A quick catch-up here is that once we got off the beautiful Laguna Route in southern Bolivia, we headed to the town of Uyuni, home of the world’s largest continuous salt flat. It’s the stuff that kept us motivated when we were building this truck- those endless expanses of white and a milestone of a place to get to. It felt so good to be there. Except….. arriving in the town late in the day, with Ivan’s van exhaust acting up, we felt anxious and then the town is not a looker at first blush. It is sometimes hard to imagine how one could make a town look so unattractive but so many places in the world have mastered it. The dry climate doesn’t help as the dust covers everything.
Ivan didn’t have any luck with a mechanic there so we just went to camp for the night in the old Train Station. There was once a factory in Uyuni that manufactured train cars and there is now a long line of historical derelicts that you can park up next to making for an original campspot. It was outside the town a little and peaceful actually with little chirping birds to keep us company.
The following day we walked the town, got a mediocre lunch, organized a private car tour of the salt flats as Ivan wasn’t going to be able to drive his van and then we got fuel. Getting fuel in Bolivia isn’t easy if you’re an outsider. Because fuel is subsidized, there is often no system for selling to a foreigner. Couple that with economic issues where the government doesn’t buy enough fuel, and you have a stressful time at the pump. It’s like a secret gig and it is awkward. Thankfully in Uyuni, they know travelers are constantly passing through and there’s a station that would fill us up amid some whispering of what the price will be and some dirty looks from the waiting trucks in line. We pay 3 times the price but at least we could get it.
We had a full day tour of the salar with Julio. It wasn’t the greatest feeling to be on a tour but we were together and that was what was important for this milestone. I’d never realized that the salar was an old sea with so many islands so when you’re out there, you can walk all around the perimeter and up high onto these cactus covered islands for a better view. Perspective pictures are the thing and we got a few. There’s also an old historic hotel made of salt that you can walk around in and picture what it would have been like to stay in.
Then the following day, we accompanied Ivan back across the border to Chile to lower elevation in Calama and it took all day to get there. None of us wanted him to break down and not have help right there and we remember all the times he and also Sandie & Karsten stepped in to help us with repairs. It’s what friends do for friends. We took a day to regroup and Jon went about replacing our heater because it has crapped out at the high elevation. It’s good to have a spare. Then we spent a night together by a volcano.
As soon as we got to lower elevation, Ivan’s van’s DPF cleaned itself and he was good to go, but not up. We meanwhile wanted to do a little more of Bolivia so we turned right around and drove back up toward the salar. At the border, we encountered a lady officer who immediately told us our truck was too big to enter the country. The only reason this didn’t surprise me is that I had just re-read our friends Neil & Pat’s blog on Bolivia and they have the same size truck we do and had the same experience. So I calmly explained we had just been in Bolivia 2 days prior and it wasn’t a problem then! And after about an hour we were back in.
We entered the salt flats from the far western end and got onto the white just as the sun was setting after an entire day of driving. It was really wild to be whizzing along a smooth sea of white rushing to get to Isla Incahuasi, the same island we’d come to on the tour except no one was there now because it was late. We tucked behind the island in a cove and set the parking brake just like sailing into an anchorage. That’s the first time we’d felt that in the truck ever. The next morning we moved 20 km further to a quiet island with virtually no visitors called Isla Pescado and it was there that we celebrated Jon’s birthday. It was a beautiful day, we walked and hiked more than 10 miles, I made him a birthday cake, we popped champagne, made pizza together and didn’t see another person for 24 hours. It was the kind of peace we needed. It was great to watch the various color changes as the light faded and sit in our chairs on that carpet of white.
We took a run around the perimeter and then hiked to the top again too because it was so pretty. Nearing the top of the island you can clearly see the line of coral heads from when this was a sea. Crazy! It took like 1 1/2 hours to drive across the salar the next day headed toward Uyuni. We stopped to give the truck a wash for any salt accumulation which is big business as everyone needs it. We refueled again under whispers and motions to cut the line and then headed back to the trains for the night.
The next day we were off driving to Potosi, an old mining town with a bit of history. Cerro Rico mountain is full of silver and the Spanish enslaved the locals to extract the riches and send them back to Europe. Once they left, the Bolivian government ran the mines for years and then eventually as the pickings got harder and harder to mine, it was turned over as a cooperative for the locals of Potosi. You can take a gritty tour of the mine and get the true inside scoop on what it is like to mine the old fashioned way where there are no rules and the conditions are poor. We wore masks to protect from the dust and then (speaking for myself), controlled the claustrophobic feelings of being so far underground trying to learn what this town thrives on.
The miners work long days, most days and when working, they only tuck coca leaves into their lip for energy, drink nearly pure alcohol and eat little bricks of chocolate. They are very superstitious, so they adorn the mine shaft entrance with coca leaves before entering, they give gifts to a statue of the devil with a very large penis to help protect them from dying in a mining accident and they make offerings of llama blood for the same good luck. We climbed up and down shafts with our guide, sat by the devil statue, witnessed the hard work of the guys that push the full carts of ore out of the mine and tramped through dark, muddy, creepy tunnels. It was a really good tour, unusual and we learned a lot but I sure was glad to see the sun again!
The following day, we headed to La Paz. I still have to write about that.
