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Saved: September 15th 2021
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The first glimpse of Laguna Colorada and its flamingos was in the midst of the stormy weather when we arrived. After a brief stop, we went on to find accommodation, planning to head back to the lake later in the day.
Just an hour before sunset, the storm cleared, and the sun came out. We made it back to the lake for the last light of day, and saw hundreds of flamingos at dusk, before the sun ducked behind the mountains and turned the sky a fiery red.
The next morning the wind was bitterly cold but the sun was shining so we saw the red lake in all its glory. It would have been nice to spend more time at the lake, watching the flamingoes in the daylight, but it was so cold that I had to switch my camera batteries every ten minutes because they were getting too cold to work. I had to warm the "spares" up with body heat in between uses.
The drive back to Uyuni was long, broken up only by a stop in the town of San Cristóbal for lunch. The harsh wind at Laguna Colorada manifested itself as a dust
storm on the desert between Bolivia and Chile, and the streets of San Cristóbal were nearly empty, except for school children on their lunch break. The church there is beautiful--I later learned it was moved, stone-by-stone, along with the rest of the town, to its current location. The reason for the move? An American company needed their old location to develop a new mine there. The company paid to move the town, including the 350 year old church. What was once a village is now an impressive town with infrastructure that is not seen on the Altiplano. Hopefully the local people feel that they have benefited from the move, and will continue to do so after the mine shuts down.
The closest we came to seeing any of South America's infamous road blocks was a toll gate in a village on the way back to Uyuni, operated by the villagers. I've seen our driver take ridiculous detours to avoid these toll gates in other places, but when the village only has one road, a river hemming it in on one side and the valley walls on the other side, there's no going around it. We paid the toll, and
continued on our way.
Editorial: Seeing the flamingos was a highlight for me, not just of this trip, but of all my travels. The whole Southwest Circuit has been incredible, and the landscape in this corner of the world is beautiful because it is so harsh and rugged. Even now, months after I was actually there, I look at my photos and still can't believe that I have been to this amazing place and seen it with my own eyes. I have felt the cold wind that blows across the high desert. It was one of the most challenging places I have photographed, especially the flamingos at dusk. Besides the technical challenges that come with photography at high elevations, it is hard to capture this place in a photo because so much of its beauty comes from feeling the wind on your face and in your hair--the wind that goes right through you to remind you how lucky you are to be alive in that moment.
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