Some Refections On Uyuni Tour

Four days, five tourists, a cook and a driver in a 4x4. At risk of sounding lazy or dumb I saw natural wonders that often went beyond my vocabulary. For now at least some odd reflections, a list of the locations and a link to the (dubious authenticity of) photographs.

Tupiza

Kollpani

Laguna Amorilla y Casetes

Volcana Uturnunku

Elizo y Grands

Laguna Hedionda

Coipa

Laguna Thermas

Salvador Dali’s inspiration (I can't remember the name)

Laguna Verde

Volcana Licancaur(?)

Geisers (5000 m above sea level)

Laguna Colorada

Train Graveyard

Uyuni

Colchani

Uyuni Salt Flats

Isla Pescado

Leaving Tupiza in a fake Slazenger cap and Addidas semi-rainproof jacket. Everytime I catch my reflection – which mercifully isn’t often out here – I feel like I’m about to be introduced to a dodgy boxing instructor.

Walking out from the crop of houses in Kollpani village at sunset. Llamas. Peace. The most idyllic village.

Watching a young girl in red round up three donkeys. (Inevitable flashbacks to Heidi, the television series, not the ex-girlfriend).

A goat skull in the grass, some sports shoes.

Eating Daisy’s soup with Jordi, Manuel, Joaquim and Fernando in a hut. Evening light. 

The way Emilio (our driver) introduces every single new location in exactly the same casual humble way. With his body twisted in our direction and his elbow as a prop on the back of the seat.

Dawn. I don’t see it enough (or at least not from the right end of the telescope, as it were).

You know you are in trouble, addictively speaking, when you are smoking a cigarette at 5000 meters above sea level. A few years ago I may have taken some machoistic rock and roll pleasure in this fact - but now it just seems a bit sad.

There is no evidence of life at five thousand feet apart from geisers in the desert spewing water of 200 degrees plus.

Seven in a 4x4 chewing coca to keep the altitude shock at bay…a lot of lagoons, each one more spectacular than the last until Laguna Verde – set below a volcano that borders Chilli. The kind of place you are surprised to find looking as Photoshopped in real life as it does in postcards.

Busting my knee (again) jumping off a mud kerb in this crazy terracotta rock landscape. The horror of thinking I might have just ended my trip. (Thankful that it turned out to be more of a cautionary relapse).

Singing songs in a rank cold hostel somewhere in the national park, a little drunk on Whiskey. Thinking for once, some of these songs aren’t bad.

Finding a pair of sunglasses that suit me in Uyuni. 

Being able to extract more than £60 from a cash point.

Salt Hotel in Colchani. A table made of salt upon which is placed a pot of table salt. I thought it was a joke.

Constantly weighing the issues of aesthetics and poverty with a camera.

Speechless on the flats. Sunrise. Alien beauty.

Wind, Sand, chapped lips, bad hair, camararderie.

Buying an item of tourist Llama wear, despite myself.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/muteswimmer/

The Worst Day (In Various Tenses)

I wake up with a surprise hangover. I thought it was only a hangover. It’s 7.30 and Jordi is knocking on the door. We are due to go to the Potosi mines at 9am. I’ve heard little about the mines and read less. That is my way. I’m undoubtedly guilty of peer pressure. I’m going to go even though I don’t fancy it at all this morning. My four Uyuni compatriots are going. I feel dizzy. My relationship with Bolivian food/hygiene has been, lets say strained and I’ve got this mystery hangover (I only had a few glasses of whiskey the night before, to warm me up).

I get through a portion of my breakfast. We get to the office and are served a coca leaf tea. I’m waiting to feel better though. The tour guide thinks I look like Sting or, on reflection, Bryan Adams. I don’t feel like talking about this. He goes on to explain some stuff in the van on the way. I’m not really concentrating. In fact I’m now spinning out. We arrive in the area of Potosi below the mines. I can't really tell you how disappointed I am to learn we actually have to dress up as miners. I hate tours. I’m now wearing mismatching false waterproofs and a pair of wellington boots two sizes to big for me. I’m hoping I don’t have to walk much. I think I am going to throw up.

