Although it may seem that we’re just traveling northwards arbitrarily until we get back to California, we do have something of a plan/itinerary. For a variety of reasons, we had always planned to be back home by spring 2009. I began searching for airfares back in October, when we were living in Buenos Aires. Seeing the prices for one-way tickets from South America to California and having already spent a small fortune flying from Beijing to San Francisco to Beijing to Seoul and then from Tokyo to Buenos Aires, we decided to try to book a ticket home using miles. We then discovered that miles-wise, it’s cheaper to fly to the US from northern South America, which worked out for us because we were planning on traveling the continent pretty extensively. It was when I was searching for dates that we could get a one-way home with miles from Lima or Quito that Joylani shared one of the greatest ideas she’s ever had (in my opinion, not hers). Since one-way and roundtrip tickets cost the same amount of miles, Hawaii is politically part of North America, and many flights to Honolulu connect through SF or LA, then we could get a roundtrip from Lima or Quito to Honolulu and just stay in California on the return journey. In other words, after finishing up South America, we could go to Hawaii for a few weeks, then fly home…all for 30k miles apiece! Pure genius. So, as it stands, we’ll be traveling northwards until we get to Quito, where we’ll catch a flight to Honolulu (via the US) at the end of January. Then we’ll chill on Oahu for three weeks before ditching our onward flights at LAX. So not only do we do have a rough itinerary we’re trying to follow, but our days in South America, on this trip, and as homeless hapas are numbered.

…And one last minute Immodium before our bus left on a 4-hour drive from Potosi to Sucre held me over just long enough to make it to our next hostel.  I didn’t think I’d be going for days after all those pills, but apparently I was wrong.  I hate being sick.

Bolivia is the first developing (although even that is a euphanism) country we’ve been in in awhile and things definitely run at a different pace. For some reason, every bus ride we’ve taken here has reminded me of Laos. From the border to Tupiza, it was the bumpy road and poor passengers. From Uyuni to Potosi, it was the entire villages made of temporary structures. And today, from Potosi to Sucre, it was the fact that it took us four hours to travel 132 kilometers (82 miles). Like Laos, despite the fact that highways around the country are being paved, Bolivia is so mountainous that travel is invariably slow. Also like Laos, Bolivia is really different. And for that, I appreciate it.

Potosi is supposedly the highest city in the world at 4070 meters (13,227 feet). However, this is probably more a function of semantics, because I have to believe that there are towns in Pakistan, India, and/or China that have more inhabitants than Potosi’s roughly 150,000. Highest city or not, I’m definitely feeling the altitude here as I huff and puff walking up and down the old city streets. It’s also cold. But it’s not the high altitude, thin air, or cold temperatures that define Potosi. Potosi is interesting because of its history. Although a shadow of its former self, its ornate cathedrals, sprawling colonial architecture and old mines hint at its former glory. Cerro Rico, the red mountain that looms above Potosi is where the Spanish struck silver in the 16th century. Not just a little silver, but enough to finance their expanding empire. By the turn of the century, Potosi was one of the most populous cities (200,000 inhabitants) on earth, far exceeding European metropolis’s such as London (40,000) or Paris (60,000). It also became far richer, all due to the silver from Cerro Rico. It was the richest city in all of the Americas and the Spanish transported shiploads of silver to Spain via Lima. Although Mexico was rich in gold, silver was the reserve currency of the era. They expanded their empire in the Americas, bought slaves in Africa, spices and textiles in Asia, and fueled the famous silver trade of the European colonial period. It is perhaps due to Potosi that the Spanish-speaking world is the Spanish-speaking world, rather than the English, Portuguese, or Dutch speaking world. Today Potosi has a smaller population than it did 400 years ago, its mines have been almost fully exploited, and it’s just another city in one of the poorest regions in all the Americas. To learn more, Joylani and I visited the old Spanish mint. It was one of three mints that the Spanish set up in the Americas (along with Lima and Mexico), but it is the only surviving one. We took an English speaking tour and learned about how silver was first discovered at Cerro Rico and how the Spanish learned about and then began mining it. They immediately began sending silver back to Spain and imported minting technology from Europe. The coins minted in Potosi were used throughout the entire world and gave Spain a huge source of funding for their empire. The cold dry air has kept the wood at the old mint in good condition and much of the original equipment is still intact. We saw how silver was pressed into ingots and subsequently stamped into coins, although the process is much too lengthy to write about. There was so much silver, people were making tables, dinnerware, and even bedpans with it (all on display). After independence, the mines began to dry up and Potosi began its gradual decline from prominence. The mint continued to produce coins up until the 20th century though. Our guide lamented how ironic it is that Potosi used to export currency that was used all over the world, while today Bolivian currency is all minted and printed in foreign countries (mainly Europe). Bolivian silver is still mostly exported, although it is to Asia rather than Europe to build computer components rather than empires. Despite its fall from glory, Potosi was still an interesting place to spend a day and a half. The main touristy thing to do is to visit the mines, which are now run as miner-owned cooperatives. Joylani didn’t want to go due to the health-hazards and cavernous claustrophobic conditions (she hates caves) and I didn’t have a burning desire to go, so we skipped that. We explored the narrow streets and alleyways, admiring the old colonial architecture and cobbled streets. The food still isn’t very good, but we found a couple of edible restaurants in our wanderings, plus a couple new street-food items. Potosi doesn’t hold many of the distinctions it once did, but it’s still the highest city in the world and a pleasant mountain town to spend a day or two in.

