Bolivia: Southwest Circuit I

The dirt road busride to Tupiza from Potosi seemed endless, though we did make it through the days dust with a norweigian couple and a whole lot of Bolivians as the land around us grew drier by the mile. Had some tasty food on the way, Api, which is a sweet and cinnamony corn beverage, kind of like a hot liquid corn pudding that really warms you up in the morning. Also some tasty fried thing which I ate while chatting with a local engineer who was asking me how he could get an american work visa. Ate at some street stalls ina little aymara village where the bus stopped, grilled animal parts that were reasonable enough and then in the dusty heat I spotted a man squeezing fresh orange juice. Just the thing to quench my thirst in the dry desert. I watched him pluck a glass from his bucket, and did think twice about the filthy water and drank anyway. It was delicious, though I definitely regretted it come 6am the next morning. But I took my antibiotics and such, and was feeling mostly better by the time we began our southwest circuit tour.

We signed up for a four day tour from Tupiza, apparently less travelled than the tours that go from Uyuni, which are rumored 12 deep convoys of gringo packed land cruisers pulling up at every sight of interest. And thankfully, we were pretty much just alone on our route with the three french canadians in our 4x4. Leaving Tupiza we headed into the dry mountains winding past scenery that looked a lot like the american southwest- Arches, Canyonlands or Monument Valley national parks. Crazy red rock formations, black ridges and golden gray mesas speckled with some scrub brush cactuses. The wildlife were mostly vicuñas galloping past a camelid like llamas or alpacas but more graceful and deerlike, as well as wild. Their wool was allegedly worth more than gold to the ancient incans. We saw ostriches and a condor, even saw it landing and taking off with llama flesh in its beak as it flapped its 9ft wings and soared away.

The southwest like landscape must have felt homey to old Butch and Sundance, as we saked our driver to take us to San Vicente, the mining camp where they died. San Vicente did not appear to have changed much since Butch and Sundance relieved the mine owners of their 90,000$ payroll. A tiny mining encampent in the desert mountains, with just a sign seen below:

Real off-road driving (not to mention on-dirt-road and even piste driving) I would like to point out for the record is extremely different from how things appear in SUV commercials. It is extraordinrily uncomfortable and slow, like 5-10mph, even on -roads-. We were even in a toyota land cruiser, not super new, but the vehicle that 9 out of 10 afghan warlords agree is the most rugged, and I'm not about to argue with them, and STILL were moving extremely slowly. These roads (and mountains, and dry river beds, and frozen rivers, and boulders) really were the proper use of such vehicles, but I'll save the rest of my SUV political comments for another day.

We were really completely off the grid-if you think about 16 hours worth of busses from La Paz, (a city that only one international airline flies into) then three days by jeep. Our driver could neither radio nor cell phone to anywhere, and I felt a pang when I considered the French people I heard about whos jeep broke down and they had to sleep in it overnight, or the woman who fell off a mountain our guide pointed out and died. The villages we saw and stopped in were picture perfect , complete with stone houses, and mud brick churches where we'd practice our spanish and game playing with local children. Most dont have electricity, and if they do it is from a few solar panels. In fact, I kept thinking about how the villages and the region could probably benefit enormously from solar or wind power, but still am not sure if benefit is the right word. They would certainly change is undeniable, benefit is questionable, and someone else would certainly get rich off of the wind and sun in the high altiplano.

We stayed in such towns, in such stone houses where the temperatures were astonshingly cold. Colder even than the summit of Misti, and only a few hours of electricity that powered a bare bulb or two. In fact, it was rather like camping inside, huddled under sleeping bags and three wool blankets it was still freezing. We took our breakfast and dinner inside but of course fully bundled, gloves and all.

Next day we drove through more plains and mountains, the red rocks receding into the distance and giving way to bare mountains and some of the most desolate landscape I've ever seen. Almost no signs of life except for wandering llamas, their shepherds miles away. How I'd imagine parts of Afghanistan, or even Antartica, though that could have been the cold also. The altitude was 15000 feet, higher than even the gran teton in wyoming, and we were just driving across deserts. I was actually feeling fairly altitude sick, having never been this high up before except fro climbing a mountain a few weeks back. Stopped in a weird old ghost town as the sun rose, the town having been snowed in years before causing many of the children and animals to die, with the survivors moving to lower elevation and abandoning the town wholesale. Strange to wander through crumbling churches and an old plaza, overgrown with weeds and just a few rabbits and llamas wandering about in the eerie light of dawn. Would have been an amazing place to camp out or spend more time if it werent so damn freezing.

Onward we motored up and down hills, through the desert and past frozen lakes until about noontime when we reached a hot springs in the middle of the desert. The day was warmer, and we decided to give it a show. Oh my GOD were they wonderful and warm and cleansing and refreshing and relaxing and everything hot springs should be. And with a phenomenol view over mountains and another frozen lake to boot! My soroche, (altitude sickness) was mostly cured by the healing waters, with some help from our drivers coca leaves. We somehow dragged ourselves out and onward. We stopped at some strange frozen mineral lakes, one a bright caribbean green with waves seemingly frozen in place and underneath a perfect snow capped cone shaped volcano. Another was bright red, the Laguna Colorado, and even bore the incongruous sight of bright pink flamingos walking around on the ice. Yeah, like John Waters Baltimore pride plastic lawn pink flamingos! More desolate lifeless desert mountains, looking more like nevada than the more dramatic parts of the southwst. We did make a late interesting stop at some geysers, bubbling with mud and steam and hissing like the sound of jet engines.

Stayed in another bunker-like stone building for the night, less cold than the previous, but still watched my breath as I read my book with gloves on. Met some brits who were climbing 6 6000meter peaks in 6 days for charity, a highly admirable feat on multiple levels. They had started a charity called challenge bolivia and raised 10,000 pounds for school supplies for a few villages. I was deeply impressed at their effort, and if anyone is up for such a similar charity task, let me know and lets think about making it happen!

Day three was more desert, the desierto de dali, a supposedly surreal landscape, which was pretty interesting and stopped at some other bizarre rock formations, including the arbol de piedra, or stone tree. Back into more redrock formation and finally to our salt hotel on the very edge of the salt flats. Yes, a hotel made entirely our of salt, (and passed the taste test) save for the showers (hot! and existent! unlike our last few nights!) Dinner by candlelight, save for a brief hour or two of electricity and an amazing sunset over the salt flats. Which will be my next entry and probably mostly a photo essay. That is, if the strikes dont get in the way. Apparently the people of Bolivia are also restless, and roadblocks have now shut down entry and exit from Sucre, the other large city entirely. Negotiations are underway to keep La Paz open. Heres hoping that they are still negotiating when our bus tries to get to La Paz at 7am tomorrow!!!

photos: San Vicente- sign explanatory, arbol de piedra, me at ghost town, flamingos in laguna colorado, laguna verde)

(for the record, let me make clear that many photos are from the internet until I return and upload my own. I am not that good or bad a photographer)