Friday, Sept. 09, 2005
Trains, Planes, and Flotas...Travels in Bolivia Part 1
Now it is finally time to talk about my trip.
August 16
I repack my duffel bag for what it literally the 8th time. I have to make sure that it has everything I need without being to big or heavy since I had no intention of checking it. When I get home from work, I get a call from Morgan telling me that her brother, A, who I�m supposed to meet at the departure gate, was not on his way to Miami because his flight from Atlanta was delayed for bad whether. That kinda sucked because I had only met A once before, and I was looking forward to getting to know him a bit before we arrived.
Al (and his new girlfriend, wearing a tiny, tiny top � where�d she get those abs�damn!) picks me up and drops me off at Miami Int�l at 9:30. I spend over an hour in line because it seems that every person going to Bolivia checked anywhere from 5 to 8 pieces of luggage or boxes or whatever. We board the plane on time (shocker!), but then we have to sit at the gate for 2 hours past our scheduled take off, waiting for all the late connections. So A would have made it even if his first flight was delayed. We finally take off and my ass is already hurting from 2 hours of sitting and now I have 6.5 more hours to go.
August 17
I arrive in Santa Cruz Bolivia. They have 1 immigration officer working for a plane of 100+ people. Then I get randomly chosen for a customs check that involved the officer just looking inside my bag and asking me if I had anything illegal.
I see M and she jumps on me and we hug for a while then take a taxi to the hostel. The taxi driver keeps staring at me in the rear-view mirror then says in Spanish that he�s never actually seen �a real live black person before!� I laugh because the taxi-driver, as well as most of the people in Bolivia who stared at me, were shades darker than I am.
Let me take a moment out to talk about the driving. I thought Miami drivers were bad, but there is no comparison. Bolivian�s do not need driver�s licenses. I�m sure that there is some law that says they do, but none of the laws in Bolivia are enforced. They drive about 70-100 mph all the time. There are no stop or yield signs. There are stoplights, but those are just suggestions. Basically, Bolivian drivers race down the streets and as they approach an intersection they honk their horns; there is no slowing down. Whoever gets to the intersection first, gets to go through first and the loser has to slam on their breaks. There were several times during my stay when the car we were in were inches from another car.
Back to the main story. M and I hang out and catch up on what was missed in the year and a half since we last saw each other. In between that, we went to this German caf� that had the greatest beer ever (served in that fucking awesome glass that I wanted to steal) and I began my crush on Argentinean steak and Casillero del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon. Yum! Plus I was stared at wherever I went and called Negrita or Morena by the ones who wanted me to pay attention to them.
August 18
A arrives in Santa Cruz that morning and I begin to get ignored. I think it�s nice that M and her brother have a great relationship, but every question she asked, every time she wanted an opinion or a decision made she asked him and never bothered to ask me how I felt or what I wanted. And when she did, she never bothered to listen to the answer. And that�s what it was like for the rest of the trip. It made me feel like crap.
Anyway, that afternoon, we catch a plane to Sucre, 30 minutes away, and then immediately upon arrival, we catch a taxi to Potosi, 2.5 hours away, and the highest city in the at 4300m (or 14,108ft!). Again, more crazy driving, this time around the sides of mountains.
I eat more Argentinean steak (yum!) and try a local dish that was basically a layer of ground beef & gravy, on top of layer of French fries, on top of a rice (all there meals are layered like this; they just change the meat). Then halfway through dinner, A gets altitude sickness and we have to take him home. I�m surprised I didn�t get it as well, but I guess I was lucky.
That night, I don�t sleep very well because the bed is uncomfortable and it was -2 C (28.4 F). I have never been that fucking cold in my life. And that was NOT the coldest on this trip, just the first round.
August 19
The next morning is fucking cold. So cold, my toes start tingling painfully, and then I lose feeling. We bundle up and jump on a flota (an extremely small bus) and travel to Uyuni. This was 7 hours of bumpy, unpaved road, and nothing but dust to look at. Because the elevation is so high, nothing much grows in this area: no trees, no flowers, no bushes. Nothing green. Nothing living. But tons of rocks and boulders, many of them stacked. That night we get to the town, organize our trip for the next couple days, and I eat llama for the first time.
Llama is surprisingly good. It�s a red meat and it tastes like cow, except it�s a tad bit tougher. And, it�s apparently very healthy for you because it has no cholesterol and very little fat. I enjoyed it.
No sleep for me again.
August 20
We begin our 3-day tour of the Salar de Uyuni . It�s basically a caravan. M, A, and I along with 3 other strangers were crammed into a Land Cruiser where we spent most of our time.
