Blog Four: Salta, Argentina - San Pedro de Atacama, Chile - Atacama Desert - Uyuni, Potosi, Bolivia.
"It's worthwhile to die for things without which it is not worthwhile to live."
"It's worthwhile to die for things without which it is not worthwhile to live."
The journey from Salta to San Pedro de Atacama was the most difficult I have embarked upon in my adult life, both emotionally and physically. There was a huge fight, and Phil and I stayed up all night at the bus station and throughout the coach journey I cried because he would not speak a word. I did not know whether I should step off and make my way home to England, or whether he would step off and leave, because I had truly taken things too far for forgiveness. The sadness and nervousness consumed me so much that I did not eat or drink. San Pedro is 2400m above sea level, so as we approached Chile I began to feel the effects of the severe altitude change. Though slightly perverse, it is this that brought about the kindness in each other and brought us back together.
The beautiful landscape as we drove through the desert emphasized my solitude, and mocked the things I thought were important. The world is so incredibly beautiful that it is not worth being stubborn and clinging to the small matters, it is not worth hurting another. The phrase that kept going through my mind was “happiness only real when shared”*. Another part of the journey that I am grateful for are the two German gentlemen sat behind us. I lived in Germany as a child, and hearing the language always has a cosey and nostalgic effect, so when we went past some salt flats I asked them a stupid question, I think I asked “are these the salt flats?”. And from that moment on, every time my eyes watered they would intersect with facts about the altitude, about the mountains, or try to engage me with the map; they even gave me some solid old fashioned advice about relationships and eventually got Phil involved in the conversation too. The mountains were endless and we seemed to go round in circles. It was the first time I have seen nature this way. The sky was baby pink and baby blue, flamingoes pranced upon the salty waters and all you could see for hours were the curves of mountains followed by hours of flat desert lands.
It is good not to have set expectations when travelling into the unknown and though we did not know what to expect, we certainly did not expect this. San Pedro is a small town in the middle of the desert. Despite having been to smaller towns in Serbia this felt like the smallest in the world. As we stepped off the coach the brown landscape looked sad and the little brown hut-houses looked out of place, few roads were named, and the sand blew through your hair and came to rest upon everything. We arrived at our hostel and could not help but expect the worst. Like I said, when travelling into the unknown you had better leave your expectations and judgments at home. The hostel was the best we had stayed in to date. Our room was clean and warm, and the rooms surrounded a patio in the middle of the hostel that was laid out like a wonderful living room café haven, with tables, hammocks and sofas. The whole place was colourful and friendly; the perfect resting place for assimilating to the altitude, and for quiet reflection and peace between us.
We spent those four days cooking nice diners and eating them outside, writing, reading and playing cards and engaging in light conversation. When you step out of the hostel in the evening everything changes. The main road is lit up by fire pits and live music inviting you into the restaurants and bars. The food is of an incredible standard, though sadly not of a Chilean but a European. The streets are so filled with people in stripy woolen pyjama trousers and dreadlocks and glitterry unwashed traveller stereotypes that you can barely get through. We bumped into our German friends a few times, and talked a little about our trips and shook hands and wished each other well. I hope that they know for certain what a difference they have made.
After a few days and nights of assimilating to the altitude, by eating a high calorie diet, drinking plenty of water, no alcohol (one bottle of wine for the whole time counts as nothing if you know me), chewing coca leaves, drinking maté and being woken up in the night by a lack of air in your lungs, we had decided to plunge ourselves into our first true adventure. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful experiences of my life: the Atacama Desert.
First we had to queue to get out of Chile and get our exit stamps. It took hours, because in true South American fashion there was only one person working behind the counter. Also as you can imagine the work ethic in South America is a little different than at home. You will not be put on an 'action plan' if you work too slowly, you will not get a pay rise if you excel. You just sit there, have a smoke, and stamp the stamps and after stamping stamp after stamp after stamp for fifty years it stops and then what?
A few hours later we drove into the desert and stopped at two little huts. Both huts were made out of mud, they had hay roofs and just one room inside, and a big tin bin next to them for burning waste. This is the Bolivian border; and the transition is a true representation of things to come. We had strict orders only to go to the toilet behind the first hut. Which contained a D.I.Y table with a buffet of bread rolls, pâté, cheese, meat, yoghurt and ever more maté inside. I think the whole appearance of what we were doing and where we were gave some people a fright, as we spied them stuffing five rolls into their pockets whilst trying to look stern, as though this is not a knock to their personal pride. It was so cold in the desert because of the altitude, that Phil and I put on most of our clothes in the hut and still shivered. Following our buffet we were ordered to the next hut. Here a man in a green Bolivian army sky-suit type of uniform would stamp your passport, while a little child is playing, asking questions and eating the left overs from the tourist buffet.
