We raced across the high desert in the morning sun. The salt flats were far behind but the scenery here was almost as bold and extreme: bright blue sky, dry desert, and high volcanos.
Apart from sand and rock and drug smugglers, there were plenty of llamas, vicunas and even flamingos…
 Uyuni |
 Lunar Crater |
 Oruro |
The salt flats were once a giant sea, complete with coral. Petrified remains of the coral dot the plains and rocky outcrops.
Elsewhere, vast sandy fields are pocked here and there with enormous boulders, spat powerfully from the many volcanoes that rise up over 6,000 meters above sea level (but only 1,500 to 2,000 meters above the high desert itself).
There is still some volcanic activity here. Sulphur-smelling gas vents from fumaroles and bubbling mud pops and splutters in the little craters. This place is at 4,850 meters.
Not all the apparent boulder fields were the debris of volcanos. This area, known as the Rocas de Dali for its surreal composition, turned out on closer inspection to be a giant sand drift that almost completely covered the eroded remains of a rocky plateau – rather like the “hoodoos” of the south-west United States, but covered in sand.
The whole region seemed barren and dead. Just like the moon. Indeed, in places it was pretty easy to imagine that it was the moon. Even the grey volcanic soil was how I imagined regolith – the dirt on the moon – to look like and feel underfoot.
Later, I tested my theory by turning the Earth’s blue daytime sky into the moon’s black daytime sky. The similarity was stark. There are no stars in the “lunar” half of the frame for the same reason as in the Earth half – it’s daytime. The black sky on the Moon during the lunar landings was black because there was no atmosphere to turn the sky blue, not because it was night.
By now we were in Bolivia’s southeastern-most corner, nearly in Chile. This was the Atacama Desert, or near enough. NASA uses this area to simulate Mars when designing probes and potential human missions. It’s very dry here, just like Mars, and the soil and landscape are quite similar. But unlike Mars, there was a lot of life here. Away from the very dry and barren landscapes, it was easy to find large lakes, foliage, and animals.
The larger of these lakes are both extremely high (over 4,000 meters) and quite toxic (one is full of arsenic).
Even though some were quite dry, they were home to hundreds of flamingos, which can filter the chemicals out of the water with their specialised beaks.
What I remember most clearly from this area, though, was the phenomenally bright night sky. It far surpassed anything I had ever seen. The Milky Way was clearly visible from one horizon to the other. For the first time in my life I clearly saw the Magellanic Cloud with the naked eye, a milky blotch off to the left and up from the Southern Cross. It was freezing cold outside at night, and it was very difficult to capture the scene in a photo (try viewing the following picture in a completely dark room to get an accurate feeling for what it looked like).
Southern Cross over the horizon (darken the room to see it)
Los Narcotraficantes
As we sped back towards Uyuni, we came across a red jeep lying upside down on the side of the road. Three young guys hovered around it, looking dazed and confused but apparently uninjured. Our driver slowed down, and we all stared out the window. Just another of Bolivia’s regular car crashes, I suspected. I rolled my window down and asked, in Spanish, if they needed assistance. Suddenly I felt a surge forwards as our driver gunned the engine and we raced off.
Our guide turned around and said “They are smugglers. It is better not to stop”. Yon asked how he knew. I noticed that a car heading the opposite direction had not stopped either. “Their car has no licence plates. The smugglers use stolen cars to go across the border with the drugs, and sell the car on the other side. If you see a car with with no plates it is probably a smuggler. It is better not to stop”.
We farewelled the odd little place of Uyuni by sharing pizzas with our jeep-mates. The next day we left for Sucre, the constitutional capital of Bolivia.
The cycle lanes were quite wide in southern Bolivia
Sucre: Festival of the Virgin de Guadelupe
South Americans really know how to throw a street party.
During the colourful parade for the Festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe, we stood amongst the deep crowd, cheering and whistling as the parade made its way up the street. Two steps forward, one step back, twist to the side, arms up and shake that money-maker!
By nighttime, everyone was drunk, friendly or both. Enough were urinating openly in the streets that pungent rivulets of pee flooded every street. Young guys who’d peaked too early were lying on the ground as everyone else walked over them, trying to catch a better view of the parade. A Bolivian student nearby asked how long I’d been married. “Almost seven years”. “Wow! How many kids do you have?” “None”. An embarrassing pause. Then, to our travel-buddy A, standing next to me, he said, “Doesn’t he function right?” I just smiled. There’s never any point explaining.
The central market near the parade route had a fantastic room full of juice stands. For less than a dollar you could order fresh fruit juice, squeezed or blended on the spot by an army of Bolivian ladies. Finish your glass, hand it back, and they top it up with whatever is left in the blender, usually another whole glass.
A forlorn street urchin arrived and asked for money. We offered him a juice instead. As soon as he said yes, two other little boys materialised and hovered hopefully. Finally the older one, about 12, found the courage to ask “jugo para mi?” So we ordered two more juices. Smiles appeared on every face, especially when they realised there was a second round. Sustainable aid? Perhaps not. But we all have our moments of weakness.
Sucre was our last stop in the high altitude parts of Bolivia. From here we took a night bus down and east, surviving another near miss accident, the driver nearly running the bus off the road. Everyone yelled at him very loudly and he seemed to learn his lesson. We had yet to learn ours.
