Salar Saga-Part 4

Hi everyone!

Here is the long awaited final chapter of my trip to Salar de Uyuni!

Sunday, July 4th:

We were originally going to get our wake up call at 7:00 am, but because we'd been slow the previous morning Carmelo told us he'd wake us up at 6:45 am instead.

Our first stop was the arbol de piedra (tree of rock). We were in the dessert and we pulled up to several huge rocks randomly chillin' in the sand. They had all been shaped by years of wind erosion and had odd forms. The arbol de piedra stands tall and is wider at the top than at the bottom. I'm fairly certain that these rocks, as with the rocks we'd seen in the Dalí Desert the previous day, are petrified lava.

If you can't read that sign below the tree rock from here, this is what it says:

"NO CLIMBINS MAI FALL" which I believe means "No climbing, may fall"

We spent the rest of the day visiting the 5 lagos pequeños (5 little lakes) which were more beautifully colored natural chemical lakes. This day we saw a higher number of tour jeeps at each of our stops than either of the previous two days on the tour. We stopped at the last lake to walk around and then eat lunch. If you recall, earlier on the tour we'd scared off the few flamingos we'd seen, but at this lake we were fortunate enough to see tons! Carmelo told us it is rare for so many flamingos to be at this last lake.

Oh, at some point during the day we took this awesome picture of Carmelo and Olga!

Most of the day on Sunday was spent driving. Although the weather outside was cold, the sun was so strong that during mid-day on this tour while we were in the car we were all burning up. I would strip down to a t-shirt and put sun screen on my arms because I could feel how strong the sun shone through the window. Needless to say we were very relieved when we arrived at the "Salt Hotel" around 4pm. The salt hotel had hot showers (8 min of hot water per person at 10 bolivianos). Since Carmelo loves getting everywhere before all of the other groups, we were able to get the first showers of the evening! The shower was amazing, and after we cleaned up we had some tea and crackers from Olga. Across from us sat the French men and we spent a while chatting with them as they waited for their tea and crackers. There were many more tour groups at the salt hotel than had been at either one of our previous abodes. I think this is because you can start at Uyuni (where our tour ended) to see just the salt flats, then go right back to Uyuni as a sort of one night trip. The Salt Hotel was a lot of fun and as fate would have it, there was a stuffed Flamingo fixed to the ceiling right above our table. After all, we were the flamingos! Flacas y fuertas.

These 2 pictures below are of the salt hotel. Everything in the salt hotel is made of salt. Our beds were on platforms of salt bricks, the walls were made of bricks of salt, and even the floors were salt gravel. The stuff between the bricks of salt on the wall keeping everything together is made of salt. The hanging things from the ceiling are also made of salt. The chairs to the tables made of salt are also made of salt. You get the idea.

Yes. That is a stuffed flamingo above my head.

We went to bed around 9:30 pm because we'd be getting up 5:30 am to leave to see the sunrise at the salt flats. Carmelo told us the salt hotel would be so warm that we wouldn't even need our sleeping bags. That was a ton of B.S. but it was definitely our most comfortable night on the tour because we were clean, we were at less than 4,000 meters, and we didn't need to sleep in hats.

Sunday:

At this point in the tour Nina was feeling pretty ill. The mood in the car at 6:00 am on the way to see the sunrise was what you would expect from 4 exhausted and chilled girls. At one point Carmelo turned off his lights and started zig-zagging across the salt. It was pitch black out, and while I saw that the mountains were far away, it still didn't seem like the best idea and we weren't really in the mood. Nina got him to turn his headlights back on, despite his argument that it was more "fantastico" with them off. We stopped to see bricks of salt being cut and Carmelo and Olga put about 5 very large bricks of salt into the back of the Land Cruiser. (Still don't know why). It was freezing and thus I wasn't too thrilled about seeing the salt bricks. A short while later we stopped and waited for the sunrise. Claire and Laura got out to wait for it, and I joined them as soon as I felt prepared to face the cold. The sunrise was beautiful, it was more than worth standing out in the cold. It's impossible to explain in words how amazing this sunrise was, so I'll try to use both words and pictures.

Imagine you're in a field of fresh snow that you can see for miles around you anywhere you look. On your right and left off into the distance are small mountain ranges. Also to your left and right are a few other jeeps with other Gringos standing in front of them waiting for the sun. These jeeps are so far away that the people look like ants, and in this way they don't ruin your view. In front of you might as well be the end of the earth because all you see is snow. Ok, now replace the snow with salt crystals and you've got it! Here are a few pictures. (If you have the Circle of Life Lion King song available for retrieval in your head, please play it from memory now).

