salt flats (new photos added 4/4)

I just got back from the Salar de Uyuni (Salt Flats of Uyuni).

I feel like I just returned from Mars. Being in a desert of salt is literally like being on an unreal world. I also found out that the conditions here are the closest to Mars as anywhere on earth, so NASA does research there. Haha.

If there is any water on the surface of the salt flats, the horizon blurs, and the ground reflects anything above it. gorgeous.

So here`s the shakedown of how it all happened. This was our mid-term trip, so everyone went, including Prof. Nick and David (Bolivian Amizade co-coordinator). We met at J`s house at 5:30 in the morning. ugh. The girls stayed the night there just to make it easier (which, of course, made sleep harder). But from there we hopped on a 4.5 hour bus to Oruro (where they have the BIGGEST Carnival in Bolivia). There we caught a 8 hour train ride to Uyuni. All the travel wasn`t too bad, since I slept a lot of it. But getting off the bus in Uyuni was a little chillier than I was expecting. I had been told that it could get down to 15 degrees F here. When I heard that, I informed my professor that I had never, ever, been in that kind of weather. He found that hard to believe, but better understood the reason I kept asking if I needed to buy a large Eskimo-like fur coat before we went. I ended up just layering. :)

We spent the night in Uyuni and then were off on our adventure the next morning at 10:30. We piled into 2 different jeeps, the other group that joined us were 3 British girls who were all 27, had known each other since they were 11, and all decided to quit their jobs and sell their flats and travel the world for 6 months. Awesome girls.

The next 3 days we spent in these Jeeps with our drivers (mine was named Juan, 24 years old, and had been doing this for 4 years!). The ride was most definitely unlike any I had experienced before. At times, we were in a litteral desert of salt, with nothing for miles but flat salt, with mountains in the distance. At other times we were in sandy desert terrain with the most primitive of roads which meant plenty of bouncing for me in the short-leggers backseat.

Day 1:

Just one of the fantastic pictures we took on the salt flats. I`m a giant about to crush Zareen the bug. :) hehe.

We started out in a village where they process all the salt, and I bought some salt llamas. (no lie). Then, we entered into the actual solar, which was fantastic. Blinding whiteness for miles around, and a great place to take perspective pictures. We visited the Salt Hotel (made entirely out of salt... walls, beds, chairs.... entirely. But it is now illegal to stay there because it was illegal for them to build on the flats in the first place... oops) where it costs over a dollar to use the john. Then we visited the Isla Incahuasi, which has ginormous cacti over 1000 years old. In case you`re wondering how cacti could possibly grow in salt, the islands were not made of salt. They were the normal sand, rock, etc. that you would expect to find. We spent the night at Bella Vista (a very exciting Jeep ride there), all in one room. It did indeed have a beautiful view, enhanced by the wandering llamas and the guys all playing futball with the drivers.

Day 2:

The next day we arose at 7:30, breakfasted, and were on our way again. (Happy Easter). It was odd not celebrating in the usual way with my family back home, and without a church in sight. However, we first visited the pueblo of San Juan with not a lot of anything. However, they did have a museum with a 3000 year old mummy and some info on how the ancient peoples of that village lived. Also, we visited the nearby graveyard of their ancient peoples, where the mummies still lie in tombs above ground, and you can view and take pictures of them. This seemed very appropriate for an Easter Sunday activity, seeing many graves, none of which were empty. It made it more understandable, the shock of Mary and the disciples when there wasn´t a body there.

This day we spent most of the day viewing gorgeous lakes with flamingos and crazy trippy rock structures and fixing flat tires. By the end of the trip my Jeep had had 3, the third of which I actually watched fly completely off the Jeep. This is intense stuff, I tell you.

We ended the day at Laguna Colorado (Red Lake). It really was red as red can get. We climbed a small hill beside the lake from which we got a glorious view, and met 60 mph winds. That´s one of those moments that you can´t help but feel so alive.

We stayed next to the lake, in a kind of national park deal. I paid 10bs for a shower, which, though it was only a drizzle and swung from burning hot to ice cold, was one of the best I´d ever had, because it washed away the dust of the road of the last two days. After a delcious dinner, painting nails with the girls (yes, in the middle of the desert), and playing some strange card game where you pretend like you´re a drug dealer with some guys from the US, London, Holland, and Canada, I decided it was time for bed. Especially considering I had to get up at FOUR THIRTY the following morning.