Now we were all assigned a group, a tour guide and a Land Cruiser for the group. I had kept my fingers crossed that we would not be in a group with the German girls with make up and pristine clothes that spent the whole time at the hostel loudly discussing their boyfriend troubles and that stuffed all those rolls into their pockets. It worked, because our group was wonderful. Our tour guide (who drove the cruiser and only spoke Spanish) was called Noel, he wore an old tracksuit and had a kind of greasy mullet, dirty, rough hands and a friendly face. The cruiser itself had a crack in the windshield, and 180 000km on the meter - though impressive to us considering the type of terrain it went over, this is nothing new for Bolivian vehicles, held together by selotape and needs-must for decades.
We were with two couples, Sylvie and Ben from Berlin, and Marina and Bruno from Brazil. We could not have asked for a better bunch, and spent the whole time laughing, talking and appreciating the experience together. The second night of the trip we were waiting for dinner at the 'hostel', when one of the traditional Bolivian ladies asked us if we wanted any 'mota' (weed)! We all burst out laughing at the bizarre experience and ate our fried chicken in hilarity. We were in the middle of nowhere, in the desert, in a random house, being cooked meals by these ladies and no comfort or entertainment other than each others company. Every night when we went to sleep, Noel and the girls at the 'hostel' played this one Bolivian pop song on repeat and we could hear them laughing and singing along until about 2am.
His music did however enrich our experience, it was beautiful driving through the desert listening to nutty Bolivian rock and pop. Bolivian music is renowned for staying true to it's roots and carrying a traditional and native sound, so in all just a wonderful way of entering Bolivia. The Atacama Desert may be the most beautiful landscape I will ever set eyes upon, and the first thing I thought was what beauty could have been created if Wordsworth and Coleridge were able to travel through it! At some points in the journey we went up to 5200m above sea level, so despite the coca, maté and water I still spent some of my time in the Cruiser swaying in and out of sleepy consciousness, but that was as far as the altitude affected anyone this time. Bruno, the Brazilian travelling with us kindly acted as translator between the group and Noel - he passed on the fact that the Andes, through which we were currently travelling contain approximately 2000 volcanoes, of which about 150 are active, the most active being the Loskar in San Pedro de Atacama, which smokes daily and we could see it from our hostel at the time, which went by the same name. Bruno also turned out to be Phil's long lost photography soul mate, they spent a lot of time talking about their hobby, and even spent the first frosty evening outside photographing the desert sky in the freezing cold. Because we did not have internet, tv or any form of stimulation other than our surroundings and each other, it was easy to be with people and begin to get to know them. The kindnesses or idiosyncrasies became apparent rapidly and were appreciated graciously.
We stopped at many lagunas, saw salt flats and flamingos and llamas in their natural habitat, as well as extremely pungent geysers and colours that made me want to become a painter in desperate aim of capturing the beauty I could see here. Phil's pictures are as close as I can come to describing the beauty we shared, but you have to go there to know exactly what I mean. I do not know if anybody can ever truly describe the desert and it's nature. The moments that I spent there I questioned myself. How could I ever think anything else of, or see anything else in the world? Now that I have felt such beauty in existence, how can I see importance in futility.
Our meals were car-boot-buffets set up by Noel and the ladies back at the 'hostels'. An example of one of our meals is tinned tuna, tinned mushrooms, fluffy rice, tomatoes and cucumber, and of course Coca-Cola. We ate it on a table and chairs made of rocks one day, overlooking one of the lagunas. Every one of these basic meals seamed a feast to us, we ate up every scrap, until on the last day we realised that Noel never ate, and made sure he joined us. Then I rested my head on Phil's lap and fell asleep for a few minutes.
The first night we all stayed in one big room, with a window made of cement and beds equally made of cement. Phil and I slept in all of our clothes and cuddled close trying to keep warm. If you want to know if there were showers then you are asking the wrong questions. The climactic moment of the trip, or the point of the trip was to see the great salt flats of Uyuni, although this was wonderful I generally enjoyed seeing the desert with these people the most. We dipped our fingers in the salt and took the generic salt flat photos.