After we saw the sunrise we got in the car and visited the Isla del Pescado (Island of Fish). It's called an island because it's an island of land in the middle of the salt. I don't know why the fish get to be included in the title. This island was covered with cacti and we were instructed to walk around it while Olga prepared breakfast. Now, let me back up. This was the only morning on the tour in which we weren't given any breakfast or food of any kind before we left for the day. I don't know how many of you have seen me when I haven't eaten soon after I've gotten up, but if you have, think of that time now. Basically, we'd been awake for a few hours at this point, and we were now being asked to hike up and around this steep island as the sun was getting higher in the sky, with no food in our stomachs. Nina was sick and I was...me with no food in my stomach.. and the other two girls were hungry as well, so we took a shortcut and hiked back down as fast as we could to get to breakfast. Olga obviously hadn't been expecting us back so soon, but she quickly finished setting up breakfast and we ate next to the French guys again. At this point we realized that the French guys' tour guide was playing match-maker and was strategically planning to bump into us as often as possible.

After we ate we went to the bathroom and ran into our "yale" friends (the two Americans, the British girl, and the Belgian guy in the jeep with a yale sticker). They told us they were able to get ahold of one firework and had lit it the previous night at their salt hotel (different from ours, Carmelo told us our salt hotel was the best) to celebrate the 4th of July. We had tried to celebrate but at our hotel we were the only Americans. We soon left the island and spent the next half an hour taking those awesome pictures you've all seen on my facebook. Those are optical illusion pictures that are only possible because there is no point of reference in the middle of the salt flats, only even ground for as far as the eye can see.

At lunch time we arrived at our last stop. This stop was a very small town just outside the salt that seemed to function only to sell artesenia objects for tourists. This was the most crowded place on the entire tour. I don't know where all these tour groups came from but it was quite funny to see. As we ate lunch we asked a group of nice looking americans about tipping our driver and our cook, and they told us they were splitting a 10% tip between their guide and cook. We were glad we'd asked because that was way more than what we'd been planning to give them. We weren't even sure if we should tip at all because we didn't know if it was customary.

These are all the Land Cruisers parked along this road lined with artesenia objects that basically made up this town.

After eating lunch and then being dropped off at a cheap hotel across from the train station in Uyuni, we said goodbye to Carmelo and Olga, and they drove back south to Tupiza, which in a straight shot only takes 6 hours. As we walked towards the hotel a group of Israeli travelers stopped us to ask if we had just finished a Salar tour. We said yes, and a man in his 20's asked us how much it cost to see the flamingos. We looked at each other and told him the flamingos aren't paid for but you do have to pay to get into the nature park. He then asked how many flamingos we saw. At this point I felt it my duty to explain to him that we saw a few flamingos, yes, but if that's all he wanted to see then he really shouldn't go on a 4 day tour. We quickly explained what the other 98% of our trip included and they looked alarmed and sighed and thanked us.

Our train didn't leave until 1:30 am, so we booked a room for four at that hotel so we could have a place to put our bags and nap (25 Bs a person per night!). Outside of our room's door there was a very large second floor hallway that functioned as a balcony since the hotel was roofless. Inside our room was freezing, so we decided to relocate to this balcony to rest. In a matter of minutes, our "yale" friends showed up and dropped their things off in the two rooms next to ours! A half an hour later, one of the men from the American group who gave us tipping advice showed up, having had rented a room for the night, and joined our circle. After a couple hours of chatting and trading advice/suggestions for traveling around South America, we split up to go find somewhere to eat. We ended up at this Pizza place "Minutemen Pizza" recommended by the Lonely Planet book. It's owned by an American who lives in Boston. Of all places to open a pizza place, I'm not sure what possessed this man (who still lives in Boston) to choose Uyuni, Bolivia. However, I'm glad he did because this was by far the best meal I'd had in Bolivia thus far. The cheese in Bolivia is sub-par at best, but this restaurant actually imports cheeses from abroad. Not long after we ordered our pizza the French guys came into the restaurant and took the table next to us. They'd seen the recommendation in the Lonely Planet book as well! By the way, this restaurant was so green they didn't allow you to take glass or plastic bottles out of the restaurant because they use them to serve lemonade and other drinks in. It surpassed any "green" restaurant I've seen in the states, and is, up til now, the only attempt at being green I've seen in Bolivia. After we ate our pizza we ordered some tea. At this point the American who gave us tipping advice and is staying in our hotel walked in and got a table. Not long after that the "yale" group walked in and ordered food. Do you remember the hipster and wannabe british hipsters we'd seen along our tour? They both showed up too! Apparently everyone reads Lonely Planet Bolivia, and they all follow it. The French guys told us they were off to Lake Titicaca in a couple of weeks, and as a matter of fact, Claire and I are planning to go this weekend! We told them we might see them there, and one of them said; "just follow the book and you'll be sure to find us! Live by the book!"