We spent six hours of our day on a bus from Uyuni to Potosi. Although Bolivia barely has any paved roads and it was a bumpy ride, it was an interesting journey. Firstly, the scenery was absolutely spectacular. Uyuni sits at around 3600 meters and Potosi at just over 4000, so it was high-altitude mountain scenery all the way. We wove our way through spectacular mountain ranges of varying colors. Bolivia has the most awesome geology, with green, purple, red, black, and grey mountains. I couldn’t take any photos because of the dirty windows and it rained on and off most of the journey. Some of the mud villages looked as if the rain would melt them away. Bolivia is very very poor. It seems about on par with Laos, the poorest country we’ve visited until now. In Laos, most homes are temporary and made of bamboo frames and woven mats. In Bolivia, most homes are temporary and made of adobe, or less euphemistically, mud bricks. Aside from entire villages made of mud, we passed a few abandoned villages, their tin roofs stripped and only portions their melted-looking walls remaining. We passed a few mines and the adjacent towns, saw lots of llamas, alpacas, and vicunas, as well as some small farms, their rocky plots delineated by stone walls. Our bus stopped often to pick-up and drop off people along the way. Even the people were evidence that we were in a poor country. The worn clothes, the dirtiness. The men in their earth tones and the women with their chola dresses, bowler hats, and rainbow-colored blankets slung around their backs. For the first time since we were in South East Asia, we’re traveling via local transportation in a poor country. The bus ride was not comfortable or fast, but it was different and interesting.

We ended our tour yesterday at Uyuni where we were happy to finally have our own room and a hot shower.  For not doing too much, we had a couple of random incidents including the lady at restaurant forgot what was for the set dinner (we decided not to eat there).  And then this morning a half hour before our bus was going to leave, our doorknob broke with us on the outside and all our bags and money on the inside.  Luckily the lady at the hotel was handy with the hammer and was able to pound the remaining parts of the doorknob out just in time for us to grab our bags and race (as best we could with 15kg of junk on our backs) to the bus for our ride out of town.  Goodbye Uyuni!  You weren’t very interesting (though we we’re expecting much in the first place).

 

Perhaps the funnest part of today was exploiting the unusual landscape to take funny photos. I was kind of deemed the group photographer, so I’m not in many of them. But I am pretty happy with how these turned out:

Marty taking a bath in a hat… 

here´s what it looks like in real life

Joylani waiting for a kiss from me

Marty climbing into the hat with Joylani and Jess

Jess pulling her husband Oscar out of his hat

Joylani squishing Oscar

our tour group, minus the photographer

 

Our jeep was the first and only to make it up to Isla Incahuasi for the sunrise. The short hike up left me winded due to a combination of the early morning cold and altitude, but the view was worth it. From the time we left our beds in the salt hotel to when the sun rose, the ocean of salt went from black, to a periwinkle of purple, to blinding white.

Golden strings of clouds threaded the sky and seemed to reflect their glow on our faces, the mountains, and the army of cacti around us. The patterns in the salt seemed to pop out of the ground as the low angle of the sun cast a shadow from the ridges of the cracks in the salt. It was beautiful, and like yesterday we were lucky that we didn’t have to share it with the noise and crowds that other jeeps would have brought. The island (really just a big rock) was unusual and many parts of it looked like dead coral, continuing my wonderment from the day before of what used to be here before it was a dessert. As we made our way back down the rock, we saw several jeeps pulling in.

