Coming full circle

The rumble of the furnace - a sound not heard (and not missed!) in more than four weeks: a sure sign that our journey has come to an end. There are other signs, too: thin snowflakes drifting across the light cones of passing cars, solar lights spreading a mysterious glow under their cover of snow, the need for boots and snow suits instead of sandals and shorts, day turning to night by four-thirty instead of nine, making up for it by starting three hours later as well. 

Has it really only been two days since we sat on a bench in the Parque Forestal, one of Santiago's many beautiful green spaces, eating baguette and cheese bought in the mercado central, supplemented by olives from a stall at La Serena's market hall? Two days since the yellow-breasted cousins of our robins were singing in the yacaranda trees? Three days since the mayhem we encountered when we emerged from the subway station closest to our hostel, having great difficulty to find a place to cross the road lined with thousands of excited grandparents, parents and kids watching what I assume was Santiago's version of a Santa Claus parade? 
 

The haze lifted for a last view of the Andes just before we boarded the plane

Here I am back at my desk, trying to find my footing after four weeks of intense experience, a huge wealth of impressions and encounters, as every time having a bit of trouble to make the switch from the constant attention needed for nomad life to the familiar. Once again my body knows its surroundings by heart: with my eyes closed I can find my way through the house, know, without having to count, how many steps it takes to traverse any given space, the meaning of each sound. What a huge leap it is, every time anew, to emerge from a world so different from where I live. What a privilege to be able to experience it, to be exposed to the language and music, customs and tastes of these countries where we are constantly reminded of how good we have it - and yet forget that we do.

Each time I return the most important lesson I take home is that in spite of all that is different we are not so very different after all: babies toddle and cry no different in Bolivia than they do here, the same wisdom speaks from the eyes of an old woman in Argentina as it does in Canada or Germany. What seems to be more abundant in South America is the desire to spend time with each other, to sit in groups and talk, to have time to be idle together, without purpose - and to show affection openly, be it to a lover, a child, a friend, a grandparent or even a relative stranger. Maybe living in a place where there is no need to shut doors against the cold, where one can sit on the front step until late at night makes it easier. 

Meanwhile I am back, a bit dazed still, but happy to be home with my own family, to enjoy children and grandchildren.Once again my 'musings' will come 'from the farm' - by far not as prolifically as they were while we travelled, I'm afraid (http://susanne-musingsfromthefarm.blogspot.ca/ )... until next time, if all goes well. 

Uyuni, day two: into the Andes

Day two dawned, as I said, with the crunching of salt under the feet of fellow travellers. After a nice breakfast that even featured scrambled eggs – for the first and only time in four weeks of travel! - prepared from the supplies we brought along by the women who work in the salt hostel we were on our way. It was just starting to get light, the sun still hidden behind the high peaks to the east. The road – more like a sand track – skirted the edge of these mountains and led through fields planted with quinoa, fenced against vicuñas with a single strand of smooth wire to which pieces of cloth and plastic had been tied. Quinoa is the main means of subsistence in that area. It must have been seeded within the last four weeks at least, but in many places nothing visible had emerged yet, in others a few plants showed here and there. The fields were waiting for the rainy season for emergence, and it would be another three or four months until they were ready for harvest – even now still done by hand. We noticed the lack of farm houses: farmers live in the small villages along the way and drive out to their fields, sometimes with small trucks, sometimes by bike.

After stopping in the small town of San Juan for a few moments so that Bemer could pick up a bag of coca leaves we started to climb higher. The road required Bemer's complete attention: deep ruts and big rocks made navigation difficult, and it became clear why a four-wheel drive vehicle is essential for this trip. Less and less vegetation clung to the rocks along the side. 

We stopped for a few minutes amidst big eroded rocks and deep gullies: after seeing all this it certainly would no longer be necessary to visit the moon. 

 

A later stop provided even more bizarre rock sculptures, among others the 'stone tree' in the following picture.

 

The main feature on this second day, however, were the lagoons. It's totally amazing to suddenly come upon these colourful bodies of water, flamingoes, sometimes in the hundreds or even thousands, wading slowly back and forth, drawing their hooked beaks along the shallow bottom to pick up the small crustaceans that form their diet. 

The first one we stopped at provided very close access to the birds, and we had good opportunity to study their beautiful plumage. Three kinds of flamingoes can be found here, and they all resemble each other to the unschooled eye, of course, the Andean, Chilean and James's flamingo. Young flamingoes, already seeming quite apt at looking for food, were still wearing their downy adolescent plumage, not yet pink but soft grey.

