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Published: August 9th 2006
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salt angel
The Salar de Uyuni is so white it looks like snow. It's the largest salt flat in the world and all you can see for miles when you're in it. Alpha Centauri, in the Southern Cross, is the nearest star to Earth at four light years. The next closest is Vega, at 26 light years distance. With all the stars in all the solar systems in the universe it seems impossible that we’re alone, said our French guide to the stars in San Pedro de Atacama.
But at four light years, with current technology, it would take more than 40,000 years to travel to Alpha Centauri. "So, while we are not alone, we are alone," the guide explained to a crowd of tourists gathered in a circle around a candle-lit table in the desert.
A few days after my enlightening adventure through the cosmos, I proved my French guide wrong. You don’t need 40,000 years or a $40 billion space ship to visit another world. All you really need is four days, a sturdy jeep with a cracked windshield and a Mario Cart pro named Victor.
I recently wrapped up a trip through the driest desert in the world with a diverse collection of can-do travelers. We saw, with our guide, Victor, some of nature’s most beautiful and well-hidden wonders.
I can tell you about how amazing
Lago Colorado
This lake is full of the same red mineral used to make paint. I can't remember the name. This is Miki, from Spain, enjoying the view. and other-worldly places like Laguna Verde, Laguna Colorado and the Solar de Uyuni are, but, in this case, I think pictures are worth more than a thousand words. And it’s really quite a shame that pictures can’t capture the immense loneliness of these places.
There are no roads. There are tracks in the sand where jeeps have carried tourists before. But Victor seemed to choose them at random and make his own new tracks when he pleased.
He swiftly and skillfully carried us through what seemed to be an endless desert to Laguna Verde, a bright turquoise lake, colored by minerals in the water, which are stirred up in heavy winds and react to sunlight. We bathed in natural hot springs before lunch, saw the angry frothing Sol de Monaña geysers and finished our first day at a frigid Refugio on the shore of the Marsian-like Laguna Colorado.
I spent three full days and two full nights, only parting for the bathroom, with Michael from Belgium, Miki from Spain, Jaun from Chile and Rosh and Emma from Ireland. We were all very lucky to be together, I think. Everyone was excited to be on the trip and
the best group of travelers
Michael from Belgium, Miki from Spain, Jaun from Chile and Rosh and Emma from Ireland jumping for joy un the middle of Salar de Uyuni. eager to get the most out of the experience.
Victor was skeptical about our group in the beginning, telling us that he’s had good tourists and bad tourists. By the second day, he seemed to decide we were the good sort. We got out of the jeep, explored, took pictured and soaked it up. In the evenings, the guys and I went for short little hikes to see the sun set from a front-row seat. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
I have to apologize for my long silence. Now that I’m on the move I’m finding that I’m pretty hard to keep up with. When I left Santiago on July 31, I went to La Serena. I took a tour from there to see the Humboldt Penguins and a variety of other wildlife, including dolphins and sea lions. The Humboldt Penguins are the smallest type of Penguins and live only as far north as Isla de Damas, where we saw them. A cold-water current washing up along the Pacific coast from glacial melt, allows the Penguins to live that far north.
From La Serena, I went to San Pedro de Atacoma, a beautiful desert town
Bolivian Independence
Aug. 6 is Bolivian Independence day and we happened to stop for lunch in this village in time to catch a parade of all the kids in town and the military. The announcer did not have nice things to say about Chile--that Bolivia needs sea port and shouldn't be selling oil and gas to Chile until they get it. full of activity and people anxious to enjoy the outdoors. It was fabulous, though very expensive. I went on a couple tours to see the harder-to-reach parts of the desert, including Solar de Tara and the Tatia geysers.
I did quite a bit in Santiago before I left as well. I went a couple times to Valparaiso and Viña Del Mar. The first time, I went with my Aunt’s friend, Luz, a writer. She explained that the face of Viña has changed with the Chilean culture. People used to have big beautiful houses for their entire family to live in—in-laws, grandchildren and all. Today, kids are leaving and never coming back like they supposedly do in the U.S.
"Then there are just two people living in these big houses, houses that are too big for two people," Luz said.
Since the property is really valuable, the families sell their old homes to companies that will nock them down and put up big apartment blocks like the ones that mark the Viña landscape today.
I arrived in La Paz by bus at 7:30 this morning. We left Uyuni last night at 8 p.m. on a tourist bus.
Isla de Pescado
This island in the middle of the dry salt lake boasts the shape of a fish and a forest of tall cacti that grow an average of 1 cm per year. If you notice, it also has a shore line, left over from the days when the lake was more like an ocean. And much of the rock on the island is actually dried choral. My seat-mate, Roj said, "you have to laugh, I guess. If you don’t laugh, you’ll probably cry."
She was right. AT one point I decided to pretend I was a baby and my parents had set me on the drier, hoping the vibration would put me to sleep. A moment later, airborne, I silently screemed "CHILD ABUSE." It was a rough ride and my shoe went missing until I found it six seats up the isle after everyone else got off this morning.
My new friend Emily, from England, and I have just booked flights for the Pampas, the wet lands. We leave tomorrow. Now that I’m traveling, things are moving very quickly. Please let me know what you’re up to when you have the chance. Chau.
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Ryan
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Coming pretty standard these days, eh?
So strange. I was just thinking about you today and how you hadn't updated in a while. I also was thinking about Bolivia for some reason (but, really, for a geography nerd like me, that's not unusual). So, it seems psychic that this is your adventure for the day. Am still jealous. But happier more every day. Can't wait to hear about the Pampas.