 

we climbed up this “island” to watch the sunrise

 

Matt heading out to take more photos…

Joining in the goofiness, we posed for pictures that only look good through the camera lens, laughed at the sight of other people doing the same, had a good breakfast, and jumped back in the jeep to finish the homestretch of our journey. It came at a good time as all of us were starting to or already had gotten sick during the tour, and were tired of being in a car for most of the day.

Also of note, after three days of traveling together in the same jeep, the Australian couple, for some unknown reason, began addressing Matt as “Max.” This is a common mistake for people meeting Matt for the first time, particularly in places where Matt is not a common name, but he has never had anyone call him this after already calling him Matt for several days beforehand.

Once again, Joylani summed it all up pretty good. She told me to write about the nitty-gritty stuff. Even though that sounds boring, I feel like the stats and facts regarding the Salar de Uyuni are nearly as impressive as the qualitative descriptions. It has an area of over 12,000 square kilometers, making it the largest salt flat in the world. It is composed of 11 layers and has a total depth that ranges from 2 to 20 meters! Lastly, it’s the earth’s largest reserve of energetic minerals, including: lithium, magnesium, potassium, nitrogen, phosphorus, and borax. Salt is of course mined from the salar as well.

 On our way to Uyuni, we stopped in an area of the flats that had many ojos del sal (salt eyes), also called ojos de agua. They were just small holes in the surface filled with water and had air bubbles coming up. Later, we stopped at larger ones of all different colors, which contained various other minerals besides salt. I’m not sure what the importance is, but it seems that minerals and gases are continually rising from below ground.

Side note, a sad reality of travel. We’ve heard sad stories of accidents on the tourist trail throughout our travels, and today we heard some more. On the way over the flats we passed a couple of memorials. Any accident is tragic, but these seemed especially sad in the probable carelessness of how they happened. One cross was to remember a jeep that had been driven by a tourist who broke too hard and must have flipped the car. The tourist and driver both died. The other was a memorial for two jeeps that had somehow crashed and exploded, killing all passengers. It had only happened 6 months earlier, and the salt was still blackened where the accident happened. There were no surviving witnesses and it is a mystery how it happened in such a wide open space. Seemingly avoidable accidents happen while travelling, just like they do when you are at home.

 

 

 

Flamingos get a bad rap as kitsch and gaudy lawn ornaments.  Today I discovered that these birds are really so much more delicate and graceful than I had thought before.  They are more than just funny looking pink things on spindly legs.  Flamingos are hearty birds that can withstand cold temperatures and high altitudes all the while still managing to look stylish.  This morning I got to soak up flamingo grace at the Laguna Colorada.  After a long day yesterday, our group slept in while the other groups woke up early for the usual 5am sunrise at the lagoon.  We arrived a little after the other groups had left, so when our jeep rolled up we were the only ones there—us, a calm, glassy body of water, and hundreds of birds. 

The red waters of the lagoon reflected the gracefully sloping mountains along its back shore, and in the foreground the water was framed by a green fringe of stubbly grassed flocked with patches of lost flamingo feathers. 

Wisps of steam rising from the thermally heated waters made an ever so slight fog around the edge of the lagoon.  The flamingos were milling about, their population doubled by the glassy reflection in the warmish waters. 

They scare easily, and as we approached the birds would slowly take off in flight, gliding low over the water in a long line like a skipped stone.

Joylani walking down the hills towards Laguna Colorada

            As usual, I got hungry (we hadn’t had breakfast yet).  I thought perhaps we’d just be eating bread or bananas in the car and so I asked if it would be possible for an early snack.  Instead, Felix (our friendly driver) suggested we just have breakfast at the lagoon, and we all agreed.  Marisol (our kind cook) surprised us all with a beautiful spread of hot drinks, and, best of all, panqueques (yup, pancakes!) with an array of spreads of fig jam, dulce de leche, and butter.  The panqueques were excellent, complete with proper pancake fluffiness (often absent in pancakes throughout Asia, murtabak excepted), and a hint of orange.  I savored the meal in the stillness of the surrounding scenery; it was, without a doubt, the most spectacular place I have ever eaten breakfast. 

breakfast

            This morning seemed to make the last two days of bumpy jeep rides and crappy accommodations all worth it.  I highly recommend, and would do it again myself just to see the Laguna Colorada again.  I’ve seen many stunning mountains, lakes, lagoons, and oceans during this trip and over my lifetime, but this spot is at the top of the list for its unusual appearance (I’ve never seen anything like it), still reflection, graceful residents, and the peaceful quietness of no one else around for miles.