 

We saw a bit more wildlife along the way, like this fox (obviously quite used to being fed by humans – a bit of a disillusionment to watch a fox eat left-over pasta from lunch ...) and, quite frequently, vicuñas, sometimes by themselves, sometimes in small groups, their fine hair gently stirred by the wind. What they survive on is a mystery to me; they seem to graze the bare rocks, though I'm sure there must be some kind of vegetation not visible from the car. 

 

The last stop of the day was the 'Red Lagoon', its clay-coloured water containing large amounts of iron oxide. It is a huge lagoon, situated in a dip, like the others surrounded by high mountains. It was so windy on the ridge above that it felt as if I would be carried aloft if only I spread my arms wide. We spent some time walking along the edge of the lagoon, admiring the thick-coated llamas grazing the short grass, gazing at the plume of borax dust driven into ever-changing deposits on the other side of the lagoon.

It was still early in the evening when we reached our lodge, only about twenty minutes from the lagoon. We had cleared a pass at 4700m not so long before and had dropped to about 4300m, about seven hundred metres higher than the night before and thus were well prepared for the 5000m we were going to reach the next morning. Predictions that we would be cold at night were unfounded: four of the thick, very heavy woolen blankets used everywhere we travelled kept us nice and warm.

Uyuni: the salt flats

Uyuni, at the edge of the salt flats

This is how Uyuni presented itself a little over a week ago when we caught our first glimpse of it, coming down the last switchbacks on the four-hour bus ride from Potosí – on a smooth new road, by the way.

Entering town all the tourists in the bus probably asked themselves the same question: where have we landed now? And how can anyone live here unless they have to? Not a single green plant was in sight, the buildings along the dusty roads looked in poor shape, garbage was piled in the middle of wider streets, center points for traffic circles.

But – as so often one shouldn't judge a book by its cover. We had talked to the young couple in front of us on the bus (who turned out to be Alex and Kristina, of course) and decided to hook up to find a hostel, which, by now, has become more than a week of travelling together. Once we had oriented ourselves and walked further into town it didn't look quite as desolate anymore. There were even a few trees to provided some shade for the colourful benches along the wide walkway. It is a mystery to me how they get enough water to grow in these sere surroundings. Overall, I'd agree with the judgment of the Lonely Planet, however: there is not much to keep you here beyond the time necessary to get ready for a tour or to leave for elsewhere after coming back. We had no trouble finding a hotel, the 'Hotel Julia', the first one we reached once we had turned onto 'Avenida Ferrocarril'. It proved to be a good choice, well-run, clean – and with a great breakfast, as we found out the next morning. Alex and Kristina had booked their tour in Potosí already. We soon found their tour agency a few metres from the hotel and made sure we'd be in the same car the next day. There are dozens of tour operators in this little town, taking people on trips of three or four days, mostly, but also on custom designed trips of a week or even two. Cost varies, and so does quality, and the Lonely Planet warned to compare and make sure to use a reputable company. Tourists have got killed when drivers showed up drunk after the first or second night, and supposedly the quality of the vehicles can vary as well. 'Andes Salt Expeditions', the company we decided on, has been in business for almost twenty years and has a high rating by 'trip advisor'.

At ten the next morning we gathered at the tour agency. Our vehicle – a red Toyota Landcruiser – was waiting already, as was our driver Bemer who, to our great surprise and delight, turned out to be well versed in English. We picked up the two Swiss girls at a different tour agency and soon were on our way. We had a full program for those three days, with many stops.

Trains on one side of the track ...

... and cars waiting for their tourists to return on the other

The first one was just at the outskirts of town at a 'train cemetery'. Here, locomotives used mainly in the 19^th century for rail traffic between Bolivia and Chile, have found their final resting place, stripped of anything that might turn out to be useful, like copper pipes, for instance. They are a strange sight, these steel skeletons, their wheels partly buried in sandy salt, and for many of the predominantly young travellers a great place to take pictures. Gazing into the distance along the abandoned tracks I got my first impression of the vastness and emptiness of the place.

 

We picked up big boxes with our provisions for the next few days on the way through town, and then we entered the salt plains proper. Stops were frequent this first day. We saw how the salt is being extracted and prepared for sale, simply by digging it up, letting it dry in small heaps before it is mixed with iodine imported from Chile and packed for sale. Water is close to the surface, and the salt is wet when it is dug up. 

