During our three-day tour of the Salt Flats and southwestern Bolivia, our guide Faustino subjected us to a steady diet of traditional Bolivian music. The best album, and one he played on repeat almost continuously, was from a band called K’ala Marka.
K’ala Marka are one of Bolivia’s most popular traditional bands. The name means “City of Stone” in Aymara. Hugo Gutiérrez y Rodolfo Choque joined forces in La Paz in 1984, and have been exploring and pushing the boundaries of traditional music ever since. Using mountain rhythms and instruments like the pan flute, their sound has been evolved from the very traditional to more experimental, and earned them success all over Latin America and Europe.
As you can see from the video above, this was the perfect soundtrack for a drive through the Andes. And we definitely had it better than the poor elderly German woman that had wound up in a jeep full of 19-year-old British kids, who insisted on blasting Coldplay at full volume during the entire three days. Every time we saw her, she had a shell-shocked expression on her face somewhere between desperation and rage.
Check out one of our favorite songs from K’ala Marka… Cuando Floresca el Chuño. And if you enjoy it, pick up one of their albums!
Soon after entering the Eduardo Abaroa Andean National Reserve, we arrived at the Laguna Colorada. With water that shifts spectacularly between deep blue and dark red, the reason for its name is immediately apparent. Home to bright pink flamingos, the lagoon is bordered with yellow rings of sulfur and highlighted with mounds of pure-white borax, which jut into the water like tiny glaciers and are slowly disappearing. With the gray, snow-capped peaks of the Andes serving as a backdrop, the Laguna Colorada looks like one of Bob Ross’s fever dreams.
We arrived here towards the end of the second day of our trip. It was windy and bitterly cold, and I wondered aloud why the flamingos wouldn’t migrate to a warmer spot for winter. Our guide Faustino said that, actually, they do. In the summer, the lagoon is packed with flamingos. Those few which remained, the ones we were taking pictures of, were the geezers who no longer possessed the strength to make the journey.
During the final day of our trip, southern Bolivia was hit by a major snowstorm. On our way back towards Uyuni, we drove past the Laguna Colorada again, and had the chance to see it in a completely different light. In a landscape almost completely blanketed with snow, the lagoon glowed red, and even reflected its color off the clouds. In a manic haste to get the picture, Jürgen nearly leaped from the jeep while it was still moving.
I’d have never guessed that one of my favorite parts of this trip would be a colorful lake with pretty pink birdies. But there you have it.
We're Jürgen and Mike, from Germany and the USA. Born wanderers, we love traveling and learning about new cultures, so we've decided to see the world... slowly. Always being tourists would get lame, but eternal newcomers? We can live with that. So, our plan is to move to an interesting new city, once every three months. About 91 days.