I can’t really say what happened in the mine itself either. I just know it was the worst 50 minutes of my life. I remember the guide putting a cigarette in the mouth of an effigy of the devil mounted on the wall. I remember not being able to breath properly and mechanically moving in the appropriate directions whilst telling myself it will soon be over – to not breakdown. I’m having a panic attack in short. I’ve got a fever. I remember crawling through holes and ascending a broken ladder in pitch darkess with a litre bottle of water in my hand. I remember hoping my knee doesn’t go again and that I don’t lose my oversized wellington boots in the hole 30 meters deep below me. I remember nearly thinking it was funny to be in the middle of Bolivia enduring a panic attack with chronic diahorea in the most dangerous ‘tourist attraction’ you are ever likely to set foot in.

Over lunch my friends avoid my eyes and occasionally, only half jokingly, ask where I am. I’m glad when its over because, although I don’t have a bed to go to (we are leaving for Sucre today), I don’t have to look at food anymore. I can lie on my bags in this weird seminar living room attached to the Hostel Felimar and close my eyes. The others do their last bit of sightseeing. I don’t want to see anyone. I really am not ‘here’. I want to be somewhere else, in a different body.

I don’t think I sleep in this room at all – I merely hallucinate myself into the dirt under the shoe of the hero of an action movie that is playing incredibly loudly on the television on the otherside of a glass divide. (The architecture of this place was crazy). I can only concentrate on the obstacles to sleep. I am action movie anxiety on uncomfortable rucksack. I don’t know when I realised I was locked in this room exactly but at some point it was inevitable, ill or not, that I was going to need the toilet. The manager has long disappeared from reception. For the first time in my whole trip I am homesick. In fact I am absolutely paralysed by homesickness. I want to cry but I know my stomach will contract if I do. The disappeared manger turns up on the other side of the glass as I’m pissing into a 2 litre bottle of water on my knees. Out of shame (or maybe its the influence of the movie) I perform a sort of rolling dive behind some chairs and am pleased I don’t spill a drop. I am very sick close to tears action movie under a table man.

We set off for Sucre having said goodbye to Fernando. Apparently we nearly died twice on route owing to a chirpy but ultimately psychotic taxi driver who only takes over on a good bend. I am still only remotely aware of what is going on. I remember Jordi telling him he would’nt pay him if he didn’t slow down. In Sucre the boys are indecisive about what they want to eat. I am still adverse to the idea of food and resent the fact that there indecisivness is making me walk around half the city. If I wasn’t so dizzy the whole time I would go off on my own. I only want a bottle of water. Eventually they select the shittiest place I have ever seen with a young waitress that, despite my best attempts, looks utterly bemused at my request for ‘agua’. She is now turning around and looking to her mother for support as if I have asked her something indecent. The intervention of my native Spanish speakers appears to do nothing to resolve the sitution - the girl simply doesn't understand the word agua. Eventually I loose my temper, get up abruptly, walk over to the fridge behind the bar, take out the bottle of the liquid in question (which I can plainly see) and, slamming it down on the table proclaim the said bottle as ‘AGUA’ loudly, so that no one in the bar, least of all the bemused young waitress, is in any doubt. Suffice to say I have been oft reminded of this temper tantrum by my friends since. 

It was only later that I realised I had lost or had my phone stolen in Potosi. (As a phone it was essentially redundant but it also happens to be my camera and only access to portable music). It was a difficult day. The kind of which, having survived it maybe makes you a little stronger. My Father would have said it was ‘character building’.