We only stopped at a 'demonstration site, however; the real salt excavation is done away from tourist cars and tourist feet to keep it pure. It was not quite clear to us how it is separated from the dust blowing incessantly across these big plains; surely it must settle on the drying salt heaps as well? Bemer could not provide a satisfactory answer either.

For this first while I was quite affected by the sheer amount of cars and tourists at every stop. It seemed as if it would be impossible to get a feel of the space, the huge flat stretching out to all sides, because wherever I looked I saw people taking pictures (much like I was, of course), barring the view into the distance. It is unavoidable, of course, when everyone is looking at the same thing and roughly has the same schedule every day. Walking away from the parking spots when time allowed it changed this a lot, and in the following days it was much less pronounced anyway since stops were less frequent and much further apart. 

The 'salt highway'

 

The road – one of many criss-crossing the plains - was smooth like a paved highway, and Bemer drove fast to get us to the next stop, this one 'in the middle of nowhere' to take 'funny pictures', as he called it, those photos where perspective is changed. I don't know why this is so: the wide open plain? Different quality of air? Whatever causes it, it produces interesting results, although some of us thought we spent maybe a little too much time creating 'scenes' using objects like rubber dinosaurs (brought by our guide), among other things.

 It's an interesting thought to drive along the bottom of what once was a huge 'Dead Sea'. In the middle, the salt extends up to 120m down. Now, after months without rain and dust blowing across, it is not really white, but after the rainy season this will change for a while. 

The salt dries to geometric shapes: pentagons, hexagons, even octagons – why they wouldn't all be the same seems to be a mystery so far, too, according to Bemer.

Driving across what seemed to be an endless expanse of ice rather than salt (we identify with what is familiar), hardly any dust rising from our tires, black dots in the distance suggesting people walking, maybe, but turning out to be cars or even buses, several black elevations appeared in the distance, definitely bigger than any of the moving objects. These had been underwater islands in the salt sea, partly of volcanic origin, one at least the size of a mountain. We stopped at 'fish island', called so because of its shape.

 

For about forty minutes we climbed up and down the rocky slopes on a carefully outlined path studded with ancient cacti up to two thousand years old. It was a strange feeling to be in such venerable company among plants that grow maybe one or two centimetres a year and have survived the harsh climate, 'thrived' in these surroundings. Bemer told us that when the cactus fruit ripens (now, the cacti were just starting to bloom) the place is filled with birds feasting on the fruit. A few birds darted between the low shrubs growing here also, and even a couple of butterflies seem to call the island home. 

 

The sun had slowly slipped lower while we explored the island, and now the only item left of the day's program was to watch the sunset at what was deemed a strategic point, I guess, with a few mountains in the background. Bemer parked the vehicle, and we were free to wander the salt plain until the sun had set, which took much longer than he had predicted. I took off my sandals and walked barefoot for a while: how often do I get the opportunity to feel salt under my feet? It was a little rough; quite pleasant to walk on, actually. Here, closer to the edge of the salt plain, it seemed to have rained a little recently: the salt was softer in spots, and Johann once stepped into a little hole that immediately filled with water. 

 

We were quite cold from waiting around by the time the sun set at about seven, and happy to come to the salt hostel at the edge of the Uyuni where we would spend the night. The building is not actually made of salt, of course: it would dissolve in the rainy season. The walls are made of brick, but the furniture – chairs, tables, beds etc – are indeed made of salt, the chairs covered with colourful cushions, the beds actually very comfortable, the floor a little hard to walk on because it is simply grainy salt that feels much like loose gravel and makes a lot of noise, a fact we noticed the next morning when the first group left at four, the second at five while we could, in theory, have slept until almost six. There must be much fancier salt hotels along the edge of the Uyuni; some tour operators charge a lot more, and Bemer told us ours was very basic. We were very happy with the experience nonetheless, and slept well in our white, salty bedrooms. 

I realized that I didn't take any pictures of our lodgings, neither the first nor the second night; I guess I was tired after the day's adventures. Bemer had offered to take us out onto the salt plains once more after supper to look at the stars, and the two Swiss girls and I gladly took him up on that offer while Johann, Alex and Kristina stayed behind to play cards. The sky - immense in this place unspoiled by any artificial light - seemed filled with more stars than I had ever seen, so much so that it was a bit difficult at first to even find familiar constellations in all that brightness. Soon, however, I could point out Orion and Taurus with the Seven Sisters to the girls, and - treat of the southern sky - the Magellanic Clouds, two 'small' galaxies low above the southern horizon. I knew I would not find Cassiopeia: wherever the Southern Cross is visible Cassiopeia is not, just like the Big Dipper, it seems, for whom I also looked in vain. I had to wait until the next morning to see the southern cross: it rises around one, so the early departure to watch the sun rise behind the geysers the following day allowed me to finally see it again, too. 

