Salar De Uyuni - La Sede No Se Mueve - Thoughts on Travel

So the salt flats were pretty incredible. The Salar de Uyuni is the worlds largest salt flat, stretching 12,000 square kilometers and 500 meters deep of pure salt. (yeah, you do the math on your time). Its a desert of salt at about 11,000 ft, and just pure blinding white that almost looks like snow. Its pretty much unbroken, except for mountains in the far distance and the occasional -island-.

Basically, the whole area used to be a lake that collected rain from the andes, which are extremely rich in minerals. Eventually the Andes grew, the lake dried up and the salt was left. (Although our guide explained the incan legend in spanish which I think I mostly understood- the mountain huayna potosi in La Paz is a very sacred mountain or apus, the Incans believed the mountains were gods. (easy to understand when you see them) Anyway, Huayna Potosi was married to the mountain seen in the pictures and they had a baby, in spite of the long distance relationship, the baby was the isla pescado (also pictured). But the baby was far away from the mother, so she flooded the plain with her milk, hence the white salt.

When you approach the Salar, it looks like a distant white ocean, as you get closer there is practically a line where the salt starts and the earth ends. We splurged to stay at a salt hotel, made completely out of blocks of salt, for the last night since it was alleged to be warm and have hot showers which it did. It was the most expensive place we stayed (10$), but definitely worth it AND passed the taste test for legitimacy. The sunset over the pure white was incredible, as was the sunset as we headed out into the whiteness the next morning. Watched the sunrise, pastel colors washing over the white salt and then drove across the plain to the Isla Pescado, what used to be a coral island in the ancient lake that no longer exists. You can still see the coral in the rock, which is now growing with cactuses. It was a great place to stop for breakfast and try to warm up, as well as taking some ridiculous pictures with the white background. (forthcoming).

Stopped at a salt mining factory, not a surprising destination in this location, and browsed all sorts of random trinkets carved from salt- llamas, dice, ashtrays, etc before heading into the town of Uyuni to await our night bus. Bus ride seemed interminable again, 12 hr nightbus over dusty dirt roads, and though they promised us heat I watcdhed the condensation on the window next to me slowly turn to ice between spells of fitful sleep. Arrived in La Paz this morning to find the city entirely on strike to protest the congress{s plan to move the capital from La Paz to Sucre, a wealthier, more spanish city in the center of the country. Well, the people arent having it and NOTHING was open all morning so that everyone (2 million according to the paper) could march and chant Vive Bolivia, Vive La Paz, La Sede No Se Mueve!!! and march up to El Alto. They also blockaded all roads in and out of sucre with boulders, the train too and apparently La Paz may be next. We ll be trekking for the next three days down an ancient incan road from the mountains into the Yungas jungle area, so hopefully no one will be stopping us.

I spent a bunch of time on the trip thinking about what it means to travel. I sat and watched this one volcano in Chile, Ollague smoking across another national border, and started getting philosophical. What is this travel thing, my interest in it and all of our interests in it. Am I just a voyeur at best, or at worst a colonialist with a backpack on? Instead of stripmining the country for silver as the spanish did, or oil as my countrymen have, (or cheap factory labor now) am I just searching for some sort of cultural authenticity and experience to walk away with? Well, yes, I concluded, but is that necessarily a bad thing?

I suppose its also the constant paradox of travel, searching for authenticity and experience, and then ending up so often just bumping into other travellers, even in places like Bolivia, El Salvador and Laos or wherever else I think will be off the beaten track. (lesson- if lonely planet writes the guidebook- the gringos and banana pancakes will come) Still, I do feel like the backpacking gringo trail thing, (which now exists everywhere!) is probably better than well established tourist packages and corporate travel companies in Europe and the US. For one thing, I eat at local restaurants and hire local guides when I need to from local companies who presumably keep the money in country. Its hardly like an international hotel chain in cancun is taking 95% of the money back to wall street and paying the locals pennies. Still, I am paying the locals very little in a sense, taking advantage of how inexpensive travelling here and other such places is. But I{m also helping people make some money, I try to support businesses run by enterprising women and minority groups within the countries who might otherwise have few options, though in truth I often will go for whoever seems to be both inexpensive and honest. Still, I never treat these countries or the people like they exist for my benefit as a neocolonial corporate travel business would. Nor am I arrogant enough to assume that I am always of a benefit to them, I attempt treat the people and cultures I encounter as if they exist for themselves, in spite of the fact that my interactions with people will never be objective. I also make an effort to learn about the local culture, learn some language and talk to the locals about their countries and cultures.

And still I get sick of the backpacker reverse snobbery, everyone trying to prove their cred by talking about how little they paid for this or that, when all of the euros, aussies and canadians (met no americans yet) could easily afford way more. And everyone is searching for adventure and experience, while we claim to love the freedom and antimaterialism of backpacker travel, we have become materialists for experience. Sure, I like to think how much I buy most of my clothes and things secondhand to opt out of the market somehow, and that I maybe dont want that much stuff, but Ive become a materialist for experiences- adventures travelling, spiritual experiences with meditating or whatever. And isnt desire just that- doesnt it lead to suffering the same way? Sitting in the absolutely beautiful salt flats and thinking about sitting in the absolutely beautiful sacred valley and machu picchu next week. Is that really much different than some broker type sitting in a new car or house and thinking about getting a fancier car or house next? Well, I might like to think so, but doubts are creeping in...

Enough of my philosophizing for now. In the end though, travel has opened my eyes enormously to other cultures, (both of the countries I visit and the Euros I meet) my own culture, and myself, even if it is never as pure an experience as we might wish it to be.