Bolivian Bus Ride

I am sat next to sleeping Jordi[1]. I’m wired. I feel weirdly jubilant. I have gone beyond tired. The salt planes of Uyuni seem like 6 days ago, rather than 6 hours. At 4.30 this morning I was in more empty space than I have ever seen – a salt desert. I’m now on this bus heading to Potosi. I’ve got adrenaline, I’ve got lip salve, I’ve got half a bottle of whiskey and I’ve got The Stooges loud on the headphones.

The expectation of a Bolivian bus ride (of which I had been told plenty) and the actual experience of it is coalescing. I’m not, as I had imagined, sitting with three chickens and a farmer on a bus with part of the roof missing but the driver of this bus has no conception of when his vehicle is full to capacity.

I´ll attempt a 360 degree portrait in words: immediately behind me is Fernando who is having a panic attack and muttering about the complete under regulation of the entire country. Beside him Manuel, who is sleeping as best he can. To my left is Jordi’s extended right leg taking up three quarters of what is already only small a area for legs and feet (if you include rucksacks with valuables). Hanging precariously over the head of a sleeping family of three (whose seats are reclined to their limit) is my guitar. Owing to the continuous vibration of the road it doesn’t seem to matter where I put it – it is an axe in the strictest sense. To my immediate right are two Chola women[2] who are sat on a pile of their own wares in the aisle of the coach. The first has contrived to use my right knee as a back rest and the second, behind her, has propped her forehead comfortably against my elbow on the armrest and is fast asleep. Aside from that the route is a treacherously steep dirt track up a mountainside.

Perhaps it was the whiskey but the whole event gave me a peculiar sense of euphoria – a euphoria which perhaps I only feel when I am potentially close to death or at least a significant mental crisis.

[1] A guy who has now become a firm friend even if I do only understand half of what he says.

[2] Women who chose to wear the traditional indigenous garb of Boliva – as to differentiate from the post colonial Spanish.

New Year's Eve In Tupiza

So we can’t get to Sucre from Villazon without spending New Year’s Eve on a Bolivian coach. The map in our possession bears no relation to the travel time involved, presumable owing to the quality of the road. The up-shot of this is we take the train to Tupiza instead. The ride is beautiful and remarkably comfortable. There is even an old sixties telly somehow attached to the wall playing, appropriately enough (though utterly incongruously at the same time) 60’s pop telly – The Mamas and The Papas, Righteous Brothers, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles.

Upon arriving in Tupiza we discover that this small town actually closes all it’s bars and restaurants at midnight for family’s to celebrate together. So my three friends and I are ousted from a restaurant at 11.45 into a monsoon the likes of which I have never seen. The road we walked up to reach the centre is a now a river with an authentic looking current. It is the kind of rain in which you are soaked within seconds. The few cars roll by like boats. We wade knee deep through the village back to our only refuge. Upon arriving dripping wet, we attempt a toast on the hour with a single half full luke warm bottle of mineral water in an empty hostel foyer. Funny.

Bus Trip To Iruya

On the map Irunya looks as if it is a half hour ride out of town. It is in fact a three hour ride that hits 4000 feet above sea level about three quarters of the way in. I was however prepared for this fact, thanks to a nice Norwegian a chap who was on his way to the village before Christmas. We were not (my Catalunian travelling friend and I) prepared for the fact that a large portion of the ‘road’ on this trip was in fact a river gorge. As such we were somewhat surprised to see the ticket conductor doubling as a road worker and literally constructing parts of our passage towards the village that had been disrupted by rain. Rivers, naturally enough, are always rather affected by rain. At numerous points it was necessary for us to get out to alleviate the weight of the coach or at one point to actually push the coach out of a particularly deep spot of river.

In short we arrived, four and half hours later about two kilometres outside Iruya – the river here had reclaimed its place over the ‘road’. There was undoubtably a sense of collective relief as we all got off the bus and I for one didn’t mind the walk to the village. Jordi strode out first from the bus onto the path to the village. Before I knew it he was knee deep in what looked like fresh concrete arms flailing around for something solid to grab hold of…I have to confess, upon realising his life was not in any immediate danger, to being utterly incapable of a straight face for some time afterwards. It’s fair to say, considering his trousers weighed three times there normal weight for the remainder of the day, he took it in very good humour.

