lost chains during the course of the day. Even with the biking, the tour actually was quite nice. The scenery was beautiful, the hike lovely, and the water relaxing.

More mountain biking, less gear

Starting off on the ride.

Andy with the first flat

Dylan with another

Fixing the chain

Hike along the creek

I actually did a lot of relaxing and wandering in Sucre. Caroline, the roommate from the first part of this trip, was passing through the city with her current tour and it was a lot of fun to catch up with her. One afternoon the two of us took a tour of the Sucre cemetery. The only tour guide we could find didn’t speak English, however (“I don’t speak English, but I’ll speak Spanish slowly and clearly so you’ll understand it” he said (in Spanish) when offering his services), so I translated his Spanish into English for Caroline. I have to admit I was quite proud of myself. There definitely were some moments when I was making some things up for her, which I freely admitted, but I largely understood what he was saying! If I could just find people to speak slowly and clearly for me all the time in Spanish…

The cemetery was quite interesting. There is only the one cemetery in all of Sucre, so poor and rich alike are buried there. Instead of having family plots, there is a section for children and a section for the elderly, and then adults are primarily buried with other people in their profession—teachers are buried in one mausoleum, engineers in another, dentists in a third. And as the cemetery has limited space, people are also only buried for seven years, at which point they are dug up, cremated, and kept in an urn in their family’s house. Children of poorer families aren’t exhumed, however; they just have another body buried on top of them after one to three years, which is sad. Sucre does have more support for poor children than the rest of Bolivia, however, on account of one of the first Spanish ruling couples in colonial times. They couldn’t have children of their own, so they ended up adopting over 70 children throughout the city and made sure the poor children were cared for.

Another evening in Sucre some of us from the group visited an orphanage. Despite a little apprehension about what to expect, it was actually a lovely experience. As far as orphanages go, it was well-run and the children appeared well taken care of and happy. We played with kids between the ages of two and five. Each of us ended up playing with a few kids, and for whatever reason, the ones I was playing with were fascinated by the things in my purse. Juan became my little buddy and he regulated who got to play with what. He asked me to take out the papers I had in there (old city maps and hotel brochures), and he distributed them to a few other children. They looked at them and folded and unfolded them and then traded with another child. Juan then wanted to know what was in the other compartment of my purse and he carefully inspected my sunscreen stick, my chapstick, my wet wipes, my tissue package, and my camera. He was very careful with everything and did a remarkably nice job sharing. We then played in the playhouse drawing and pretending it was bedtime and school time. All the kids call the visitors “Mami” which endears you to them that much more. It was hard to say goodbye.

We bought a cake in the market to take to the orphanage.
They don't give you boxes for the cake,
so Dylan was entrusted with carrying it.
My new roommate, Lucille, wasn't too sure this was a good idea.

Jared, our tour guide, at the orphanage. The kids love him!

Zoe playing with her amiga.

My buddy Juan.

Wannabe Death Road Biker Chick

October 21. 2011

I've come to the conclusion that I don’t like mountain biking. Give me a paved road and I’m happy going up or down. But please don’t put me on top of a gravel path. I don’t like trying to dodge rocks or the feel of the ground shifting under my tires or the way my whole body vibrates and my brain bounces in my skull when I’m going downhill. I think it would be great if I did like these things, and lately I’ve given them several chances, but the truth is I don’t.

This is a somewhat recent realization, and had I only come to it a week earlier, I could have avoided my day on the Death Road. Named “The World’s Most Dangerous Road” by the Inter-American Development Bank in 1995 because of the high numbers of casualties that occur there, this road outside of La Paz has turned into a big biking route for thrill-seeking tourists. (I, by the way, am not a thrill seeker, but I do like being active and the biking option in La Paz seemed like a good way to get a little exercise. Also, importantly, there is currently little vehicular traffic on the road as a safer alternative route has been created to connect the jungle and La Paz, so at least the cyclists aren’t dealing with traffic on their ride.)

Packed and ready to go!

The protesters getting ready for the day.
Good thing we got the start we did.

We were picked up for our ride at 6:00am instead of the originally planned 7:30 to avoid protestors that would be out later that morning. After an hour drive we arrived at the top of the 4600 meter pass, had a quick breakfast in the cold, and then got our gear. I was initially somewhat amused by all the equipment we received: knee and elbow guards, heavy jackets and pants, a full-face helmet and gloves, as it all seemed a little extreme, but I must admit, I did feel a little safer once I put everything on. And, it was COLD, the extra layers were a good thing.

  

Getting geared up!

Nothing's going to harm me in this garb!

Nice helmet!

The next four hours were less enjoyable for me. The first section of the death road is the most technically difficult and dangerous and it’s almost always rainy at this point of the ride. I hugged the mountain on this first section steering as far clear as I could of the 1800 foot drop-off on the other. (Technically, downhill traffic is supposed to ride on the left-hand (cliff) side and yield to uphill traffic, but our guides told us to ignore that rule and stay as far away from the cliff as we could—not a problem for me.)

No railing!

The high tech gear turns out to not be waterproof.

The rain continued for the next two sections of the ride and while we stopped for lunch, and I kept thinking to myself Why am I doing this?  I was so cold and wet by lunch that I was very close to getting back in the van and riding the rest of the way down. (At this point of the ride, it’s usually warm and people are shedding layers, but no such luck for us.) My friend Dylan talked me out of it, though, and I hopped back on the bike. 

Lunchtime. Dylan let me wear his wet jacket to try to warm up.

The rain has lifted

Views from the road

That's quite the drop-off

This next section was a flatter, wider section, which was fortunate because part way through the ride I found myself somersaulting over my handlebars. I don’t really know what happened. I was by myself and riding along, and the next thing I knew I was in the air trying to figure out how best to land to prevent injury from the fall or the bike crashing on top of me. Luckily, I was able to clear the space before the bike landed. I felt a little bruised up and very grateful for the gear I had mocked at the beginning of the ride. I was also a little shaken up and had a quiet sob to myself as I hopped back on to the bike and caught up to some others in the group. (I have to admit I was a bit disappointed no one was around to witness my fall because I think it was probably pretty impressive. I’ve tried to replay what happened based on my memory and the placement of my bruises, but I’m not quite sure…)

About this point the rain stopped and the road conditions got a little easier. I finished the ride thinking I was glad I had done it (I would have wondered otherwise), but confident I wouldn’t ever need to do it again.

Death Road Survivors

The next day and I half I enjoyed La Paz by foot. La Paz is a city full of colors and pride. You walk down the street and see woman in traditional dress selling all sorts of goods from fruit to skirts to shovels to shampoo. They are all large, wearing similar traditional clothes and two long French braids. I spent hours walking through the central market just soaking up the vibe. I also witnessed some sort of parade of women and men in all sorts of costumes and with all types of instruments dancing through the streets. 

Sampling of parade costumes

Dancing woman

View from our hotel