¿Porque Encantas Bolivia?

                                            ¿Why do I love Bolivia?

Because you have to find the subtle beauty.

Being in Bolivia for 3 days was a real tease for me, I feel that I could have stayed another month traveling North and immersing myself in the authenticities of the Andes region. 

It is amazing to witness the disparate cultural differences between Chile and Bolivia.  Only between a few hundred kilometros and you can find  on one side Qechua speaking, side-of-the-road-meat-selling, coca-chewing cholitas and on the other side find emo-punk dressed, axe spray-wearing, pizza-eating pololos kissing on the side of the road.

Not sure if this is p.c. to say, but I suppose what I am getting at is a first world, third world kind of comparison.

¿Sal, nieve o mar?

The big finale was the Salar de Uyuni, which we visited on Saturday.  We woke up at 5:30am to catch the sunrise on the salt flat-- a true terrestrial marvel.

I kept having to pinch myself, the salty ground was quite similar to what a snowy lake might look like in Massachusetts.

The sun came out and my fingers began to thaw.

The boarder of the Salar is not very thick, only a few cms, but towards the middle of the area the salt can be found to be almost 8 meters deep!  Yum!

The hexagonal ridge design is a product of the salty earth `breathing` with the wet and dry climates that pass throughout the year.

Luckly, because it is the dry season, we were able to scope the Isla de Pescado, which is an island situated in the middle of the Salar, usually surrounded by water and impassable by Jeep.  The island was completely covered with ancient cactuses.  Only growing 1 cm a year, the tallest one calculated to be about 900 years old!

Besides spectating the wonder and beauty of it all what else is a tourist to do, but. . .

TAKE SILLY PHOTOS!!!!:

showing off

Negative space and dimensional creativity allow for wackky fun!

Leo is a cool dude.

Si pu, No ve

I know that I said that I don´t like traveling like a conventional tourist, but to visit the Altiplano and the Salar de Uyuni (which is the largest salt flat in the world) there is only one way to get there.  That way, unless you know how to navigate the open Bolivian desert, is to take a tour in a Jeep.   

Vicuña herd



So I signed up for said tour with Atacama Mistica, a company that gave me a $30 discount through my new friend Miguel.  I should have been more warned when they said they had a car with 5 French people with one space open for me.                                                                                                            

We headed out on Thursday, taking a shuttle to the Bolivian border.  Fortunately I didn´t have to pay the $135 visa to enter Bolivia as a US citizen because I had been there 4 years before.  Score!

The boarder control was a small dilapidated building with no bathroom, although they did have a `peepee bus`as our guide called it:

There was more than just peepee behind that bus. . .

Stuffed into a Jeep with the 5 Frenchies and our sweet Bolivian guide named Leo, I was surprised at how alone I felt.  Although I have been traveling alone on this trip, I haven´t felt that lonely.  It took 5 uninterested and semi-rude French people to make me feel that way.

Girlz rule!

They weren´t all so bad, and eventually they grew on me, but it was clear that I would truly be excluded.  Fortunately, I made friends with the only girl in their group, Julie.  We stayed up in the nights gabbing in Spanish about cultural differences, how we love to travel and really just bonding over the fact that we were both girls.  The 4 guys stayed up playing cards, chain smoking and drinking whiskey even when I and many others advised against it at an altitude of 4,000 metros.

Jumping like an American in this cliche photo.

The first day we stopped at a series of beautiful spots.  Many of which were brightly colored lagunas.  During the entire 4 day trip I continued to be caught off guard by natures ability to create such fantastic colors.

The Laguna Colorada was litterally a deep red color.  Different minerals allow the lakes to take on different qualities.



Laguna Verde

Many of the lakes draw flocks of Flamingos.  Contrary to what I thought, flamingos can live in freezing climates. They come to the Altiplano because they like to eat the micro-organisms that live on the surface of the water.  They also like to bend their knees backwards and leave their carcasses around the lake when they die.

Later we stopped to check out:

 The Arbol de Piedra.  Rock tree.  Meh. . .

 A smoking volcano. Cool. . .

Amazing geysers that stunk like sulphur and screamed and hissed

And bubbled like crazy!

And hot springs.  Despite 40 degree weather, me and hundreds of other tourists disrobed to jump into this tiny pool of naturally hot water.

After our long days of driving blindly through the desert some how Leo would find our lodging for the night, which normally looked like this:

Except for one night, when we stayed at the Hotel De Sal, where everything was made of salt! 

We would be served a meal of hot dogs, instant soup and sometimes a peach slice or two. 

 Because the generators shut off early to conserve the limited energy, lights would go out at around 8:30 and I would be asleep by 9:30pm.

For a pre-paid touristic adventure, it was still a considerably rugged one.



Excursion

The following day I went on an adventure.  On Miguel´s bike I rode out to a hill near the town and ate a delicious sandwich made of my favorite things: Salami, goat cheese and avacado.  Afterwards, with a bit of luck, I found the Pakara ruins that lay outside of San Pedro.

 

It was a nice little hike.

