A Hard Day's Night

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When morning finally comes, Noel knocks on our door to let us know that breakfast is ready and that we'll be leaving in an hour or so. The five of us roll out of bed and share horror stories of how miserable the night was. Good, it's not just me.

On my way to the bathroom, I run into Cornwall. I ask him how the night went for him.

"Oh not too bad! A few blankets did the trick," he responds in his ever-cheerful manner.
"Is there something wrong with your central nervous system?" I mutter as I shuffle into the bathroom.

I stand urinating into one of the toilets of the uni-sex bathroom and look over to the stall to my left. It's a shower. Why is there a shower here? Unheated. That would be suicide. This is confirmed when I go to wash my hands. What comes out of the faucet is not water. It is liquid nitrogen. The joints in my fingers scream in agony.

It's ok. This is all just a character-building exercise.

I head into the mess hall for breakfast. Most everyone is discussing the coldest night of their lives.

There is also a lot of talk about the political situation in Bolivia. Some of the travelers are doing this trip in the reverse order - from Uyuni to Chile. We hear reports of road blocks keeping people trapped in Uyuni and Potosí just to the north. Protests in Santa Cruz. Threats from La Paz. Terms like "civil war" are not taken very seriously by well-informed global citizens such as ourselves, but they are uttered with solemnity.

I'm not planning on going into the East where the calls for autonomy and secession are being made, but I resign myself to the idea that I may end up stuck in one city or another for a week or so. So be it.

After breakfast, we pile into the Land Cruiser again and take off. The food and hot coca tea has me feeling better, but I can already tell that last night's lack of sleep is going to catch up with me later in the day. I'm going to tough it out as long as possible.

The first half of the day is a rather dull drive across more desert. We stop at a few lagoons and take pictures.

Noel is warming to us and is a bit more talkative than yesterday. With his jet black hair and dark, sunken eyes, he is clearly indigenous. He and I talk throughout the day about anything and everything. When he laughs, he turns and shows a mouth full of large, crowded, but brilliantly white teeth. He is from Uyuni and tells us of his early life in poverty, working in the Borax plant, and how the advent of tourism to the area changed things for the better. Better, but unpredictable.

I normally stay away from sensitive local subjects, but I ask Noel what he thinks of the current situation. Bolivia is economically divided between the East and West. The eastern lowlands is wealthy and controls all the natural resources such as natural gas. The East consists largely of white or mestizo descendents of Spanish colonists.

The western highlands (Andes) are mostly devoid of resources and is extremely poor. The West is almost entirely indigenous. Racism is a factor in all this.

Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. For decades, the indigenous majority has been trying to achieve some sort of wealth redistribution to ensure that some of the enormous profits from the country's natural resources are used to improve education, services, infrastructure, and economic opportunity for the West. See Also: Norway, Kuwait, Singapore, China. The East has fought this by any means necessary. Three years ago, Evo Morales was elected by indigenous groups on this basis. Coming from a family of coca plant growers, he was seen as "one of the people" who could turn things around.

Since then, it has been an increasingly tense struggle between Morales and opposition parties. The East is now demanding autonomy from the rest of the country. Tension is growing.

Noel is about as indigenous as they get. He speaks Quechua just as well as he speaks Spanish. So his answer about Evo surprises me.

"Get rid of him," he says. "He is succeeding in getting money from the rich minority, but he is in no way using it to improve the country's situation. He only uses it to keep a hold of his own power. He essentially pays groups of Andean people to keep voting for him and stir up protests and rallies whenever he needs it for his image. To make matters worse, Chavez in Venezuela is giving money to do more of the same. The only person Evo helps is himself. Get rid of him."

I respect Noel's ability to avoid the Us vs. Them mentality. Ethics is more than whatever side of a line you happen to be born on. In fact, in most cases of this scale, both sides are dead wrong.

A thoughtful silence follows, and Barcelona Guy changes the subject. "So who is Bolivia's best football player?"