Day 3:

When I was awoken at 4:30, I was not convinced that seeing the Sol de Mañana (sun of the morning), aka, some geysers, was going to be worth it. I wasn´t convinced until about an hour later, when, with the sky warming behind a geyser unlike any I had seen in my life, I touched warm air that was shooting out of the earth´s surface from the magma-filled depths below. Unreal. The sunrise that morning was unlike any I have seen in my life. (I PROMISE more pictures will soon follow). Then, to probably my favorite part of the entire trip. We stopped for breakfast at a hot springs. It was like a very shallow, very wide natural hot tub. Ahhh. It was so hard peeling off layers of alpaca sweaters, mittens, warm shirts, pants, down to my baithing suit in colder weather than I usually face back home. But it was all more than worth it when I felt the sting of the warm water of the springs.

(yes, I kept my hat on. You lose most of your heat through your head, silly)

Getting out was hard, as well. But one of the most invigorating experiences of my life. I swear, I´m 18 again. :)

After this we visited the desert of Salvador Dali with more crazy rocks. But I saw no melting clocks. :( Then, it was time to turn the Jeep and head for home. This trip was long and perilous, and made me appreciate life. It wouldn´t have been perilous but for the flying tires and the time we were side-swiped by cocaine dealers on their way back from Chile.

No lie. They were not in their right mind, and lost control and sideswiped us before running off the road and recieving a flat tire. Thankfully, our driver quickly recovered control, and, since there is no insurance here, solved the issue by stopping the car and headbutting the guy.

Things are so raw here.

I love it. :)

Heading off to the rainforest for a few days. Can´t wait to update you on that when I return!

photos. score. :)

So there has been a lot going on.

And I can´t catch you up right now, because I should be writing a mid-term essay and trying to register and email my parents (btw, mom, dad, your emails aren´t working).

But, to make up for it, here, finally, are pictures. :) yay.

The view of the Andes near La Paz. Not the lack of anything growing on them, and the way the fog is in the valleys. I´ve never seen anything like this.

Here we are the first weekend at Carnival. Amazing. :) And wet. It´s like Mardi Gras (I´m told) except instead of throwing beads everywhere people throw water balloons (¨globos¨).

This is me and Zareen (from Pennsylvania, goes to Pitt State) up at El Cristo looking back on the town of Cochabamba.

Here we are at the school where I became a Bolivian brick mason.´[The Bolivians in the picture are the real masons who made sure we didn´t screw anything up. :)] Note my super awesome, obviously genuine Puma shirt, which I bought in La Cancha for less than 3 bucks.

This is Carolyn (from the Outerbanks, NC), Matt (from Pittsburg) and I in front of a riverbed that could, at any point, flash flood (oh my!). Again, another one of my highly fashionable 3 dollar shirts. This one bled that pretty blue color all over the rest of it when it was washed. :) Free tie-dye.

This is me and J (from Florida) eating massive hot dogs. (Yes, they have hot dogs in Bolivia... surprise!)

This is after a hard day´s trek through the silver mine in Potosi, where I contracted the black lung. (Just kidding, but I did get a cold)... Please no comments on how I look like a village person. Thank you.

This is the inside of the mine, and the leftovers of a celebration to honor Pachmama (Mother Earth). Apparently, the presence of me there (a woman) upset her and could have caused bad luck for the miners. But it was a miner that took us in, so I didn´t feel so bad. Plus, I found some silver in there and brought it out. So, technically, I´m a miner too.

i have the black lung. and i ate llama. and bach´s in bolivia

It´s been a while, eh? I apologize. Let me catch you up on all the excitement.