At the top I had a little coca ritual -- a way to connect with Pachamama (mother earth), but also a good way to combat altitude sickness.  At 3000 meters I found myself getting a bit out of breath. 

The next day I headed towards the Bolivian boarder, finding a nice view of the Atacama Salar (salt flat). More on that to come.  Time to meet my Brazilian friend for lunch...

Llegada Cansada

After a 16 hour bus ride, meeting 2 very kind seat mates and getting up only once to pee, I arrived to San Pedro De Atacama.  The Atacama is a desert, dry and crisp, perfect for viewing the dormant volcanoes and for getting sweet sunburns.

I arrived in the morning and only with the help of my second seat mate, Sergio (who was a familiar spastic musician character),  was I able to find my way to a hostel.  Sergio, his friends and I had tea and breakfast and chatted about different cultures.  I later decided to explore the town which consists of 7 streets.  The roads are made of dirt and if you don´t know the people you pass it´s because they are tourists.  I realized suddenly as I was exploring that I didn´t want to be constricted by the hostel environment.  I promptly found a couchsurfer to help me out.

Miguel was his name.  A sweet man who lent me his bike and got me a sweet deal on my tour excursion.  We watched Final Destination 4 (because it´s the best one) on his 3d tv, drank Chilean wine and ate candy.  Him and his cat Trini live alone and have a precious relationship.

Although I was quite tired I was convinced by Miguel that I should take the Valle De Luna tour through his tour agency.  I complied.  It was eye-opening to be the ¨tourist¨character that I have not yet been on this trip.  Not a manner of traveling that I necessarily enjoy, but none-the-less a nice way to see the sites that I probably wouldn´t have seen.

These were the other people on the tour.  Turns out safari hats are really popular amongst tourists.

Las Vegas & Nevada

Max, Rachel, Thomas and I went for a 5 day hike out to a neighboring valle.  It felt great to be out in nature with a fun group of people.  We turned the corner out of Valle de Pisqo Elqui and hiked up toward Cochiguaz.

 The first night we slept in the back yard of a man named Andres.  We slept under the stars and I for one, was pretty amazed by our surroundings.

A few days before we left for out trek, Max, Rachel and Thomas had met a man named Alex who was some sort of self-acclaimed spirit guide, well informed of all cosmic theories.  After Andres`house, we found Alex, hung out at his house for the day, where he read our Mayan horoscopes.  I am `humano, electrico, amarillo` which looks something like:

Still a bit unclear as to what it means, but it looks cool.

After a long afternoon of nebulous discussion and talk of what the color green really is, and if there really is àn end`, Max, Rachel, Thomas, Alex, his friend Carla and I hiked up even further into the mountains where we found a little oasis.  The spot was nestled between several huge mountains, one capped with snow.  We camped on white sand beside the valley`s river.  A little meadow where horses came to graze bordered the campsite. 

 Alex led us in some meditative experiences which at times felt contrived and other times felt completely enlightening. We lit a bonfire, beat a drum and watched the stars move across the sky. We didn´t eat much during the first day and stayed up to watch the sun rise.  In the morning we meditated on the taste of fruits and nuts.

Alex and Carla left the next day, after we all took naps under trees.  The next 3 days were spent enjoying the environment, trying to hike up to the snowy capped mountain (failing, but enjoying the scenery), telling stories and skinny dipping in the river.

We came back to Pisqo Elqui on Saturday, gorged ourselves with delicious food and readied ourselves for the next step.  The next day all of us heading on our respective Journeys.
Max is planning on biking all the way back to California! I am very impressed.

El Jardin Secreto

After a restless 7 hour nightime bus ride up to La Serena and then over to Pisqo Elqui I realized I had messed up.  Me and my friend Max Rome, who has been traveling in Chile by bike for the bast 4 months, had made vague plans to meet up in Valle De Elqui.  We chose Valle de Elqui because it is supposed to be ripe with good energy.  Literally, they say that the magnetic center of the earth used to be in Tibet and has recently moved to this valle after an earthquake or something like that.  Whether or not there is good energy, there sure is a lot of massage, yoga and spiritual bullshit going on there. (My favorite example of this was someone´s tag of òm shree`painted all over the place).

I took the overnight bus without telling Max that I would be arriving in the morning the next day, so I showed up without any way of finding him or his 2 friends from Amsterdam that he has been traveling with. Because I didn´t sleep much on the bus, I promplty found a hostal and took a nap, hung out there and talked to some Danish dudes until I got a call from Max around 6pm.

Max, Rachel and Thomas had been staying at a friend`s house in Pisqo Elqui.  Max took me there.  Alexandra, who was the owner of the house rents the space out during the summer season, we were able to use it for free.  The house was amazing, it reminded me of Pompanuck-- a stone home, built by a family, beautiful gardens and mini canals strategically placed on the landscape.

 We were able to get comfortable here.  We cooked up a storm, making dinners of goat cheese burgers, avacado crepes and pomogranate cookies.

Rachel and Thomas are my sweet new friends who I will hopefully be camping with this next week in San Pedro de Atacama.  They have been traveling for 6 months, starting from the very tip of South America, they will finish their trip in December when they reach Colombia.