"Nobody, they all suck!"

-

The highlight of the day comes when we stop at a lagoon inhabited by more flamingos. This time the birds are close to the shore of the lagoon and we have an opportunity to get up-close and personal. We walk the length of the lagoon. The French and The Barcelonas move on ahead of me, but I am determined to get some good shots. As luck would have it, Cornwall's Cruiser has pulled up behind ours. The two of us creep quietly along the shores of the lagoon, being careful not to frighten the pink wonders. Soon we are joined by a few Romanians and a few French. We don't know these people at all, but within no time we've formed a small platoon of commandos, silently moving onto small outcrops of soft mud in order to get the right angle. Hand gestures fly back and forth between perfect strangers to point out birds that have dunked their heads under water or two flamingos fighting for one reason or another.

We are the elite.

Cornwall and I have moved in as close as three meters from a feeding flamingo. Suddenly, another just to it's left expands its wings in preparation of flight. This is the moment we've been waiting for. Our two cameras swing to the left without the pretense of thought and we prepare to catch the creature in flight. But the flamingo changes its mind and relaxes its plumage. Four letter words are hissed in anger through our teeth. I consider picking up a pebble and chucking it at one of them to provoke the desired reaction. But I am better than that.

Finally satisfied with our photographic loot, we head back to our Cruisers. The others are waiting for me patiently, and we take off.

Late in the afternoon, Noel says he needs to stop at the bank. This sounds strange for some reason. We've been in Bolivia for about thirty hours, and haven't seen any signs of civilization aside from the refuge. And that barely counted.

We pull off a side road and stop in a small village. The streets are alive with people walking around. Noel explains that the village is having a festival tonight that they have every year. We stop in the center in a small square and walk around while Noel goes into the bank. In the near background, a tall, long granite hill runs in parallel with the length of the town. At the base is a beautiful colonial Spanish church. Inside we can hear a marching band practicing for tonight's celebration. People of all ages are walking around getting things ready. Children run around yelling for each other and carrying supplies for their parents. They are excited and we can feel the anticipation in the air. I feel like I have now truly arrived in Bolivia.

-

In the early evening, we are driving toward a mountain in the distance. The mountain is set against a pale sky. A pale line of space is seen beneath the mountain as well.

The mountain is floating above the Earth.

"Is that a mirage?" I ask.
"Nope," responds Noel, refusing to give more detail.

A few minutes later the thin line expands and we see it for what it is. This is the Uyuni salt flat. It stretches across an enormous valley. Tomorrow, we will cross it.

But for now, Noel turns left off behind some small hills. Half an hour later, we arrive at the salt hotel.

A salt hotel is exactly what it sounds like. It is a hotel made of salt. Bricks of condensed salt are extracted from the flat, and used to build the walls and floor of the hotel. There are illegal hotels built directly on the flat. They are illegal because of the pollution they cause. You really shouldn't dump raw sewage into a natural wonder.

But this one is nestled at the base of a hill far from the flat. We grab our stuff and head inside. To the left, a small hallway leads to about ten rooms with two beds each. To the right is a large dining room with a few long tables. To the back, two bathrooms. Hot water is available. Also, the salt bricks provide a much better shelter from the cold, and we have descended about a kilometer to 3,500 meters. So the cold tonight will be much more bearable.

Unfortunately, this morning's fear about my eventual state has come true. Sleep deprivation is my weakness. My immune system can fight off just about anything. When everyone around me is getting the flu or a cold, I don't feel a thing. But give me just two hours of sleep under harsh conditions, and I fall apart.

I feel dizzy and weak. It is much warmer here, but I'm still shivering. My head is pounding.

While the others run off to enjoy hot showers, I collapse fully clothed into bed and sleep perfectly for an hour. At around seven, French Guy knocks on my door to ask if I'm alright and to let me know that dinner is ready.