This past weekend was quite a journey. The group went to Sucre and Potosi, both cities in Bolivia. Thursday after class we walked to the bus station and hopped on a semi-coma overnight to Sucre. Now, don´t be fooled. ¨semi coma¨does just about anything but put you in a semi-coma. However, the seats do go back farther than normal. :) After a 11 hour ride (it´s not that far, the roads are just that bad. Cobblestone at parts, on the main highway) during which I slept maybe 4 hours, we arrived in Sucre at 7 am and got some breakfast to start our day. After that we had a brief tour of a museum during which I saw many portraits of Bolivian presidents and met some very kind gringos. The tour was interesting, not so much because of what the guy was saying in broken english, but because as he was talking about some revolution of the Bolivian people in the 50s, there was dynomite going of in the street outside as part of a protest of the new constitution that was illegally drafted. I tell you what, the politics here are much more exciting than any ¨nail biter¨over Texas primaries. After the tour, we grabbed lunch and a brief siesta. Then we went to a monastary that is now a Catholic church. After giving the headmistress 10 Bolivianos, she gave us the key to the roof and we were allowed to stay there as long as we wished. I tell you, the view that those monks had to meditate on was astounding. The whole of the city of Sucre laid out before them. And for us, it seemed as though God had placed the clouds there just to make our pictures perfect. :)
The next day we took taxis to Potosi, which was 3.5 hours by bus and supposed to be shorter by taxi. I´m sure it would have been if Nick had not needed to nudge our driver quite frequently to keep him awake in the curvy mountian roads... But regardless, we got there safely, 3.5 hours later. Potosi is one of the highest cities in the world, and the altitude makes you feel like you´re on some kind of drug. And super out of shape. I was panting after caring my bookbag on the stroll to the hostel (¨companero de Jesus¨ - friend of Jesus). I had llama that day. It´s like a tender steak. Yummy.
The next day we went on a tour of the Minting Museum they have in Potosi (La Casa de Moneda) which used to mint most of the world´s money. It was informative, although you could tell that the guide had simply memorized the tour in English, so questions were out of the script. But later that day, I did one of the neatest things in my life thus far. We hired an ex-miner, suited up like a village person (dont worry, pictures to come), and headed into the Cerro Rico, or Rich Hill, of Potosi, out of which came 80% of the silver from the Western Hemisphere. This mine was discovered by a lllama herder, and became the curse of the people of Potosi, as the Spanish arrived and forced work in terrible conditions while sending all the silver back to Europe. But people still mine here, mostly tin and zinc. We spent 3 hours in the mine, and learned of the lives of miners. It´s tough man, let me tell you. They spend usually 12 hours, but up to 48 if they strike a good vein, in the dark. And while they are in there, they only drink beer and chew coca leaves, which supress hunger, thirst, and sleep. It was quite astounding, and I regret that I cannot give you a better idea of what it was like. But this tour was quite physically demanding, as the simple act of walking in the mine, which was not well-ventillated, at an altitude that is already tough on these South Carolina lungs, raised my heart to aerobic levels.

After this great weekend, we hop on a bus again, Sunday night, complete exhausted. This semi-coma was less coma like. In fact, I had 3 children next to me, one a baby. Yah, that was a fun 11 hour bus ride. :) But as we stumbled out of the station at 6:30 Monday morning, realizing I had class at 10 and still had homework for that afternoon, I knew it was more than worth it. What a great weekend.

Our empleyada (spelling is wrong, but i´m pretty sure you don´t know how to spell it either) left. She´s the one who did all the things my mom said I needed to remember to do. Clean up after myself, fold my clothes, iron my underwear (mom didn´t tell me to do that, but Ofe did it), make my bed, wash my dishes. Haha, sorry mom. But I guess now I get to prove my self-sufficiency, perhaps. But it is truly intriguing at how dependent the families here are on such services. My family was truly distressed at how we would get through the week. I volunteered my help in what ways I could. But I´m glad mom taught me how to fold my own underwear. :)

I must head off to lunch, soon, but let me tell you about yesterday. Just a view of one of mycrazy-busy days, and perhaps an acceptable excuse as to why I haven´t been writing more. I go to class, as usual. Thursdays, I only have 1 2 hour class in the afternoon, rather than 2. But during class yesterday, there was a protest going on downtown. So we took a ¨field trip¨of sorts to the city square to watch men and women bang on pots, carry signs I could somewhat understand, and march in protest to the sudden inflation of food prices. The women were banging on pots to symbolize their emptiness because they could not afford food. It is so fascinating that we can truly read about a problem facing Bolivians in a book on Wednesday night, then go to class Thursday and have a demonstration of the reactions of the Bolivians to that problem (that was not planned by our teacher.) It´s so alive here.
Then, after ¨class¨(there was some discussion) we grabbed a drink and went to a Bach concert. I was quite stoked about classical music in Latin America. It was a free concert in the Palace of a rich man (the guy who owned the mine in Potosi, in fact). It was small chamber music, and the players were quite decent, but what astounded me was the audience. There were hundreds of people there, and not nearly enough room, so these Bolivians, from the old man in his suit from work to the native woman to the punk high school kid were willing to stand for over an hour and half to hear this music from some gringo years ago. Music is so powerful. :)
After the concert, I went to the birthday party of the ¨brother¨ of Matteo, one of my fellow students here. I tell you what, the Bolivians know how to throw a party. All they need are good friends, large quantities of alcohol (consumed mainly by 3 or so men at the party), good music (that all sounds quite similar), and a large open space for dancing. It was fun, and I didn´t get home until an appropriate Bolivian time. :) Let´s just say that the birds were singing as I went to bed this morning.

I hope you´re enjoying my blog. I appreciate the readership, and that (I assume) you´re curious about what´s happening with me down here. I miss home, but know I am thoroughly enjoying myself here, and learning quite a few things as well. :)

Until later...