The pre-Incan ruins of Tiwanaku, just 35 miles west of La Paz, host Bolivia's biggest celebrations in honor of the Aymara New Year. With a belief system rooted heavily in the natural world, the Aymara recognize the winter solstice (June 21st) as the true beginning of the year. We woke up early in the morning to take part in the fun.
I stirred to life as we passed through the satellite Aymara city of El Alto, perched perilously on a hill overlooking La Paz. But though my eyes had opened, I thought perhaps I was still dreaming. Bolivia's largest and most important city was sprawled out across the valley below us, beginning to light up as though preparing for our arrival, surrounded by mountains on all sides.
Most of our first month in Bolivia was spent in the gorgeous capital of Sucre, so our opinion of the country may change. We've seen a lot of the altiplano, the high plains of the Andes which stretch along the country's western extreme: Sucre, Potosí, Uyuni, La Paz. It's hard to believe how quickly our time is passing by... it will be interesting to see how our perception of the country changes in the next couple months.
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.
After surviving the morning blizzard in the mountains, we emerged intact onto the dusty plains south of Uyuni. This was the last portion of a long, three-day journey which had offered some of the most incredible nature I've ever been exposed to. Salt flats, semi-active volcanoes, deserts, lagoons, and more. But there was still a bit more to be astounded by.
The refuge for the second night of our Uyuni trip was located high up in the Andes. It was cold. Regardless of my sleeping bag and fourteen layers of clothes, I laid awake half the night shivering and listening to the pattering sound of something against the roof. "Hail", I thought aloud. "Sand", came a voice from the other bed. Jürgen apparently wasn't sleeping either. We were both wrong: it was snow
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.
On the second morning of our trip from Uyuni, we awoke with sore backs and cold toes after having spent the night in a salt hotel. The place was built entirely from the stuff: salt tables, salt floors, salt walls. Instead of sleeping, I spent the night licking my bed. But we loaded our tired bodies dutifully into the jeep and, within no time, had reached the desert of Chiguana. Shrubs, sand and the occasional llama were our only companions as we cut southwest through one of Bolivia's most underdeveloped corners.
A geological marvel, the Salar de Uyuni is one of the most perfectly flat areas on earth. There aren't hills, bumps, shadows, vegetation or depressions of any sort, and given the lack of visual reference points in such an immense area, one's sense of perspective is bound to become skewed.
The Salar de Uyuni is the most bizarre landscape I've ever stepped foot on, wresting the title away from South Dakota's Badlands, which I visited when I was nine. (That's a long run, Badlands, nothing to hang your head about!) Absolutely level as far as the eye can see, the salt flat becomes one of the world's largest mirrors when covered with water, and serves as an important orientation point from space. But we were visiting during winter, when the ground is cracked and dry.
