bolivia: epilogue
if only the chileans weren´t harder. a bit more military prowess and bolivia might have retained a smattering of pacific coastline, the beach which would make this the country which has almost everything imaginable within touching distance. even without the respite of oxygen rich sea level living however this is still a great place, absurdly beautiful mountain scenery, a slice of the amazon, crap roads and bonkers bus drivers and a traveller friendly capital city. best of all its cheap, third world enough to remain interesting and not a squatty toilet in sight. i have a feeling this may end up being my favourite country in south america...
frozen toes and flamingos
the 16 hour bus ride down to uyuni was a pretty solid adumbration of what was to follow. as we saw our bolivian copassengers tumble into their seats, wrapped in boiler suits and weighed down with thick blankets, the one free blanket provided by our hauliers seemed like it would be hopelessly inadequate. it was, as testified by the ice which collected on the inside of the bus windows, exuding shrill coldness inches away from the blocked capillaries of my nose. the fact that the majority of the journey took place over dirt tracks as opposed to tarmac only added to the discomfort, and it was with no sadness that we shivered off the bus into the dusty sunshine of uyuni.
what cruel lies the sunshine can tell, as all manner of hats, snoods and llama wool socks failed to fully ward off the bitter temperatures that greeted us on vicki´s birthday. as it was her birthday we checked into a ridiculously expensive, if not ridiculously opulent, hotel in an effort to warm the mood for this ostensibly celebratory day, but the feeble heater which was provided seemed to be as much use against the frosty chill as goliath´s armour against a well placed rock. still we managed to drag ourselves out and about, find birthday crepes for vicki and book ourselves onto a salt flat tour for the next day.
uyuni´s main attraction is as a jumping off point for the salt flats lying an hour or so outside the muddy houses which seem to blend into the brown dustplain surrounding the town. so it was that at ten in the morning we bundled into a toyota land cruiser with our fellow passengers, a affable group consisting of british couple deedee (he´s ridden an elephant, but not in a gay way) and helen, and two american girls, ashley and evie. stopping only to eye some disused rusting trains we trundled over dust and rock, watching as it became more and more apparent that the horizon was disappearing into nothingness, a blank space occupying the distance, the sky reaching down to touch oblivion. then, suddenly, we were on them, vast white salt flats with nothing but dazzling whiteness ahead, huge mountains rendered invisible by sheer distance. it was here that one of the, arguably unavoidable, pitfalls of this tour became apparent. the three days consist of some of the most desolate and puportedly remote landscapes imaginable, and yet every technicolor 5,000m lagoon or barren peak which we saw would always be in the company of tens of other jeeps, each spewing out their cargo of six wooly hatted travellers to gawp and take photos beside us. quite why all the tour groups have to leave at the same time and arrive at each attraction almost simultaneously is beyond me: it seems almost perverse until you consider the consequences of being truly isolated where we were and without the security of various other tour vehicles around you. a flat tyre and no human contact for 24 hours could be terminal.
regardless, the salt flats were brilliant, a splendid quasi apocalyptic feeling of total isolation cutely tempered by the japery of those around us who blended in and out of our visual consciousnesses as we all stopped being overawed by the sheer majesty of our surroundings and instead tuned into their suitability as a location for stupid photos. deedee and helen were particularly adept at this as deedee turned his photography qualifications to excellent use manipulating perspective to trap his girlfriend in a pringles can, oblivious to the beckoning waves of our driver.
as we sped across the salt flats our next stop was a bizarre rock emerging out of the nothingness, a hill bedecked with massive cacti some 12m high. breathless clambering led to some spectacular views of huge spindly cacti with blinding whiteness behind them. it was a satisfied, gobsmacked, jeep that bumped its way to our first night´s accommodation in san juan.
the hostel in san juan was basic, and the coldness of the night to come was a constant threat in the air as the sun started to escape behind the mountains. although barebones, our lodgings did come equipped with a hearty stray dog. nasty, mangy, pre rabid stray mutts have been something of a bone of contention between vicki and i. i, remembering their vicious south east asian brethren who callously chased me across the temples of burma and indonesia, think they should all be shot. vicki, however, thinks they should be coddled and stroked, mindless of their killer temperaments and mandibles of death. as vicki set about transferring fleas and all manner of other canine carried plagues to her gloves i started kicking a football around. to find myself suddenly confronted by the dog, jaws slavering, ready to pounce. assuming the end was nigh i started replaying the best bits of my life but vicki assured me it just wanted to play. ignoring my protests of this imposition on my recreational time, she even overcame her inherent hatred of all things football related to join in, kicking the ball between us in a hope that her furry new pal, evil hidden behind wagging tail, would come to play. it didn´t: distracted by thoughts of world domination or violence against bicroms it suddenly lost interest in the ball and started to gaze into the distance. this made me happy. not so vicki, who thought she would reignite its interest by passing it the ball. bearing in mind that vicki´s previous attempts at kicking the football had resulted in it trickling desultorily towards me what happened next was both unexpected and priceless, as her pass gained height and velocity before careering into the dogs midriff, inducing whimpers from both the dog and its attacker. the look of hurt and disdain on its face was matched by the dismay on vicki´s as it trotted off looking unloved. brilliant, although my hopes that vicki had come over to my way of thinking´, the dark, dog brutality side, were shattered by a make up ear scratch the following morning.
