SOUTH AMERICA – PART 3

Bolivia is a large land-locked country bordered by Colombia, Peru, Brazil, and Chile, and it has a population estimated at 12 million. It is about the size of Ontario, and one-third of the country lies within the high Andean plateau. Bolivia is a developing country, the second poorest in South America. Its economy is based on agriculture, forestry, mining, and goods such as textiles and clothing, refined metals, and petroleum. Bolivian mines produce tin, silver, wolfram, borax, lithium, and copper.

Bolivia’s Gross Domestic Product per capita is about $4,000, half of Colombia’s. The contrast between the two countries is striking: infrastructure is very basic, women line the sidewalks selling basic goods and junk food, the public education system is poor and, although health care is public, it is poorly developed and delivered.

To an uninformed outsider like me, Bolivia appears on the verge of economic and political collapse. In La Paz and on our way to Uyuni, we passed endless lines of trucks waiting to buy fuel. Dozens of the trucks waiting in line were petroleum tankers needing fuel to pick up their loads. The bus driver for the first day of our Intrepid  tour waited six hours to fill his tank with diesel.

Bolivia’s central reserves are dangerously low, meaning essentially that the country is on the verge of bankruptcy. The surest sign of this is that everyone wants $US and they’re willing to pay a premium above the official rate to get them. Loss of confidence in a country’s currency is the first sure sign of an economic crisis in the making. Although things were quiet when we visited, there have been massive demonstrations in La Paz and, in some parts of the country, protesters are blocking the main roads. The place is ripe for revolution.

It took us eight hours by bus to get from La Paz to Uyuni, 540 kilometers. Along the way, we saw crushing poverty: dogs eating garbage left on the side of the road; mud brick houses with no electricity; and farm fields parched from lack of rain. Uyuni, population 30,000, is the main transportation hub for the movement of goods between La Paz and Potosi in Bolivia, and across the Chilean and Argentinian borders. But its main claim to fame is as the gateway to the Uyuni Salt Flats. Each year, 60,000 or so visitors from around the world come to experience them, and that’s why we were here. The photos below show mud brick structures at one of our rest stops and a herd of domesticated llamas.

The next morning, we were up bright and early to drive to the Uyuni Salt Flats. But first, we stopped at the train museum, a rather decrepit collection of locomotives and coal cars from the steam era. Still, it was fun climbing onto a couple of the old girls, which of course I did. I counted 49 Toyota Land Cruisers in the parking lot, tourists all headed for the same place we were.

The vastness of Uyuni Salt Flats is hard to describe, let alone imagine. They cover 12,000 square kilometers, an area twice the size of Prince Edward Island and are of the purest white. The salt is several meters thick and is underlain by a brine rich in lithium, a very valuable mineral used in the production of batteries. There is talk of exploitation elsewhere but Bolivia will insist on local processing before it allows foreign interests to invest.

We drove about 200 kilometers during the day, stopping at the former salt hotel (of course made of salt), and at a rock outcrop called Incahuasi. We climbed to the top past massive giant cacti and got a 360-view of the flats below.

That evening, we slept at a “hotel” in the very small community of San Juan. While a few brave souls make a living growing quinoa, I suspect the hotel is a major employer since there were 30 guests the night we were there.

On Day 3 of our excursion in the wilds of southwest Bolivia, we drove across another salt flat, this one brown in colour, and our 25-year-old Toyota suffered a major breakdown. We watched in amazement as our driver and the two others who were travelling with us dismantled a major engine system and got her going again in jig time.

The highlight of the day was seeing flamingos in several locations, feasting on shrimp growing in waters that few organisms can live in. The water must be very salty but the birds were thriving. We saw three species in the same lagoon: Andean, Chilean, and Lesser, plus some ducks and seagulls. The scenery on this day was spectacular as we drove across dirt tracks mostly, our driver skilled enough to navigate the Paris-Dakar Rally if given the chance. He seemed to know every rut and pothole. The photo below shows where we crossed the railway tracks. Do you see the road? That’s because there isn’t one.

I can usually use Google Maps to retrace a route we’ve done on a given day, but Days 3 and 4 are impossible to find because the “roads” we drove on are not marked. We stayed our second night in a hostel in the tiny hamlet of Huayllajara, population 100. Next morning, I got up bright and early and took a picture of the local grocery store at sunrise. I wasn’t feeling very well so decided to go for my morning constitutional to get things moving, as it were. Shit happens they say. The highlight of the day for me was a dry fart!

Day 4 took us south along the border with Chile to the extreme southwest corner of Bolivia where we saw geysers and fumaroles in an area of volcanic activity. Geothermal energy is in its infancy here but at least the country is getting a start.

After a relaxing dip in a hot spring, we began the long drive back to Uyuni, again over dirt tracks. We made a few stops along the way, including this one at an interesting rock formation. If this were in North America or Europe, it would be a major tourist attraction, but we had the place to ourselves. Our guide told us that we drove 1,000 km during our three-day Uyuni excursion. No more than 50 of that would have been on paved highways and maybe 300 or maintained gravel roads; the rest was off-road. 

Our group of twelve, six Aussies, four Swiss, and us, are all seasoned travellers and range in age from early 30s to early 70s (that’s us!). Half of the group had hiked the Inca Trail before flying to La Paz, so they were accustomed to the altitude. Altitude sickness is not pleasant: headache, dizziness, shortness of breath, upset stomach, and dry mouth and nose. The sun in the Bolivian desert is intense. The three-day journey from Uyuni to southwest Bolivia requires one to be in good health and ready for many inconveniences. 

We’re glad we did it, but we also realize that we’re nearing the end of difficult journeys like these. Our guide, Wendy, takes very good care of us, testing our blood oxygen level twice a day to make sure we’re safe and checking regularly to see that we’re OK. A reading below 80% means your body can’t get enough oxygen to keep your organs and muscles functioning and, for an Intrepid traveller, it means you’re leaving the tour. A couple came close, but we all managed to hang in there.

Day 5 began with a four-hour ride on a public bus from Uyuni to Potosí, a city of 850,000 that was founded by the Spanish in the 16^th century to mine silver. It was one of the largest and richest cities in the world in its heyday. Our guide, Wendy, led us on a walking tour of the historic center, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its colonial era buildings. We had lunch at a beautiful café overlooking a city square and had dinner together at a fine local restaurant. 

On Day 6, we pulled up stakes again, this time on a four-hour bus ride to Sucre where we will spend the next couple of days before ending our tour in La Paz on Saturday.