            At our driver’s suggestion, we ended the day’s sightseeing with an unscheduled stop at Laguna Negra before pulling into our night’s lodging.  This spot was unique from the several other lagoons we’d stopped at earlier in the day in that it was at the bottom of a small hill and surrounded by unusual rock formations.  The formations looked as though hundreds of slabs had been stacks by a devote pilgrim, but they were all natural and I don’t know how they managed to stay standing. 

The lagoon was small, black like oil, and playful in its surroundings of the unusual rock formations and clumps of yareta, a strange coral-like plant that grows in this high-altitude desert.  I say it looks like coral for its round, lumpy shape and also for the white skeleton it leaves behind when all the green is gone.  This plant oozes a black sticky pitch (smells like a mix of turpentine and tiger balm) that is melted and applied with a cloth to sooth back pains. 

Like the other life this high up, I am amazed at how this plant can survive such cold nights and days and in such a dry climate.  Seeing all these crazy landscapes and plants make me wonder how it all got here, and what the ever-changing land looked like a long time ago.  And how did people figure out you could use yareta pitch to sooth back pain anyhow?

Joylani pretty much covered day 3. The only other things I’d mention are a couple of other things we saw along the way.

 

near Laguna Colorada

After Laguna Colorada, we stopped for about an hour in the Desierto de Siloli, which has dozens of huge stones just sitting in the middle of the big empty desert. Our guide said that the irregularly shaped boulders are the remains of volcanic rocks eroded by the wind and sand.

Arbol de Piedra

Joylani and some big rocks

Later, driving across the high-altitude tundra, we spotted an endangered Andean fox. They are supposedly very rare and the only reason we saw it is because one of its hind legs was injured and it had seemingly grown accustomed to approaching jeeps for food.

Andean fox

We also stopped for lunch at Laguna Honda, where many vicunas and flamingos were also feeding.

vincunas

flamingos at Laguna Honda

Today was a really, really long day. We left the village around 6am and after about an hour stopped at the abandoned village of San Antonio. It was established as a mining town nearly around 400 years ago and was inhabited up until the early 20th century. Oscar explored the church are said he found bone fragments laying all around, probably from the old graves. It was really, really cold (7am at nearly 5000 meters!), so Joylani and I tried to stay in the sun. That took us to the edge of town, where there were awesome views down into the valley and several chinchillas hopping about the nearby rocks.

San Antonio

Between San Antonio and our next scheduled stop, we made a couple of maintenance stops. Our jeep got a flat-tire once and then another jeep that we were kind of convoying with began having engine trouble. I didn’t mind the stops or waits though, since we were in a really scenic area. But then we stopped for about two hours, while our driver, Felix, tried to help fix the other jeep.

 maintenance stop 1

great scenery between breaking down

maintenance stop 2

our two-hour maintenance stop

Joylani dying in the desert

Eventually, we continued on, while the other jeep had to turn back. We ate lunch not much later at a small village where there also happened to be a National Park office.

 lunch time

After lunch, we did a lot of driving. A lot. But luckily, we broke it up with a rest/photo stop at Salar de Chalviri, a lake with blinding-white salt and flamingos on it.

 Salar de Chalviri

We also took about an hour break to relax in the most scenic (and for that matter, cleanest) hot-springs I’ve ever been to: Termas de Polques. There was no shower last night, which made the experience that much better.

 Ahhhhh….hot springs!

Afterwards, we headed to the Chilean border where we glimpsed Laguna Verde. Apparently, its gets its color from high concentrations of lead, sulfur, arsenic, and calcium carbonates; these chemicals also prevent the lake from ever freezing (unless temps get down to -70F).

 Laguna Verde

Lastly, we stopped at Sol de Manana, an area of boiling mud and geysers. I’d like to say I enjoyed seeing or even taking the below photo (Joylani too it), but I was busy relieving myself behind the closest rock I could find as my stomach was sick all afternoon. Before I ran off to find a rock, Joylani warned me to not inadvertently go near a geyser, because in her words, “That’d be some bidet!” Besides the unsanitary Bolivian food, I think the altitude was getting to me, as we’d spent much of the day between 4500-5000 meters. Between the many sights and maintenance delays, it was an over 13 hour day.

geysers