In Need of Salt Anyone?

I took a long weekend 2 weeks ago to go to the Salar de Uyuni, which is the largest salt desert in the world. And when they say it is salt, they really mean it. It is 12,000 square kilometers (180km by 97km) and the depth of the salt varies from 50cms to 10 meters! Everything is completely white, and I was in disbelief – I kept picking up the ground we were walking on to taste it. Yep, salt. Five minutes later – yep, salt. I think there is more than enough salt there to feed the world for the next thousand years – without exaggerating. It was just after the end of the wet season (i.e. summer) so there were parts that were still covered with water and it made an otherworldly mirror effect, where the sky and the ground looked the same.

It was a four day trip, and you’re thinking, how much salt can I take? But in reality you leave the salt desert after a day and travel through the Uyuni altiplano, which is filled with snow-capped active volcanoes, red, yellow, and brown deserts, thermal geysers, hot springs, as well as blue, red, and green lagunas with pink flamingos (yes, pink flamingos at 4,500 meters). The lakes freeze over at night with their one leg frozen in it – then they use their other leg to try to free themselves from the ice for several hours. Not my idea of a smart animal. But it helps that they stand on only one leg.

Then we crossed the border and went to San Pedro de Atacama and as soon as we crossed the border the dirt tracks turned into paved roads, and we passed from the 19th century into the 21st. The contrast is striking. For example, a 4 course lunch in Bolivia costs about 60 cents, while a 2 course meal in Chile costs about $12. The landscape surrounding el Salar de Atacama is striking in its own way, with huge sand dunes, and a moon-like desolate mountainous terrain. Getting back to Bolivia proved to be a more difficult task than one would think. Everyone I asked about going back, said (I’m not kidding), “why would you want to go back to Bolivia?” I’m not sure why that mattered but saying that I lived there cleared up the issue slightly. Everyone in Uyuni said it was “no problem” to get back there, so I should have known right away it would be absolutely impossible. After I exhausted all the possibilities of trucks returning to Uyuni, I finally asked if there was a bus to Arica, which is the northern-most town in Chile and the only other way to get to La Paz. “Sure, it leaves in 20 minutes,” I learned. With the next one not leaving for another 2 days, I had to run back to get my stuff and the guy at the bus office promised me they’d wait 5 minutes for me. I got back 5 minutes late and (of course) the bus had already left. The office guy was like, “What? We waited.” As is the norm, he was clearly lying, and knew that I knew that he was lying. At that, I had a bit of a fit and told him that we were no longer friends, which they never like to hear. So finally, after some negotiation (and a few choice words you won’t find in a Spanish dictionary), he said there was a bus to the next town and there I’d have 5 minutes to change buses – I weighed my odds, probably 20 to 1 against, but went for it anyway. To my great surprise I made it, despite being dropped off at the wrong station. The road on way back to La Paz was beautiful and passed by the Sajama national park with the highest peak in Bolivia. It was a bit of an ordeal, but nothing that you don’t get used to in Bolivia.

The general rule of thumb is that if anyone says, “it can’t be done”, it’s usually incredibly easy to do. And if everyone says “you should do this” or “it’s no problem to do that”, it’s completely impossible. For example, I was advised by a local once to take the train to Potosi. I looked at him long and hard and responded that there was no train to Potosi. In fact, not only is there no train, there are no train tracks. He just shrugged.