Bolivia's Southwest

You never know what music you´ll end up hearing in Bolivia. Yesterday Sinatra was blasting in over 100 degree heat out of a laundry place I passed by, and today outside the internet cafe, Nelly Furtado is cooing a soft cover of Gnarls Bark´s Crazy. On my trip of the Southwest Circuit though, it was mostly English oldies and Spanish songs that seemed like one very long song where the only lyrics is te amor over and over in different voices.

The Southwest Circuit was a relatively new route, from what I hear. It´s a four-day drive which includes the Salar de Uyuni on the last day. Salar de Uyuni has been known for years and has been one of the major draw of tourists into Bolivia. It is the salt flat outside of the city of Uyuni. Many many years ago the place was a salt lake which eventually dried up into a desert of salt.

The fact is that mostly everyone arrives in Salar de Uyuni in tour groups. Yet, salt flat really would only reveal itself to the lone ramblers. I managed to walk alone on the desert for bit one late afternoon. Blue ski overhead and white earth under my feet; both extending endlessly. No matter how long you walk, both remain unchanged and soon you lose the sense of all dimensions including that of time. Nothing seemed to ever change for the steps I diligently took, time stood still. Well, that is, until my biological clock kicked in and told me that I really had to pee. That was the end of my experience of infinity.

The landscape of the Southwest is one of the most amazing that I´ve seen. Many people tried to describe it but none does it justice. It´s a land of old, eroded moutains, volcanos, lakes, glaciers, rocks on deserts, geysers, hotsprings, and of course, the salt flat. It is a land of unthinkable colors - land of white, lakes of red and green, rocks of gold, birds of pink.

The country´s poor and the altitude high - this is no place for comfort and the hesitant minds. I hope this account helps you make up your mind - you have to see it.