La Serena

Hedge behind the bus terminal in La Serena

 

 

 

Whoever named this town of (supposedly - there seem to be nowhere close to this amount) more than 200,000 people hit the nail on the head. It seems indeed serene, calm, unhurried even to the traveller passing through. 

We arrived here very early in the afternoon yesterday after a sixteen-hour bus ride from San Pedro de Atacama – of which I must have slept about twelve. Cama seats are indeed a worthwhile luxury for such long trips; it is wonderful to have so much leg room, such comfortable seats. Much of the trip was in the dark, but when I first woke in the morning it seemed that I wouldn't have missed much along the way even if I had been awake. There seems to be little that's alive in this landscape. I closed my eyes again, only to wake some time later to a landscape obliterated by fog. We had to be getting close: La Serena, Chile's second oldest city, lies right on the Pacific, so here moist pacific and dry inland air were meeting and mixing. Slowly the fog lifted somewhat and revealed hillsides somewhat greener, crowded with a different kind of cactus, like the cardones much higher up just starting to bloom.

Still a 'travel unit' with Alex and Kristina, we found rooms at the first hostel where we stopped, not even half a kilometre from the bus stop. Walking uphill is no hardship anymore, now that the altitude is no longer a factor - and what a relief for skin, hair and the respiratory system to feel the humid air of the coast! The 'El Punto' hostel is yet another in a series of hostels with nice rooms facing courtyards with blooming plants in big pots or creeping up walls painted in vivid colours. It is a hostel obviously preferred by Europeans, especially Germans – hardly anyone speaks anything else, and even the hostel staff is fluent in German. It feels strange to us, so unused to it during our travels. Chile seems to be a preferred country for Germans, maybe because it is so clean and safe.

We didn't do a whole lot here during our stay: we went downtown (just as unhurried as the surrounding area) and this evening walked for about half an hour along the main avenue, the Avenida Francisco de Aguirre, to the beach. The temperature is moderate, maybe in the low twenties, a marked difference to the heat in San Pedro, and very few people were swimming, though surfers in neoprene suits were enjoying the waves.

Tomorrow we will take the last bus: only six hours are left to Santiago, where we will stay in the same hostel we started. Soon, very soon, we will exchange summer for winter again.It is also time to say good-bye to our travel companions. We shared a great time with them, and especially Johann was happy to find someone to play cards with while I wrote blog and postcards. We will miss them; it's not often that such an easy relationship develops in such a short time, especially with people half one's age. 

I am fully aware that there are still two days missing from the Uyuni adventure, and I hope to post a blog entry or two about that before we go home. 

 

Resting in San Pedro de Atacama after reaching the highest point of the journey

Elder Hostel – a term I came across in the Lonely Planet just last night ... Definitely not the term that would have come to mind yesterday morning, when, heavy with sleep and still disoriented, the six inhabitants of our room stumbled about trying to gather their wits at 3:45 in the morning, backpacks and other paraphernalia making it even more difficult to get organized. 

Once again, at 61 and 57 respectively, we were indeed the 'elders' of our little group, consisting of a German couple of the same age as our two oldest children and two young Swiss girls just finished with high school. We had met Kristina and Alex, the German couple, on the bus ride from Potosí to Uyuni on Saturday and paired up already for the hostel search in Uyuni, deciding it would be nice to do the three-day Salar Uyuni trip together. Natasha and Sophie were added to our group from a different tour agency Sunday morning, making us the 'substitute parents' – not that any of the already well-traveled young people would have needed that. We all got along very well, and especially with Kristina and Alex, who are still living beside us in the same hostel here in San Pedro de Atacama and will travel to La Serena on the same bus with us tomorrow, we feel as if we had known them forever. Just now Johann is playing Skat with them while I will try to recount the events of the last few days.

