Salar Saga-Part 3

And the Salar saga continues:

We woke up Saturday morning at 5:00 am to Carmelo knocking on our door; "Chicas!!" We needed to pack up our stuff so Carmelo could secure it to the top of the jeep, then drink the tea and eat the crackers Olga had put out, and be in the car by 6:00 am. We were just congratulating ourselves on how fast we were getting our things together, when Carmelo came in and told us to hurry up. We got in the car and left at 6:02. It was still very dark outside, and the jeep was driving over rushing streams, frozen rivers, and paths covered in large rocks that could hardly be called roads. Eventually we approached some ruins that our driver told us used to be populated by 6,000 people back when the Spanish arrived in South America. These ruins are haunted. As legend goes, the people who lived there back in the day were not very faithful. A woman got pregnant and after 9 months she didn't give birth. Somehow the devil showed up and a man proposed a bet in order to get the devil to leave. The devil won the bet and the woman's belly exploded with 3 devil babies. A bible turned to stone and everyone in the city eventually left. The last person holding out in the ruins left in 1991.

These odd circles of grass were everywhere we went for the first half of the day.

This is a skull that was perched on top of a wall. It might be a llama skull.

There were several abandoned lone shoes sitting around the ruins that looked very old and kind of creepy.

At this point on the journey the last time we'd showered was Thursday night. That's only two days, but we'd been wearing tons of layers at night, then sweating in a tank top in the car during the day, and constantly putting on hats and taking them off. Our hair was not doing too well. Three of us decided to put in french braids while in the car. I did Nina's braids, and let me tell you, this was extreme french braiding.

The terrain we were driving over made for a very bumpy ride and focusing on french braiding made me car sick. Nina offered me some chewy ginger candy that is supposed to help, but it tasted gross (to me) and it made it worse. Just when I was about to ask if we could stop for a second to get some fresh air, we passed by a group of Bolivians whose tire was flat. We stopped, used the baño natural while Carmelo gave them our spare, and had enough time out in the fresh air to mostly settle my stomach. After that we stopped at several small lakes called the 5 little lakes and met up with the Yale car several times.

Throughout the entire tour Carmelo referred to us as flamingos. On day 1 he told us that to do well on this tour all we had to do was to be flamingos: flaca y fuerte (skinny and strong). On Saturday we were told we'd be able to see flamingos at one of the 5 small lakes we'd be visiting that day. We approached this lake and parked on the top of a small hill. We climbed down quietly and saw a few flamingos a short ways away. We approached cautiously so as not to scare them off. Just as we got almost close enough to take a picture, they all flew off. A second later the Yale jeep joined us again. They asked if we'd seen any flamingos and we told them that they flew away, but didn't mention why. Together we climbed up the hill to our respective cars and several of us had to take a break halfway up in order to catch our breath. This hill was so shallow it wouldn't even make a decent sledding hill, but the altitude made it feel like we were climbing Mt. Everest. The english girl lamented: "normally I'm quite fit!" It was funny watching our tour guides laugh at us.

At 12:30 pm we pulled into a hot springs pool. There were about 6 other jeeps there already that had brought other Gringos also on Salar tours. The plan was to change into swimsuits, get into the natural hot mineral pool, then get out and Olga would have lunch ready by then. The hot springs pool was accompanied by a building that held tables and chairs for tour groups to sit and eat. In the back there was a kitchen for all the tour cooks to put together their meals. As I think I mentioned in the first part of this story, I didn't know anything about this tour when I decided to go. I didn't know how much it would cost, I didn't know about the jeep tour, and I didn't know about the hot springs pool. I had to wear my least underwear-looking underwear and a slightly too large sports bra that I borrowed from one of the girls. I almost didn't get in because I was a bit embarrassed and because the air was freezing. But I did it anyway and it ended up being one of the coolest things I have ever done. Imagine a pool about 2.5 feet high and 15-20 feet wide in which there are about 25 people all in swimsuits and knit hats. The bottom of the pool was tiny pebbles and I did my best to give myself a little exfoliating pedicure on the bottom of the pool. It was as hot as a hot tub, so much so that after 15 minutes I felt like I needed to get out. It was awesome. We got out and didn't feel the cold at first because we were so warm. Those 30 seconds gave us enough time to grab our clothes and towels. We went behind the changing shed which was locked and quickly dried off and changed into dry clothes. All around us there were Gringos (totally European except for us) getting out of the pool changing underneath towels, or standing in boxers and long sleeved base layer shirts slowly adding more layers. The pool made us all feel a bit cleaner and we went in at 1:00 pm to eat lunch beside the other Gringos eating their food prepared by their cooks. We surveyed everyone else's food and it seemed similar to ours. We ate llama meat wrapped around a boiled egg, potatoes, macaroni without cheese, beets, green bell peppers, tomatoes, and papaya. We asked Carmelo how it was possible that Olga cooked all of this in under half an hour, and he said she got up at 2:00 am to prepare all of the food for the day.

After the hot pool we visited laguna blanca and laguna verde. All of the lakes we saw on this tour were natural chemical lakes. Most of them contained borax, a couple contained arsenic (around which there was no animal life), there were other chemicals but the spanish names for them went over my head.

We stopped at the Desert de Dalí, a dessert that looks just like a desert Salvador Dalí painted. Apparently he had never been to this region, but because of the similarities, it gained his name. The desert has lots of large rocks strewn about randomly amongst the desert sand. These rocks are petrified lava that came from a nearby volcano thousands of years ago. In the afternoon we also passed by the Andes and the Chilean and Argentine border. Carmelo told us that the mountains that border with Chile contain land mines placed by the Chilean government to keep people from sneaking across.

Our last stop of the day was to see the geysers at 5,000 meters. At one geyser we saw a pool of water that was boiling violently. We asked how hot they get and Carmelo said they are all constantly at 800 degrees celsius.

Around 4:30 pm we arrived at the place where we would be spending the night. It was a slight upgrade from the night before in that we didn't have to go outside to get to our food or to the bathroom. When we pulled in we caught a glimpse of the French guys we'd met on day 1, but we didn't end up sleeping in that area of the "hostel" so we didn't see them again that night. This was the coldest night of the tour. It was also at the highest altitude. It got so bad while we slept that when you tried to turn over in your sleeping bag your pulse starts racing and you start to panic because it doesn't feel like you are getting enough air.

Stay tuned next time for the Salar Saga- Part 4!

Love,

Hillary