The first stop was train cemetery. The boys went absolutely insane. I guess it brought them back to their childhood because they were running around and climbing up and over everything, and hanging off and all that stuff. I was worried that one of them might get tetanus because the entire place was more like a rust farm. But it was still pretty neat to look at. Then we drove off to the salt flats.
This place is incredible and huge (it�s that entire blue area; click on the link at the bottom to see a close-up). Looks like snow, tastes like salt. Salt as far as the eye can see. We stopped at a little town where the salt gets processed. They also had a museum where everything, including the museum itself, was made out of salt.
The Salar used to be a giant lake and because of geological processes, the lake is no more and only salt and old islands are left behind. The salt layers penetrate the earth as deep as 200 m (656ft). When it comes to the surface they collect it and practically give it away. They only use the salt domestically; they don�t export any of it even though it�s almost endless. And domestically, they only charge 12 cents per kilo, which is barely 1 Boliviano (the exchange rate there is 8Bs for $1)! We stopped at one of the used-to-be islands where there were old, giant cacti (some as old as 100 years) and coral and algae fossils. The inner geek in me was happy. At this point we are about 15,000ft above sea level, so you can only take a few steps at a time before you have to relax to catch your breath.
We left there and drove for an hour to small town of literally 25 people where we were to spend the night. The best part was that there was only light (electricity) from 7:00-9:00pm every night and after that you either use a candle or go to bed. It was freezing and windy, colder than the other night, and there were no hot showers (for the entire trip) so everyone slept in their clothes and took no showers (for 3 days). Again, no sleep. I couldn�t expend any energy on sleeping when I need it to regulate my body temp.
August 21
Day 2 of our Salar journey and we are taken to a semi-active volcano. The terrain looks like photos of Mars: all red and dusty and ridges and barren. Way cool. Plus, there were old lava flows all over the place that you could climb on.
Then we went to a sulfur lake that the Bolivians call �Lake Stinky� in Spanish. If you�ve never smelled sulfur before, in small amounts it smells like a rotten egg�.imagine an entire lake of rotten eggs and you�ll get the full beauty Lake Stinky. What was interesting, though, was that pink flamingoes live in that lake. I, the science dork, didn�t even know that flamingoes liked the cold: Bolivia has 3 species of flamingoes!
We had llama chops for lunch, then headed to some other lava rock formations including the �rbol de piedra (tree of rock for you non-espa�ol speakers). Apparently it�s world famous. Then we made our way to another hostel, only this one was in front of a giant red lake surrounded by white, powdery, borax, which from a distance looks like snow. They call it Laguna Colorado. We jumped and played on the Borax banks (smart, I know) until it got too cold. This was probably the coldest night. I felt like I had no fingers, toes, or nose. Again, there was limited light and little sleep.
August 22
This is the last day of the 3-day tour. We are all still in the same clothes (although I did manage to change my underwear once). At 6 am, we set out on an hour drive to live geysers, or as the Spanish speakers and the Europeans like to pronounce them, geezers. This place is extremely dangerous. There are holes blowing steam at any moment and mounds of bubbling sulphuric mud. But because Bolivians don�t care much for rules or laws, we could walk wherever we wanted. We knew we shouldn�t be getting as close as we did, but we couldn�t help it. I guess it would be a type of Darwinian selection because only the extremely stupid people would actually do something�..uh, stupid.
After visiting the old geezers, we next stopped at thermal, hot springs. Our last stop. All the crazy-ass Europeans stripped down to there swimsuits or underwear and ran from the cars to jump right on in. M and I declined. I was already freezing my ass off; I wasn�t about to take off my warm layers, get in the water that was more luke-warm than hot, as I had expected it to be, only to exit the water feel more cold (because as water evaporates off your skin, it leaves a cooling sensation, which is why we sweat � don�t mind me�.I know I�m a dork).
Then we dropped some of the Europeans off on the border with Chile and enjoyed a 7-hour ride back to Uyuni. We were lucky the entire 3 days that we had no car trouble. But our luck ran out. About 2 hours from the town, the car started making strange noises and then stopped. Our driver was able to get it up and running. Then, as soon as the town came into view, the car completely conked out�.right in front of the train graveyard. I guess the car knew where it wanted to be buried. Our 50-year-old driver then ran to town (about 5 miles) and brought a taxi back for us. We get to our hostel and GOOD LORD! There is heat! I was so excited. And there was hot water! I peeled off my outer 2 layers of sweaters and everything was all good. But as soon as I took the last 3 layers off, the stench hit me. I smelled FUNKY!! I have never smelled that bad in my life before. Plus, the funk didn�t come off with one good scrub. I had to scrub and rinse several times before I smelled fresh and clean.
And on that note, I will continue with part 2 at a later time.
summerroll at 4:53 p.m.