Back to yesterday morning, then, the third and last day of our Uyuni adventure. The night before Bemer, our driver and guide from the 'Andes Salt Expeditions' tour company, had told us to be at breakfast at four since we wanted to leave at 4:30 to be at the geysers for sunrise – a very special place to view it, he said, and an hour's drive away. Rubbing the sleep from our eyes we sat down to a breakfast of cereal and 'drink yogurt', cold pancakes and jam and 'dulce de leche', the South American version of 'Nutella', a thermos full of hot water the staff of the lodge had prepared for us and coca tea flavoured with different herbs, meant to alleviate the effects of high altitude. We had slowly been getting used to being higher and higher, sleeping at 3,600m the first night, crossing a pass at 4,700m on the second, descending to this place at 4,300m to sleep. For me, the main problem was my stuffed nose, a still lingering part of my cold, which made breathing difficult especially at night, and an almost overwhelming need to sleep during travel at times; other than that I was surprised how well my body had adapted to this high altitude. 

 

Now, however, we were going to climb even higher than two years ago on our way to the Colca Valley. Then, at 4,960m, we had been as high as Mt. Blanc, the highest peak in the European Alps, and I couldn't keep my eyes open, not to mention that I felt really sick despite (or rather because of) chewing coca leaves. Now, we were going to reach 5,000m before descending on our way to the Chilean border which we would reach later that morning. 

 

Going to bed at 9:30 the night before proved to be a wise decision: well rested I stepped out under the still blazing stars after breakfast. The thin crescent moon, only a couple of days from new moon, had just risen, Venus and Jupiter in their familiar places above. It was a cold morning, but at least the wind of the night before had died down. Beimer had removed the tarp he had wrapped around the hood of our Toyota Landcruiser to keep the water lines from freezing; the truck had been running for quite a while. With only a bit of delay we left for the last leg of the trip. Our young companions were soon dozing off again. Johann, in the passenger seat because it had the most legroom, exchanged a few words with Bemer from time to time, and I was free to gaze out and let my thoughts wander without any distraction. Slowly we made our way up the mountain, the road rocky and with holes Bemer navigated skillfully, as he had done ever since we left the salt plain to ascend further into the Andes. The faintest hint of light showed in the east, otherwise it was totally dark. Soon I couldn't detect Jupiter anymore, but the sliver of moon and Venus kept us company to our left, sometimes just sitting above a high peak, sometimes drifting freely in the space between. The contours of mountains and valleys changed and deepened in the slowly growing light, the first shreds of pink clouds appearing in the almost translucent piece of sky showing between the peaks. Above, the sky was still dark, the moon higher now and dimmer, Venus already disappeared from view. And still we climbed, rumbling along the rutted road, a long, thin plume of dust now visible in the distance ahead of us: the only one of the tourist-carrying cars that had left before us. 

 

'Now we are at 5,000m,' Bemer said just after 5:30 right when we arrived at the crest. The first golden fingers of light reached over the ridge across the valley. A moment later the sun showed its face. A new day had begun. 

  The others slowly stirred to life when we stopped to have a look at the geysers. Much like in Yellowstone National Park sulphur smell suffused the area. Bemer warned us to watch where we stepped; the mud was soft in places, and people getting too close to the bubbling, steam spewing holes had got hurt. Together with a few carloads worth of other tourists we wandered between the geysers for a few minutes before Bemer urged us back into the car: we had a few more stops before he'd drop us off at the border. 

The first one, no doubt much anticipated by many of the people taking the Uyuni tour, especially after the cold sunrise so high up, was a hot spring about half an hour away, quite a bit lower. We passed a lagoon with still resting flamingos standing in the ice-free center, some, already awake, stalking slowly in the steam created by hot water along its edge. 

The hot springs we were headed for turned out to be a single pool of clear, about 35 degree Celsius water contained in a rock wall. Bemer told us plans were underway to build three or four more pools with different water temperatures in the near future; the parking area for the vehicles is already in place. So far at least nobody but the vehicles from the different tour companies based in Uyuni find their way into this difficult to access area, but even so dozens of people traverse the Uyuni and come up here every day. 

We stopped for forty minutes, some of us joining other travellers in the hot water, while Bemer fuelled up the vehicle with the help of a couple of fellow drivers, using gravity and a hose to fill the tank from the two tanks he had brought from Uyuni fastened on the roof rack.

The last stop of the tour was at the Laguna Verde, the 'Green Lagoon'. Here, the water will turn green when the right amount of wind stirs its minerals, mainly copper and arsenic, so there is, of course, no guarantee that it will really appear green. It didn't for us, at least not very much, but to see 6,000m high Licancabur volcano reflected in its waters was beautiful already. The green lagoon has no flamingoes: it is a sweet water lagoon, and flamingoes like the salt water lagoons so plentiful here because they provide the right food.