the next morning arrived in a shroud of ice, as we shook of the sleepiness of a bitingly cold night barely bettered by blankets and sleeping bags to congregate back at the jeep. the day to follow was one which i had feared would be a bit of a filler: the various lagoons at heights all well above 4,000m allayed that concern, as our eyes drank in lakes of myriad colours, topped with sheet ice, overshadowed by grim red peaks. we even got to see flamingos, bow legged and pecking in the patches of water between the ice, pink and ungainly, ethereal creatures in ethereal surroundings. the day´s sun passed in a series of glorous and varied vistas, and it was once more a content group that checked into our six bed dorm for the night.
to see the fallibility of your human spirit replicated in others is always some relief, and that was certainly the case that night. it doesn´t matter that you halt your intake of fluid hours before clambering into your sleeping bag, nor that you go for a prepatory piss immediately before going to bed. the mind is a horrible thing, the bladder is its bedfellow in cruel pranks, and with bitter inevitability i, and a number of my dorm mates, all shared at various points in the night in the same struggle, the same conviction that sleep would overcome the sudden feeling arousing beneath, the same unhappy realisation that physiological necessity would overcome mental and physical fatigue, the same testing of the air with the shoulders and internal cry of disbelief at the frigid results, the same half hearted shuffle out of warmth and security and bleary eyed grope down the pitch black hall to the toilets reeking of excrement to splash a warm trickle of urine onto the frozen water below before returing to a bed not as warm as that it had once been, beginning a desperate attempt to fall asleep before the whole macabre drama could begin again. needing a piss in the icy cold night: bad.
the next day began artificially early and as we fell into the jeep at 6am it was bedecked in every bit of clothing imaginable and shrouded in sleeping bags. little comfort as sensation in fingers and toes became a thing of myth. the high altitude geyser field was impressive, the temperature impressively low, as all the running around could not fully compensate for the literally sub zero temperatures. as the sun rose, its warmth just a future promise, we were faced with our final dilemma. the thermally heated water pool looked inviting. the journey in, and particularly out, did not. cue deliberation. for vicki leaving her sleeping bag was not an option, a bikini would be madness. the americans were similarly sensible. and yet in deedee, helen and i resided the spirit of reckless british drive and gusto, of manning up, of a stiff upper lip in the face of adversity. so it was that we got nearly naked in our swimmers, luxuriated in the warm waters and felt the blood trickling back into our toes before leaping out for the safety of towels (note to self: gamchas only good for hot weather) and clothing as our discarded swimming suits literally froze on the ground before us. silliness, maybe; worth it, absolutely.
and that, bar one final 5,000m lake, was that. it was with warmth and regret that we bid farewell to our four tour mates and headed into the relative heat of chile, leaving behind a collation of landscapes fit to amaze and a country which had been exhilarating, frustrating, breathless and plain cold in various measures, but which had certainly always been interesting.
chacaltaya
once the novelty of being in the highest capital city in the world wears off la paz actually doesn´t have that much to offer as a place in its own right. too hilly and oxygen light to mill around in comfort and with frankly limited rewards for any wandering managed on offer, it isn´t with a particularly heavy heart that we are off to uyuni tonight.
of course whilst the city itself is a grimy collation of hardware stores and stray dogs it´s hard to argue with the impressiveness of its location, a location which facilitated our trip up to chacaltaya, a 5,400m peak which would be a monster almost anywhere else in the world but actually plays the role of kid brother to its exalted 6000m+ neighbours.
having stopped to wander around the valley of the moon, a craggy landscape of clay spires with lunar pretensions, we headed on to chalcataya. bumpy and dusty though the road may have been, it was still considerably easier to lurch in our van to 5,300m than by any other means, but it was the walk up the final 100m of altitude which was the real delight, as we breathlessly scrambled up the shale slope surrounded by massive white peaks on every side, bizarre multicoloured lagoons peppering the floor far below. having made it up the first climb we espied a second summit directly behind and, buoyed by a sudden acclimatisation to the absurd altitude, we continued our travails to be rewarded with further views of the glacier ridden peaks of the cordillera real towering over the cloud cover which seeemed to start somewhere near their bases. all in all a spectacular day, which only photos can really do justice, and an excellent farewell to la paz and its environs before heading south towards chile.