I come out of the room. The five of us are the only guests in the hotel, so we have the dining room to ourselves.

I sit and look at the plate of food before me. Meat, fries, and rice. I stab at it a few times but can't bring myself to eat. I can see what's going on. Last night lowered my defenses. Even at a lower and now laughable altitude, this makes me more susceptible to the effects. To make matters worse, my lower intestine is whispering a secret about something I should not have eaten. The whisper occasionally grows into shouts of pain. Soon. Dammit.

I'm embarrassed and angry. I'm the one who can usually stick through anything. And here I am, falling apart.

I apologize to my friends and excuse myself from the table. No food tonight. I waddle off to my room, stopping only to peer into the bathrooms. Maybe I should take a shower now. Might help. Maybe no hot water in the morning.

I sway. Can't. Have to sleep. Room. Bed. Collapse.

-

None of the others know about it. Noel doesn't know about it. The small family that runs the hotel might know about it, but they keep it a secret.

There is a town on the other side of the hill behind the salt hotel.

In the night, a short man with a thin, needle nose and eyes surrounded in wrinkles comes into my room. He leads me out of the hotel and to the outskirts of the town. He stops.

"We can't continue on this road," he tells me.
"Why not?"
"The road blocks, of course. The nation is dying."
"Then how will we move?"
"The same way all people do in times of strife. Underground. The desert is alive. It gives us passage. Look,"
The man suddenly sinks down into the ground. "Come here!" he laughs.
I sink into the ground. The underworld of the Earth is not solid soil or bedrock like I thought. It is an endless sea of boulders and rocks.

Do you know what it feels like to be inside rocks? I can tell you. It feels just like a pile of scratchy, coarse alpaca blankets covering you from head to toe.

"Now pay attention! I'm going to teach you how to move through the rocks. He moves away from me through the rocks and toward the underbelly of the town. I see and follow.

Do you know how to move through rocks? Very simple. You toss and turn under the blanket of the rocks. You flip from one side to the other and let them slide right over your face and body. You extend your arms into the Earth and turn yourself some more. Occasionally your hand will break free from the Earth and you will feel the cold air of the Overground. Quick! Pull it back. Stay down here.

The man is moving more and more quickly and is gone. I toss and turn and try to follow. I know how to move, but he has not taught me how to navigate - to find my way.

I wander aimlessly beneath the town. I surface into a small, one-room house. A family sits at a wooden table set for dinner. A large, solitary platter on the table contains an unconscious and uncooked pink flamingo. The man, wife, and two children of the family slowly shift the emotionless gaze of their dark eyes from the feast to me.

Fear. I return below the blanket of the Earth.

What did the poet say about Fear? Red Rock? Pink? War. World War I. Poppies for the soldiers. Morphine. We need morphine over here. Not Europe - Cokaygne. Cokayne. Cocaine, we need coca tea over here.

Another shout of pain in my abdomen forces me awake. I will myself to think through the cobwebs of the dream and into reality.

I look at my watch. 2am. I bring a hand up out of the blankets, spread the fingers, and cover the top half of my face.

Fever.

The shout comes again and I roll out of bed and slip on my shoes. The generator that runs the hotel has been shut down for the night and there is no electricity. I exit the room and feel my way along the wall to the bathrooms. Flakes of salt crumble away under the friction of the navigational system of my fingertips. I am moving across rocks, and this time I know how.

I return to my room. I know I'll need to repeat this task a few more times before the night is over. I keep my shoes close together next to the small nightstand next to the bed for when the next time comes.

I start to fall asleep and feel the dream returning. It was waiting for me.

The rocks, the fear, the fever, and the trips to the bathroom repeat for three hours. Finally, at 5, I force myself to drink a substantial amount of water and hit the bed.

I fall into blessed black sleep.

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Comments

[eric]

norway?
you'll have to explain this norway one to me. love the rock-walking-moving, by the way.