Now, Bemer was in a hurry to get us to the border, less so because he was worried about not catching the transfer bus than because he wanted to get back to Uyuni, a six-hour trip on difficult roads. Natasha and Sophie were going back with him, while Alex and Kristina were going to cross the border with us. It was time to say goodbye to our young companions and Bemer who had safely brought us here, but also to the high Andes we had been so privileged to experience.

A small bus, filled with maybe twenty passengers, took us down to San Pedro de Atacama, a steady downhill ride that brought us from about 4000m to about 2500m within an hour. Still dressed in our warm sweaters and double layer of pants we stood beside thinly clad people headed the other way at the immigration window: San Pedro is hot, at least during the day. It also is a real tourist town, with restaurants, shops and tour agencies lining its narrow cobbled streets. I don't think I have seen quite as many foreigners, nor have I heard as much English – and German! - spoken since we arrived in South America – and San Pedro is a little town of only about 5000 people. 

Passports stamped, the four of us walked along a dusty road and arrived at the small Plaza de Armas ten minutes later. We hadn't decided on a place to stay, but soon found that there were many clustered around the centre of town. We felt we were entitled to at least a private bathroom after the three days of roughing it during our trip, and the fourth or fifth place we stopped provided not only that, but also looked very inviting with its treed courtyards, adobe walls and friendly rooms. 

We have been here for the last couple of days now, with no set program, enjoying the peaceful surroundings of the hostel, relaxed atmosphere of the little town, and the wonderful bread we found in a small bakery only a few steps from our hostel. It's the best bread we've had here, crusty and very tasty, and together with the cheese and olives also sold there it makes wonderful snacks, especially when accompanied by a bottle of wine.

Last night we went out with a tour to gaze at the stars, so much more plentiful than even at home in Alberta because there is hardly any light pollution at all. San Pedro de Atacama's street lamps are few and pretty dim, and there are no big cities anywhere close. 

We have already booked an overnight bus to La Serena, a city on the Pacific about 16 hours away, the last station before returning to Santiago on Sunday. We can leave our packs at the hostel even after checking out a couple of hours from now and will use the afternoon to have a look at the Pucará de Quitor, a pre-Columbian archaeological site about three kilometres from town, thus in easy walking distance. We should sleep well in our cama (fully reclining) seats – a luxury we have only had once before for a few hours - on the bus tonight.

Potosi, the 'city of silver'

Saturday morning. We've been in South America for three weeks now, and in ten days' time we'll be back in Canada. Time seems to expand when you are traveling like this since so much happens every day.

We left Camargo two days ago for Potosí, at 4000 m above sea level about 1600m higher than where we came from. Maybe that's the reason why I kept falling asleep during the bus ride, waking up from time to time to look out at more of the magnificent landscape of southern Bolivia (and yes, the roads were very good – no worries!). Higher and higher we climbed, and vegetation became ever more sparse, yet even here people somehow manage to make a living. Women herding a few shaggy sheep by the side of the road, holding one of them on a leash, still lamas, the houses ever smaller with a couple of dusty little trees, with the smallest of gardens.

The look of the rocks beside the road changed the closer we came to Potosí. Shale-like layers in many different colours glittered in the sun. 'You can see that we are nearing the 'silver city', I jokingly said to Johann. Finally, after almost four hours, the bus scaled the last peak and we could see Potosí spread out below us. It seemed almost bare of any vegetation, though we would find that it, too, has a few treed plazas. A taxi took us close to where we had marked a possible hostel on the map, and we walked the last few metres along a narrow lane to get there. The 'Anna Victoria' hostel had sounded like a nice option, but when we arrived we found the doors locked, in fact they looked as if nobody had opened them in quite some time, with a thick layer of dirt accumulated in the crack at the bottom. A passer-by told us to knock loudly, which we did repeatedly, but there was no reaction. Again it was siesta time, of course ... A woman called to us from an open window next door and told me about three more hostels just up the road – 'muy lindo', she said. 'Very nice.' Slowly we walked uphill, stopping to catch our breath after a few minutes. We would need some time to get used to the altitude again, though it shouldn't be as difficult as last year when we arrived in La Paz after flying from much lower Santa Cruz. This time we had gradually gained altitude. 

 

View down the street from our hostel

The 'La Casona' hostel, housed in a huge old building with a covered courtyard, had a big room for us. It could use some renovation, just like many of the buildings showing the former splendour of this city, but it was very adequate.

We didn't do much that first afternoon besides strolling along the narrow lanes around the core of the old city: this stop was meant to acclimatize us to the altitude and make us fit to travel in the Salar de Uyuni, about 400m lower, which, hopefully, will be the culmination of this year's trip. 

