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"The United States seems destined by Providence to plague Latin America with misery in the name of liberty."
(Simon Boliva, El Libertador). During my trip through the amazing and remote South West of Bolivia, I looked out of the window of the Toyota 4 wheel drive towards the horizon. I was looking towards the Salar de Uyuni (the worlds largest salt flats). But it looked as if some of the landscape had been rubbed out. Light headed as I was from the altitude I would swear that it looked as if the mountains on the horizon were hanging unsupported in the sky.
To check that I wasn't hallucinating because of altitude sickness I took a photo. It proved the visual effect was real, even if not quite as dramatic as I saw it in my minds eye.
The South western circuit of Bolivia is very much part of the gringo trail. The landscape is both beautiful and surreal. Smoking volcanoes, green and red lakes full of flamingos, mountainsides painted in many colours and salt pans that seem to stretch forever.
TUPIZA
Returning in time to May 10th at the end of the
last blog. I moved from the border town of Villazon to Tupiza. Tupiza is a small town, where in the
Laguna Verde
Southwestern Boliviaearly 20th century many mine companies had their headquarters. It is also famous because Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid arrived here in about 1906. They fled into Bolivia from Argentina, where they had settled for a few years (see my previous blogs
Outlaws and Rebels and
Patagonia is a Harsh Mistress). In Tupiza they robbed a local minerals trading house and fled towards San Vincente.
I stayed in the Mitru Hotel which was very good value for money at 120 Bolivianos a night, for a room with double bed, en suite bathroom and multichannel cable TV. Not only that but the hotel has a solar heated swimming pool. All that for $US15 or 9 pounds sterling!
In Tupiza I booked myself onto a 4 day tour of the South West of Bolivia. This region is very remote and includes the
Salar de Uyuni, the worlds largest salt flats.
SALAR DE UYUNI
So on May 12th I left on a 4 day trip with
Tupiza Tours. I would highly recommend them. I paid $US115 for a 4 day tour sharing the 4 wheel drive Toyota with 4 other tourists. We were all British except for one woman Marie who is Colombian. The places to
Arbol de Piedra
Southwestern Bolivia. sleep at night were very basic and cold, but the food was excellent. A special thank you has to go to Jesus our cook. The pictures in this blog show some of the wonders of the tour. Tupiza Tours were sending 2 cars out that morning. Most of the tours of the area start out from Uyuni or San Pedro in Chile, which meant that for the first day and a half of the trip through the badlands, we saw no other tourists. The effects of the altitude seemed to come and go throughout the trip. I would generally wake up with a clear head but by the evening have a stinking headache. The first night though was particularly difficult. We stayed in an adobe hut with no electricity, although it had a decent bathroom. The place was very cold, but I do have a very good sleeping bag - I tightened it around myself to keep the draughts out and went to sleep with no difficulty. But a couple of hours later I found myself desperately trying to fight my way out of the bag and gulping for air. I was suffocating. I felt I couldn't breath either through
Laguna Colorado
Southwestern Bolivia. my nose or even mouth. Both the inside of my mouth and nose felt cold and dried out. I loosened the bag, but even so spent the night waking up all the time, unable to breath. In fact it got to the stage where it felt difficult to breath even when I was conscious. But, I got some sleep which cleared my head for the morning. Later I learned that the others had also been struggling to breath and that one of them Maria had also been cold.
The sights, as can be seen from the photos on this blog were spectacular. On the last day of the tour we got up very early in order to see sunrise over the Salar de Uyuni. An amazing sight. After which we had breakfast on a little island in the middle of the salt flats. It was very cold - so cold that I was forced to eat breakfast with my gloves on!
UYUNI
The trip ended at midday on Monday 15th, when we were dropped off in Uyuni. Uyuni is a remote town dominated by tourism to the nearby salt flats. It is a very desolate and
cold place. I booked into the hotel Julia for 60 Bolivianos, but for that price it didn´t have heating. In fact, despite the intense night time cold on the Bolivian Antiplano, very few buildings have any heating.
POTOSI
The next morning, when I woke up I still had a headache. I headed straight for the town of Potosi. When I arrived in Potosi, I had a very bad headache. Potosi may be one of the highest cities in the world. It is at an elevation of 4,100m ( for those of you who only understand imperial measures that is 13,530 feet). It was a walk up hill from the bus station to the city centre. I struggled, I felt like an old man. Finally I found a hotel. I was in no state to do anything.
The next morning (the 17th), I felt worse,so I went to the doctor who gave me a prescription for drugs to deal with altitude sickness. I wasn't acclimatising, I just seemed to get worse.
Anyway, this meant that I didn't visit anything in Potosi. The standard trip sold to tourists in Potosi is a visit down the silver
mines. Which would have meant me posing for a photo holding a stick of dynamite! The conditions down the mines are supposed to be medieval. The miners survive all day by chewing coca leafs. Coca acts as a pain killer.
Potosi was founded after silver was discovered in 1544. It was once one of the wealthiest cities in the world. The city is mentioned in that context in the novel Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes. But much of the wealth was stripped out of the city by the Spanish. In the mid 19th century silver prices fell and the city never recovered.
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Arnie
non-member comment
great photos
Hi Stu, I really liked your photos in this one. Particularly the women in Uyuni and the Fox. And the Volcanos, really spectaular area. Got to chew those coco leaves, or drink the tea, no headaches. Maybe see you in Mexico?