Monday:

We took a nap at 9:00 pm and set our alarms for 12:45 am. When we got up Claire was feeling feverish and awful, and Nina was still under the weather. We helped Claire carry her things, and we got everyone onto the train to Oruro with the tickets that the tour company had helped us to get a few days previously. We spent the next several hours sleeping and got off the train (after watching more Just for Laughs skits as we had on the way up) at 8:50 am. At this point we were all ready to be home so we grabbed the very first bus to Cochabamba.

When we got on the bus at 9:40 am (scheduled to depart at 10:00 am), a man walked down the aisle and told Laura that she needed to put her bag (which was sitting on her seat at this point) up above her head in the space provided, not below her seat. Now, I'm not saying much for Bolivian uniforms, but this guy did not look like he worked on this bus, or any bus. He looked filthy and I could see that his eyes were bloodshot. He walked back towards the front of the bus and we all decided to ignore him and do with our bags what we wanted. Especially because we'd all been on Bolivian buses before and at no point has anyone told us we couldn't put something below our seat. A couple of minutes later, as we debated going back into the terminal to use the bathroom, the man returned. He was carrying a can of coins and he deliberately bumped into Laura (who was standing in between her seat and the seat in front of her while her bag rested on her seat). As he bumped into her he dropped his coins and asked Laura to pick them up for him. She, being an intelligent girl, declined, and this guy and his buddy started haphazardly bumping into her, picking up her change, all the while trying to thrust their hands into her backpack. Claire (sitting next to her) reached over and put her hand on the backpack, and Laura stood her ground. The two men finally left after picking up all of their change, without successfully taking anything from her bag. The whole act was really shoddily put together and it was entirely obvious what they were doing, but it still outraged us that A) this happened and no one around us did anything, B) they targeted us, the whitest people on the bus and no one else, and C) that he put his hands on her side to try to fluster her into letting go of her bag. I mean, stuff like this happens in Bolivia and everywhere in the world, and I realize we were lucky that we still had enough wits about us to shake these losers off. I just can't help being disappointed and frustrated. Laura and I left to run to the bathroom while Claire and Nina hugged all of our possessions with steel grips. As we got off the bus I recognized the bloodshot-eye guy standing by the drivers seat about to get off the bus, so I gave him an extra hard shove as I squeezed past (it was a crowded aisle and everyone was shoving to get to their seats so it wasn't completely out of nowhere). He and his buddy weren't on the bus when we left the terminal. They were just lucky that I didn't grab the mace that was in my duffel bag under my seat.

Are you wondering what movie we watched on the bus? If you've been reading my blog you should assume that it involved lots of car crashes or bus accidents. You're right! We watched the Book of Eli which included several car crashes and car bombs. On our ride back to Cocha we saw a semi overturned on the side of the road.

4 and a half hours later I was walking back into my house in Cochabamba. I was tired, sweaty, and ready for a nap. As I walked through our living room, I noticed that Steph (my housemate) was sitting next to a guy.

That guy was none other than: the Idiot. From the La Paz trip. Remember him? This is the Brazilian med student who professed his love to me and then forgot my name. I walked right past him, turned around to be sure of what I'd just seen, and went straight to my room. Apparently he'd been here for a few days already, living in another volunteer house in an empty bed, trying to sort out some visa stuff in Cochabamba. Steph was visibly unhappy to be sitting in the same room as him, which I was surprised to see because she wasn't in La Paz with us to witness his idiocy. I asked her what was up and she said that Idiot was refusing to speak Spanish, only Portuguese. They were watching a world cup game and he would make frequent comments, only in Portuguese. Idiot showed up at my house for a few hours every day to watch the world cup or for various other reasons every day until this past Sunday, when he left for good. Or so I thought. Somebody rang the bell here late last night, and I swear it was him talking to Sarah at the front door. So- I'm still not sure if he's really back in La Paz. I will happily report that for his week here, he seemed less and less interested in me. He did start to refer to me as Hillary Clinton which is a surprisingly common occurrence here.

I'll update soon with a condensed version of what I've been up to for the past week!

Love always,

Hillary