Our visit to the National Mint House, only minutes from our hostel, proved to be very interesting. Potosí's prominent feature is the cone-shaped mountain rising above it, called Cerro Potosí or Cerro Rico (rich mountain).

According to legend the famous Inca ruler Huayna Capac arrived here around 1462. Silver was discovered by chance (supposedly a llama herder making a fire at night found that the rock was melting underneath and he was looking at pure silver). But not long after the Inca started mining for the silver they heard the sound of explosions (Cerro Potosí is a volcano) and thought the gods were angry with them. The name 'Potosí' might have been derived from the word 'Potoc'si', which means great thunderous noise. Mining seized until the arrival of the Spanish almost a hundred years later, and then it began in earnest. Black slaves and local indigenous people were forced to work under appaling conditions, and up to eight million (!) are said to have perished over the two centuries the Spanish explored the vast riches of the mountain. The workers were sent down to into the mines for four months at a time – I can't even imagine what it would be like to live without daylight for such a long time, let alone work under these conditions for ten or twelve hours a day.

The National Mint House is located in the same building where, in the mid-sixteen hundreds, the silver was sent to be worked into the coins the Spanish needed to finance their opulent life style. The silver, still amalgamated with mercury needed in the smelting process, was melted, then poured in forms and removed as quickly as possible after having cooled only marginally. The slaves working in that room, using only local brush and llama dung to create a fire hot enough, were exposed not only to the smoke of these fuels but also to the mercury, of course, and didn't live long. 

The silver pieces were quickly taken to a different room. There they were squeezed to the desired thinness necessary to make coins with the help of four huge machines brought over from Europe, driven by mules in the room below. The mules, too, lived and worked under terrible conditions: keeping the heavy machinery going for ten hours a day, walking in a circle on the cobbled floor they had an average life span of four months. Horses cannot work (maybe even live?) at this high altitude, so the tougher mules were used instead.

Once the piece of silver was thin enough the coins were cut out and then stamped with the help of a kind of vice and a heavy hammer. The slaves responsible for that made 1000 coins a day. 

The technology advanced over the years. The coins became more sophisticated (and contained less and less silver: the first coins contained over 97%), Leonardo da Vinci's press was used, a steam engine replaced the mules, later yet an electric engine replaced this, and over almost two centuries the silver flowed into Spain, taking a long, difficult route to get there. From Potosí it was taken to Arica in what was then Peru by llama train, from there it was shipped to Panama, taken overland to the Caribbean coast with mules, loaded into Spanish ships, made a stop in Cuba and from there sailed to Cadiz, Spain. The last stretch of the journey was particularly vulnerable to pirate attacks. It is estimated that about 50,000 tons of silver were mined from Cerro Potosí over five centuries. Unimaginable!

A lot happened since I wrote this post three days ago. I wasn't able to post it because the internet connection went bad. 

Now, we are in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile,  after an incredible three-day trip to the Uyuni and high into the Andes. I feel I've returned from a different world. The internet connection here seems to be working well, and I'll send off the post about Potosí.

Drinking Barbera wine in Camargo

The rooster's somewhat hoarse voice sounded for the first time at 4:45 this morning, part of the din surrrounding the arrival of the first bus of the day here in Camargo. The quiet rumbling of the engine, people talking, and, even this early, a woman advertising something to eat for sale to the passengers of the bus. A few minutes later all was quiet again, only to be repeated for the next bus, and the next, a while later. It's astonishing at which noise level one can go back to sleep.

We had chosen Camargo as a stopping point between Tarija and Potosí because it was about at the half-way mark and it sounded like a nice place to stop, information that was confirmed by the (English speaking) tourist office employee in Tarija. Much smaller, at only about 10,000 people, it is one of the major wine centres in Bolivia as well. Here, high altitude wines are produced at 2,400 m elevation.

