the salar de Uyuni is one of most spectacular lanscapes I have ever encountered. The lack of a horizon is what makes it so unique. The white salt flats merge with the sky in the most ethereal way. The island of fish or Isla de pescadore, is an island formed in the middle of the salt flats with huge cactus covering the entire hill. It is only when you are atop this fascinating island that you realise that below the salt there is water. Crunching the salt crystals as you alight from the 4X4 is as fascinating as walking on ice for the first time, or seeing the magnitude of a glacier upclose. We were lucky to have had some rain a few days before we arrived and therefore a layer of water covered the entire salar making it the world largest mirror. When the sun rose, the reflection of the sky made it a double sun rise, one in the sky and one in the mirror...spectacular!
From the Uyuni we ended up in Potosi, the site of the enactment of the severest cruelty by the spanish conquerors on the poor unsuspecting welcoming indegenous people, to fulfil theor greed for silver. Unexpectedly, Potosi was a beautiful little city. Flanked by the Cerra Rico or rich mountian where the silver is located, we expected a sad miserable people would live here but the locals were vibrant, the food fantastic, and the hostel, an old monastery very enchanting.
We did the silver mine tour and it was everything we expected it to be. The tunnels were no larger than 5.5 feet at its very max height, and most of the tunnels were under 4 feet high. In places we were crawling on or bellies for many a minute. It was claustrophobic and pitch dark. Small little hole like tunnels led from one level to another and we crawled through 3 such levels. Oxygen levels are so low that taking a breath is difficult. Add to this the dust that mining in such tunnels creates and you feel a darkness deep within you. It was one the most exhausting experiences I've even been through and I attribute it mainly to mental fatigue. At one point I lay on my belly, closed my eyes and thought I would never be able to get out. And it was inside here that the spanish forced the local people to work for upto 6 months at a time,
It is said that the Spanish took out enough gold and silver to build a bridge of from Potosi to Spain and killed enough indegenous people to be able to build another such bridge with their bones!
The entire experience teaches you to really love the life we are lucky enough to live. Miners are still working in these mines in horrible conditions. The average life span of a miner is 35 years and even the young look 20 years older than they are. I felt profoundly sad but really glad to move on from the mines.
The bolivians we met here were really generous, they shared tales, information , and even their food. I was lucky enoguh to try a fantastic potato from a locals plate. This oblong white potato is apparently freeze dried at night for many nights and then left in the sun for a while before being boiled. It has a crunchy hard exterior and a really melty soft interior. The texture is fantastic. So also the chirimoya, the sweetest fruit I've ever tasted, and thumba a yellow orange pomogrante like fruit that has a very dry aftertaste.
It was time to move on to Sucre...
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