We arrived in Uyuni and had to part ways with our friends. Uyuni is a poor, rundown crude and dusty town and a sharp entry into Bolivia. The shop next door to our hostel had an old traditional Bolivian woman working in it. So she was stood there, big with her harsh and stern face, her long plaits, huge long puffy skirt and apron, wearing her own history on her face and the history of her people in her dress, while the walls were covered in images of naked western women prostituting themselves. It was embarrassing to walk in there as a western woman and straight away you realise that this is how the world sees you, because that is how we portray ourselves to them with our TV programs, music and billboards. It was a strange feeling to stand there. The exploitation of Latin America is not a secret. it becomes apparent even in the images of naked western women, they glorify burgers and Nike, and drink Coca-Cola instead of water. There is even a special 'Inca-Cola', made by the Coca-Cola company. It is the colour of radioactive urine and tastes like gummy bear vomit. Branding it as the drink of the Incas? This time Coca-Cola has taken things too far even for themselves. All the worst trends of the West are being followed and it all cries a distant cry for education.
Unfortunately Latin American countries such as Paraguay and Bolivia suffer not only the effects of ever-present imperialism (first by the British then handed over to the US), but are also under the reigns of the sub-imperialism of it's stronger next door neighbors such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. Though President Evo Morales, the first democratically elected indigenous leader of the country has abolished McDonald's (the ideological hallmark of Americanisation), and nationalised Bolivia's leading institutions; Bolivia remains dependent on Brazil's goods, political powers and influences. So Bolivia working with Brazil and Brazil working under the US, ultimately means that Bolivia is subjected to a double-imperialism. It is apparent in every aspect of life, where to an outside observer the country can only be described as second world moving into third world.
We got out of the sad tourist town as soon as we could and made our way to the infamous city of Potosí. The bus journey costs about £3 each and lasts three hours. The smell on the coach was unpleasant. Every time the coach stopped people crowded around trying to sell you things through the windows, most often choclo y queso in a sandwich bag. Every time you drive past a hut or a congregation of huts made of mud, in the middle of nowhere, with a donkey outside or a child, little fields of coca or quinoa you imagine what it is like to live there, but you cannot know what that is like. We do not know what it is like not to question a lack of electricity or running water, to live in a room made of mud with your family, heated by donkey dung and sleeping in your stall at the market for days to sell your produce.
The city of Potosí screams history. As is the norm, those places that had the closest ties with the British Metropolis in the past are now those suffering the most. It is rumoured that a third of the world's silver in existence comes from Potosí. Latin America also supplied the world with various other minerals including all important tin, as well as sugar, coffee, cotton and meat to name a few; for our convenience and a whole peoples pain.
Phil and I did not visit the mines, we made the decision based on the dangers involved in entering them as well as the moral implications in giving tourist encouragement to such conditions. Here are some examples of lives spent in the Cerro Rico ("Rich Mountain") mines, taken from Eduardo Galeano's influential text Open Veins of Latin America:
"Indians were bought and sold; they slept in the open air; and mothers killed their children to save them from the torture of the mines."
"The poison penetrated to the very marrow, debilitating all the members and causing a constant shaking, and the workers usually died within four years."
This single mine alone consumed eight million lives over three centuries. We should be looking at where our products and conveniences come from, question the value of this against the quality of lives or the very life of a human being. We rich profit more from consuming their products than the poor do from creating them. How can you simply turn away and continue in quiet ignorance the wrongdoings of past and present? Do not lie to yourself and tell me there are no options, there are far more options than there is sense at present.
I cannot decide if in Bolivia sense prevails or has been completely abolished due to sheer necessity. Bolivians make things work, their land for crop, their unfinished hut for shelter, their selotaped cars and D.I.Y lives and quinoa with rice or rice with potato. Potosí for example is built on a ridiculous hill, and at 4100m altitude it is one of the highest cities in the world, and it is not easy to walk up and down that hill as many times as your days work may require. The bus station is at the bottom, our hostel was at the top. A ten minute steady walk up the hill feels like an hour long circuit training, and the walk took us an hour. The city seemed wild at first, fearful, hectic and poor. At a second glance however it became welcoming and full of life. The architecture and the people started to become fascinating; Potosí is where we accidentally started to follow the carnival around South America, and where we met our friends Eric and Carly, with which we would travel through Bolivia for the following three weeks.
______________________________________________________________________________ * Quoting Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild novel by Jon Krakauer
