Desolation

On a Wednesday in a remote locale of Bolivia an elite group was assembled (el mejor grupo). Vinicius, a Brazilian named after the composer of "Girl From Ipanema"; Jimeno and Hernan, friendly Argentinians with limited English; Leslie, a camp Englishman; Sam and Mel, friendly Australians with limited Spanish; and Miguel, fearless tour guide and cook. We were to travel together in a Toyota Landcruiser across the Salar de Uyuni and into the Eduardo Avaroa reserve in the deep south east of Bolivia, where your correspondents were to leave the group and cross into Chile. Although we were heading into an empty wasteland we didn´t fear isolation, as fifty other full Landcruisers were doing the same thing.

Uyuni is salty even before you get to the Salar. Our first stop was a town built of salt, literally. Each house was made of salt bricks and you could buy little models of the Eiffel Tower made of salt. After 20 wasted minutes there we drove onto the Salar de Uyuni itself. I can´t give you too much technical information about the Salar´s provenance or composition because Miguel only spoke Spanish, so I´ll just say that it is a bloody big salt flat. But a special salt flat because it is the most brilliant and perfect white that you can imagine almost as far as the eye can see. It is surrounded by craggy brown mountains that are partially obscured by the reflective haze from the white surface, so they appear much further away than they are and loom in ghostly partial obscurity. Our vehicle drove straight across the white surface to the cactus-covered "island" of Incahuana, where we could climb up for panoramic views. I had seen it in photos but must have suspected that they had been touched up, because the view was stunning.

Sunglasses were necessary almost at all times. It was a clear day and the white lake stretched out interminably, almost meeting the brilliant and enormous blue sky. It hurt to look at with naked eyes but when I did the view was probably the most brilliant I have ever seen, only two shades but both as vivid as I can imagine. Later I read a story by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, who wrote of a boy thrown from a horse, knocked unconscious and paralysed. When he awoke, he found "the present was almost intolerable in it´s richness and sharpness". I immediately thought of the Salar when I read this.

Others celebrated their astonishment by contriving clever photos using the flat lake surface, snapping their friends appearing to stand on giant Pringles tins or standing on another´s upturned palms. I poured scorn on this practice and then cemented my hypocrisy by taking a photo of myself on the Salar surface reflected in Mel´s sunglasses. Coldplay blared from one of the cars and I wished we could just enjoy this sight without plastering something of ourselves all over it.

Miguel prepared lunch (washed down with a swig of whisky courtesy of Vinicius) and then we continued across the lake. We left it behind after an hour and I was depressed; although there wasn´t anything to do there except look and think I wanted to stay longer, perhaps believing that such an otherworldy and previously unimaginable place might help me unlock some other secrets of the world. Alas, it was gone, and we drove across desert to the hamlet of San Jaun, where some Poms embarrassed a motley crew of Aussies and yanks on the dusty football pitch as dusk fell. It is impossible to know what industry sustains San Juan, it´s presence in the middle of a vast desert a mystery, except for the Landcruiser loads of backpackers arriving every night. Some were ready for bed early (most of those in el grupo mejor) but some located the San Juan discoteca, apparently creating a "fiesta del chorizo" on the dance floor and then returning to the hostel where one of their number rendered one of the only two toilets unusable with a poorly aimed spew. Breakfast was therefore quiet, although was notable for the first appearance of the absurdly sweet Argentinian delicacy dulce de leche, a runny caramel spread apparently eaten at any hour and with anything. Hernan spread it so thickly on his toast that those that care for him would be well advised to seek him out and tell him how they feel as soon as possible.

We continued across the desert. And this was genuine desert, the road cutting through rocky valleys surrounded by craggy mountains without a single piece of vegetation visible. At one stage we drove through a slim canyon (shallow, but with vertical walls) and Hernan accurately likened it to the landscape of Tattooine in the first Star Wars movie. Mel saw a viscacha (a rodent a bit like a possum) but we couldn´t see what it could possibly be living on; perhaps it was a recent plant for the benefit of tourists. Miguel drove fast and Mel asked me what the speedo said; I looked but it was broken, stuck forever on zero. Perfect.

We crossed another, lamer salt flat and stopped for lunch at a shallow salty lake populated by flamingoes. Again, the guide book had said there would be flamingoes, we´d seen photos*, but I hadn´t really believed it and was a little shocked to see them gracefully walking around feeding, brightly pink and beautiful. We dined while Miguel split a tyre rim and changed the tube, it was a tough three days for him.

The afternoon consisted of a long drive across more and more desert. Christ it was desolate. The afternoon´s highlight was an Andean fox approaching the car out of nowhere. We gave it a little bread but it was otherwise soon going to have to eat the viscacha seen earlier or it was stuffed. It was cute, someone** said "I want one". The empty, rocky, unfriendly mountains stood over us, sometimes emitting small tufts of smoke from their unstable insides. We stayed in a similar hostel to the previous night, next to a lake with waters stained red by algae and full of flamingoes. Vinicius shared his wine and continued to very openly discuss his previous three marriages and general inability to maintain a relationship for more than five years. He was a fireman, a "bombero", and so currently leads the coolest job title award, as well as coolest name.

The third day began very early, too early for Vinicius who had continued to entertain me with a panic attack during the night. Leslie was also very grumpy this morning. We drove through the desert in the half light and saw smoke rising above a hill. When we crested it we saw that it was steam, and this was a small region of significant thermal activity. Steam rose from the ground quickly or slowly depending upon the size of the hole it was released from and dark boiling fluid was visible in depressions in the earth. We warmed our hands in the steam before continuing to another lake where a man made pool caught natural warm water. It was freezing outside but Mel, Lesie and I stripped and climbed in, being labelled "crazy" by the Argentinians but believing the reverse (e.g. that they were crazy) to be true. The warm waters gave us an enormous filip.

Rather than spend two hours in the morning seeing new stuff, and then eight hours seeing nothing on the way back to Uyuni, after the two morning hours we were dropped at the Chilean border where we farewelled our group ( we were a little emotional and so were they, but not for the same reasons) and boarded another bus into Chile. The instant we crossed the border the rutted dirt road transformed into a sealed dual lane highway and numerous road signs and elaborate downhill emergency stop lanes appeared. Bolivia haven´t mentally recovered from losing their coast to Chile in the late 19th century and their roads haven´t recovered either. Only 47kms from the frontier we checked in to Hostal Sonchek, enjoying solar hot water and various other benefits of a developed economy. Beer-branded deck chairs for instance. There´s a cause for the Bolivian government.

* Why does "flamingoes" get an e but "photos" doesn´t?

** It was the author