surrealism: defined

ok, i don´t know if, by definition, you can truly define surrealism, but if the word had a geographic area, it would be represented by southwest bolivia. in particular, the salar de uyuni and surrounding landscape. nothing was normal, nothing made sense, yet everything was perfect in its own incongruous way. it is, in una palabra, surreal.

i arrived in uyuni completely overwhelmed, as the town was infested with tour agencies (and, strangely, italian-pizza restaurants) all hawking the same-sounding 3 day, 2 night tour of the salt flats. true to form, i went with the guys who gave me a veggie discount and threw in a bottle of wine for the last meal.

take a 4WD toyota jeep circa 1981, a motley group of 6 round-the-world travelers, a gold-toothed driver and one feisty cook, shake-don´t stir, and serve on the rocks. throw in around 700 miles of incredible scenery for good measure. bottoms up.

the group

we started out at the train cemetary, which is basically what is sounds like--a graveyard of decomissioned trains rusting in the middle of the uyuni badlands. it had absolutely nothing to do with nature or scenery or salt, for that matter, but it was fun to scramble over old cabooses (caboosi? cabeese? what´s the plural for caboose?) and old train parts for photography´s sake.

then, after some obligatory stops at the artensenal town of colchani, where you could see the world´s biggest llama (made of salt!), buy things like salt dice (or if you´re boring, a bag of bolivian salt--have fun taking THAT through customs!), and see mini-mountains of--you guessed it--salt. and finally, we were off to the main event, the salt flats! the biggest in the world!

salty

bumping across the plains, i had to keep reminding myself that i was on planet earth. the moon, or maybe pluto, but something alien. a trend that would continue throughout the trip. as far as the eye could see, white. looks like snow, but it´s not. it was the dry season, the salt just beginning to crack in large hexagonal shapes, the blinding white a stark contrast to the brillant blue cloudless sky. on and on and on for miles on end. during the rainy seasons, it´s covered in water and creates a perfect, hallugenogenic reflection of the sky above. the world´s biggest mirror. it´s hard to describe--there are only so many ways you can describe white--but take my word for it--surreal.

oh, and you can also take all these crazy photos due to the white background--there´s no sense of perspective on the salt flats because there aren´t any vantage points. so we putzed around for a while, taking photos like this:

i had to throw in some old school cheer moves

and this:

(note: will add photo when i find an internet connection that is NOT dial-up, as is the one i am using now. i could seriously knit an entire family a set of sweaters, or at least some socks, waiting for a page to load, and lord knows i do not have the nimblest of fingers.)

to complete the sodium theme of the day, we stayed the night in a suprisingly comfortable salt hotel. seriously, everything was made of blocks of salt. cool, no? except that now instead of all my things covered in sand, i find myself shaking grains of salt out of my shoes. also, for dinner that night, we had a bolivian specialty, pique lo macho. french fries, onions, tomato, meat, hot dogs, cheese and eggs (and, i´m guessing, a hefty pinch of salt). i kid you not, they love it here.

the next day was spent driving driving driving, off-roading through martian lands, hopping out of the car every 30 minutes or so for photo-ops. it was both burning hot from the sun and freezing cold from the wind--how approriate for this land of contrasts. an aquamarine lagoon, fringed with salt at the base of a volcano at 4200m. a flamingoo breeding ground. mountains painted a muted rainbow of colors, mossy green and clay and dusty violent and ruddy pink and amber red. verdant green mushroom-like plants that looked like they belonged in super mario bros sprounting in the desert. massive rocks twisted and turned and bent into incredible natural formations. a stone tree carved by howling sandy winds. an ancient lake turned vivid red from mineral deposits. and this was all just the second day.

we spent the night at 4300m. it was around -4 degrees celcius, and as we were freezing in our bunker-like accomdations we were all dreaming of our cozy salt hotel the night before. who knew salt blocks would conjure up such warm memories? i didn´t sleep much, somewhat due to the altitude but moreso because of an all-night poker session with some germans from another tour group. that made for a rough awakening at 4:30am, but we had a hour drive ahead of us, racing against time and the moon to catch the sunrise. we stopped at the sol de mañana geyser basin, bubbling sulfur pools and spectular geysters, steaming with volcanic strength. the sun made it´s entrance, striping the indigo sky with brillant strips of red, my view on slightly obscured by gas rising from the earth. this moment felt the most other-wordly. i felt closer to the sun, closer to space, closer to something bigger than myself, than i ever had before--and not just because i was up at 5000m. not that it did anything to warm us up--we all hundled together for body heat, taking refuge behind the jeep for protection against the searing winds.

an early morning dip in thermal hot springs warmed us up, a drive through the panorama that inspired artist salvadore dali´s paintings of multi-colored mountains and rocks left me inspired, and a looooong trip through the badlands brought us back to uyuni--dusty, wind-chapped and brimming with pictures. 3 days, 700 miles, no worse for wear.

truly, some of the oddest, eeriest, exotic, vividly beautiful, most surreal landscape i have ever seen. i promise to post some photos, but it won´t do it justice.

and a man just walked into the internet cafe with a carboard box full of hot salteñas. i love it when snacks come to you, especially when you´ve been attempting to blog for an hour. gracias, señor, don´t mind if i do!