¨It's Bolivia!´ excuses anything...

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When I began planning my trip to South America I asked a friend who had travelled in the area for some advice and she said that a 4x4 tour in the south of Bolivia to see the salt flats was absolutely unmissable. For that reason this part of my trip was one of the most anticipated segments becuase I trusted that it would be amazing. My three day adventure did not dissapoint.

I managed to leave my comfy bed and face the brutally cold morning to meet up with eight other backpackers also using Cordillera travel for their trip and cross the border into Bolivia. After the nightmare of Chilean crossings getting into Bolivia was a piece of cake. We somehow divided ourselves up into two groups and got into a pair of 4x4 Toyotas that clearly knew the desert well - and had known it well for at least 20 years. The drivers of both trucks were named Javier and ¨our¨ Javier loaded four of us into his Toyota. Everyone adventuring along with me was fantastic and keen to see the stunning landscapes without complaining about the biting wind and cold or altitude or other discomforts. Our international group included one other Canadian from Quebec, a Brit, a Kiwi, a Swiss artist, a Slovenian-German, a Chinese-Dutch-German, an Israeli and a Dutch woman who I had met on the bus from Salta to San Pedro. I was the youngest, as usual, by a few years and there were two 27-year-olds. We were all out for different lengths of time and on different routes but had all come together for this brief part of our trips.

Together, we spent three days immersed in natural hot springs, walking along the shores of coloured lagoons, misjudging distances to rock formations that inspired Salvador Dali, mimicing flamingoes, trying not to fall into bubbling geysers, succumbing to exhaustion at 5000 m. of altitude, singing along to Boilvian radio, worrying when our drivers peered under the hoods of our 4x4s at each stop, drinking plenty of Coca leaf tea, coaxing viscatcha rabbit-family creatures to come out of their hiding places and constantly smiling at our luck to be on such an adventure.

Without experiencing in the slightest any of the horror stories we had heard about drivers being drunk, food being inedible, accomodations being freezing and altitude being unbearable we all had a great time out in landscapes that seem so alien. On our second night we stayed in a salt hostel, where pretty well everything except the toilets was constructed from salt blocks. Then, on our third day we finally made it to the largest salt flats in the world - white, crystalized, solid crust of salt all the way to the horizon. This was truly one of the most shocking areas I have ever travelled to - it is just so different from any sort of city or forest or jungle or desert or beach or other ecosystem. It looks like it could be snow or ice but even that comparison falls short becuase it is so rough and solid and our trucks neither worried about slipping nor left any real tracks to speak of. It is an indescribable part of the world that will hopefully be protected and not mined for its resources as is being threatened. I echo the advice given to me and suggest that an excursion into the Salar is an unmissable part of a trip to South America.

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Photos

Emily Peiffer 350
The salt is actually processed and used as table salt eventually.