Potosi Mines and the Uyuni Salt Flats.

Friends and Family;

I just got back from the Uyuni Salt Flats, the largest salt flats in the world at about 13 000 square kilometers.  But let me tell you about the Potosi mines first.  The day before my arrival in Uyuni, I left Sucre the Depressing for Potosi, a small mountain town better known for the extraction of their minerals, and the tours that they offer within.

I arrived in the late hours of Sunday, and simply went to the hostel, cooked some vegetables (much to my relief) and crashed for the night in a dorm full of British people (and one Israeli).  They were an interesting bunch, and the majority of them had signed up to the see the mines along with me.

The next day, we were up early enough to have breakfast, and were then brought into the back room of the hostel.  We were given some gear comprising of pants, a jacket, a belt, a mining helmet complete with light, and rubber boots.  We were then paraded through the streets (at least it felt like it), as the bus was parked several blocks from the hostel.  We were loaded on and taken to the Miner’s Market, where we bought gifts for the miners.  The bus then turned upwards, and we were on our way to the mine itself.  The driver dropped us, and our guide then promptly dissapeared after telling us that drugs were a perfectly acceptable pass-time, and that we would enter the mine in 10 minutes.  45 minutes later, we entered the mine.  The tunnels were quite narrow, and the supports looked poorly made.  The whole place felt unsturdy, and I wasn’t the only person to feel this way.  A few narrow passages later, we found ourselves at our first stop.  The guide introduced us to 16-year-old Juan Carlos, a miner of just a few months who had come with the promise of a high salary (about 350 Canadian dollars per month).  He explained to us in the same breath that the manimum working age for miners was 18.  He received a gift of juice, energy drink, coca leaves, and our sympathies.

We left the mines about 2 hours after entering, relieved to be out in the sunshine once more, and not quite comprehending a miner’s ability to stay underground for 8 hours at a time.  The whole experienced appalled us frankly.  Not only had we experienced child labor, we had also experienced uncanny working conditions, more dust than you could wave a stick at, and the darkest place some of us had ever seen.  It was one scary place, and I could not imagine working there for a week, much less 22 years (one person we met in the mines had been working in the mines 8 hours a day, 6 days a week since he was 15 years old.)

One of the British girls in my dorm was going in the same direction as I, and we both knew that we would be going to a place where negotiation works better the more people you have in a group.  So we decided to travel together for a little bit.

And now I come to the salt flats.  Our trip started fairly late in the morning, around 10:30. The British girl and I had come to the city of Uyuni the night before with the intention of finding a tour the following day.  Upon waking up, we found a cute little family-owned agency with an attractive yellow lettering upon brown sign, that looked modeled after the old general store signs from the wild west.  There, we met a British trio, a Swedish guy with a deceptive Aussie accent, and a Chilean who’d travelled with that group for quite some time.  They were a hoot and a half as we visited the train graveyard, and then made our way to the actual salt flats.

I heard it best described by someone I’d met all the way back in Lima at the beginning of my trip; “It feels like you’re on another planet.”  He was right. The salt flats had an other-worldly feel to them, and I think I could have spent another two days on this vast, white, cold desert alone.  Instead though, Vladimir, our guide who wanted us all to know that he had a Swiss mistress within hours of meeting him, ushered us along.  We watched the sunset (and experienced the bitter cold that went with it) and soon found ourselves at a hostel made of salt bricks. It’s not quite as impressive as you might think, salt makes for uncomfortable seats.

The next two days were spent mostly in the car, exploring the many natural wonders that the Uyuni area has to behold.  It is very cool, and the salt flats are only the tip of the iceberg.  Uyuni should, in all fairness, be called “The Land of Landscapes,” as the view for 360 degrees around you is always impressive, with very few exceptions.  We experienced many natural wonders, like la Laguna Colorada, la Laguna Verde and el Arbol de Piedra (colored lagoon, green lagoon and tree of stone).

Thus marks the end of my exploits in Bolivia, the unplanned wonder of my trip.  After a brief stint in the north of Chile, in the Atacama desert, I now find myself in Argentina.  While this is not the final destination on my trip, it does represent a large portion of the end of the trip.  It feels like such a weird transition, going from the poorest country in South American, to one of the richest (though you wouldn’t know by looking at the news these days).

I hope that if anybody is planning a trip to South America, that they don’t miss out on Bolivia.  Take it from me that you won’t regret it.