Eventually we had only about an hour in Iruya before we had to get the bus back. Enough time for some lunch and the briefest stroll around the village. Apparently there is only one road into the village so I have no idea how they were getting provisions in and out. On the walk back past the high altitude football pitch and the dead dog the weather turned worse. I had a vision of a white knuckle bus ride back to Humahuaca double the time of the outward journey….but the ticket conductor on the outwad route had clearly done a good job and the river-roads held out.

A Tour

I’m not really a tour person. I had decided this before I had ever taken one. In the first instance (Iguazu) curiousity got the better of me (ultimately the boat trip was good but I felt ripped off all the same); here in Salta it seems the only way, save hiring a car, that I can get out and see the surrounding area (and I don’t hold a licence). I may well have enjoyed it more if I had gone to sleep the night before. As it was the artists of Salta decreed come five am that it would be useless for me to sleep for two hours and so I rolled onto a minibus for Cachi half cut after an all-night session.

It was pouring with rain as I got on. As soon as we reached a certain altitude the clouds were such that nobody could see anything of the allegedly amazing views. I was sat next to a German man in his seventies who didn’t cease talking for the whole three-hour outward journey and smelt of plastercine. (A polite following question such as, ‘what did you do before you retired?’ quickly escalated into a 25 minute monologue on the mores of the German economy in the eighties). Eventually the fog cleared and, as we came down from the highest peaks some of the views were indeed spectacular….desert, mountain ranges, long curling roads.

Cachi itself looked to me like a slightly artificial lush green platform placed in a valley surrounded by dusty cactus strewn mountains. It had a good ice cream outlet in the square. The walk to the cemetery was taxing in the altitude and explained why all the flowers in the cemetery were made of plastic. (It looked like a party of children had (over) decorated the whole place). We made hard work of the descent by trying to take a shortcut down a ridiculously sleep slope full of cactus….I had a strong word with myself at the bottom that ran along the lines of not being twenty anymore and reminded myself I hadn’t slept.

On the return journey we got a flat tyre in the desert and later, ascending again,  could see even less than before, dangerously so given the mountain road we were traversing. These numerous obstacles however had little effect on my  German friends capacity for speech - no matter how strong the indication of the peak of my cap.[1] If anything I think it may have made it worse. Even his sister who was travelling with him lost her patience with him at one point. I think he was really a bit jealous of the guide, who often had to wait for him to finish whatever play-doe spewing story he was currently engaged in order to shoehorn her well practiced spanglish sound bites.[2]

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[1] I dislike wearing a cap but aside from the obvious protection from the sun it does usually have its advantages for blotting out the world for sleep.

[2] I am being unfair to the old chap for comic effect, but I sense he might be just as taxing even if I had had a good nights sleep.

 

Memory of Iguazu

After the boat trip I lost everyone and wandered around a portion of the lower walk on my own. I am pleased to say, despite sending the odd post card to myself, the sheer scale and power of Iguazu transcended a) my own cynicism b) its obvious tourist trappings. It is simply stunning and I feel to say any more would be to diminish it.

 Later, on route to the ‘Garganta Del Diablo’ (The Devils Throat) I run into two chemically assisted Mexican’s and an English man who I had met at the hostel the night before. The four of us pass a fantastic day…I am not sure what this says about me (or them for that matter)…Later Will (the English guy) and I cook up a Bolognase for everyone in the well provided but ultimately soulless environs of the Hostel Inn. Maybe it tastes better than it is out of our extreme hunger and the collective sense of enterprise…Owing to their ‘enhanced energy levels’ we calculate that we have walked about 18k in the day. I am inclined to note the story regarding a triangle in case I am to forget it, though I realise I leave it hanging stupidly at the end of a paragraph.