The sun was shining when the taxi dropped us off at the bus terminal in Tarija yesterday just after noon, and I almost didn't recognize the place. Compared to the chaos of our arrival it was peaceful and quiet and looked almost deserted. Our arrival must have coincided with one of the main arrival or departure times. Now, the wooden benches were half empty. A few people had stretched out to sleep, two little boys played tag while their mother watched, smiling. It was the typical mix of many crowds in Bolivia: young people in tight jeans and t-shirts, elegantly dressed women in platform shoes (though these are not quite as prominent as in Argentina where they can take incredibly daring heights), older men in suits – all this could be anywhere. But then there are also the women in traditional dress of different areas, wearing their hats, aprons over wool sweaters and skirts, carrying huge packs wrapped in colourful blankets on their backs and often a bag in each hand. What really stands out, however, are women dressed in their finery, like the young woman in a beautiful satiny dress made with small pink squares like patchwork over several layers of lacy petitcoats, her clear dark complexion and shiny black braids set off to greatest advantage by the colour of the dress and matching fringed satin scarf with intricate beadwork. Like a bird of paradise in a yardful of drab grey pigeons – I couldn't help watching her, so obviously unaware of the effect she was creating. She slipped off her blanket pack and walked up to one of the kiosks to buy something, and a moment later I watched her scratch a couple of lottery tickets, pull out her cell phone and make a call. It still seems like such a contrast to me, even if I should , by now, be used to the fact that everybody, even the most wrinkled, bent little old woman, carries a cell phone and uses it often, from checking the time to making calls, though I don't think I've seen too many of the old people use it for texting yet.

The bus we boarded shortly before one was laid out much like the one before, but this time it was much fuller, filled with much the same mix of people that had occupied the waiting area, including the pink beauty. The bus was scheduled to go all the way to La Paz – a long way. Johann, who had looked through the driver's window, found that the bus driver was well prepared to go the distance: two bags of coca leaves were awaiting consumption. Hopefully they weren't the only thing to keep him awake during the twelve or fourteen hour trip. A second driver or even assistant was nowhere in sight, in any case.

Once everyone had settled in their places and the engine had rumbled to life, though the bus was still waiting, a young, somewhat shabby looking man made a plea for something I didn't understand, without much success, it seemed. He was followed by another one distributing tooth brushes and extolling their virtues – he, too, collected most, if not all of them without making a sale. The next one took more time, and by now we were on the move already. An ointment consisting of six different herbs – coca leaves among them, of course – was supposed to cure any ill from sore muscles to sore throats: one for thirteen pesos, three for twenty. He was more successful than the last two. He just had time to get out at the stop for the police control at the edge of town before he would have been overrun by a crowd of women entering the bus, about fifteen of them. They sold ice cream and plastic cups filled with different coloured jello topped with cream, flat breads and sweetmeats, water and coke, each trying to drown out the next with her calls. Once they, too, had exited we were finally on our way. Again the landscape was stunning, again the road curvy, ascending and descending, again the bus driver was not losing any time – but this time the road was a good, wide, paved road, and not once did we feel even remotely in danger. 

For quite a while we drove through another valley, green and lush where a small river sustained trees, shrubs and agriculture with colourful rock walls on both sides of the road. More and more often small vineyards were part of the picture, and after three hours of travel we arrived in Camargo. We hadn't been able to find out much information about the place, but it did seem as if there was plenty of accommodation. Right beside the shady little plaza where the buses stopped the Hostal Cruz Huasa looked very inviting with its front yard covered with clusters of dark pink bougainvilleas, and it was no problem to get a double room with private bathroom. Even the internet was working, much faster than in the three-star Hostal El Sol in Tarija. 

 

Surrounded by red, partly horizontally, partly vertically folded mountains Camargo is a quiet little town with pretty much no tourist traffic at all. A walk through town seemed to suggest that people either lived from selling wine or from selling things to each other. A multitude of little shops and restaurants was complemented by a huge market area extending into tiny lanes with a great choice of fruit (we had some very tasty apricots) and all kinds of merchandise, seemingly more than a community of that size could ever use. Tourists must be a great rarity here because people kept turning their heads, staring at us. 

 

Our host, too, didn't speak a word of English, but he managed to convey that he made the wine he sold himself, two kinds of red, a Carmenere, which originates in Chile, and a Barbera of Italian origin, plus a white. His label showed two white and a black sheep, and it is appropriately called 'Oveja Negra', Black Sheep. We tasted the Barbera later in the evening and found it excellent. To our great surprise we also found someone who spoke excellent English, a friend of the hotel owner/wine maker who turned out to be a Japanese-Algerian now living right here in Camargo. He, too, had entered the wine making business and was able to answer many of our questions. He said that he as well as our host, and many other of the people selling wine here, bought their grapes from the vineyards in the valley. Our host is the only one to make Barbera wine, from less than one hectar of grapes. We bought one percent of his whole production of 200 bottles per year last night and will enjoy the rest of the second bottle tonight in Potosí.

 

Waiting for another bus to leave