Let me explain myself. After Amazonia we headed (via consecutive night buses) to the constitutional capital of Bolivia — Sucre. Sucre means sugar in French but not in Spanish. How sweet. I believe this knowledge renders me trilingual. Also included in this account is our day in the active mines of Potosi, and our journey through the Uyuni Salt Flats into Chile. Hence the silver and the salt. Could have maybe made it ‘sugar, silver, salt, chilli, and other stuff’, but that’s quite a mouthful, not to mention a seasoning nightmare. Finally, the ‘stuff’ is a lazy, sibilant allusion to all the other stuff in here.
Righto.
Been a month plus since I so much as put digital quill to blank digital parchment. Even my usually effective note-making has been sparse and sporadic. Something about living my life.
Sucre is very white. You can put it in tea, coffee, cakes. Or you can walk around in its stifling heat, eating ice creams, looking out from elaborate convent rooftops, and watching local dancers wave handkerchiefs. The choice is yours.
The central market there is abuzz. Its salteñas are among the best we’ve had — these are like smaller, baked empanadas with a sweetness to the mincemeat stew inside. Plus an egg. Plus an olive. Anyway, an entire side of the market is dominated by cake bakers; another is piled high with fresh, vibrant flowers. One butcher launches sinewy beef offcuts to patient, panting doggos, and we head upstairs to buy some salads and salsas. In this environment the language barrier really comes into its own. Wild tastings, expressions and gesticulations make for some rogue purchases and a very odd evening meal.
Almost forgot! We went to a cemetery. Huge grounds with vibrant green trees and exquisite upkeep. One ongoing funeral played out to the tunes of a mariachi band. The graves are unusual insofar as they're stacked neatly one on top of the other on surrounding walls, with little glass doors for loved ones to input flowers and the sorts. We'd seen this type of burial space from highways aplenty to date, but not up close. Quite a scene — surreal, neat, and respectful. Just look at this from Leonardo Diaz Zambrana. Knew what he liked. Absolute spirit animal. May he rest in perfect, smokey, beery peace.
Just on the outskirts of Sucre is a mighty big and mighty important paleontological site, Cal Orcko. There’s a grand old wall that used to be flatter and on it there are still lots of dino footprints so that’s quite cool to see. Not sure what else to scribe on the matter. If I had an editor they’d definitely have something to say about this paragraph.
En route to Potosi I jot down that “there’s more massive mountains being imposing and threatening and pretty but then immediately a flat pasture stretch of sun drenched yellow straw”, which tells you nothing about the route or national idiosyncrasies or the rest of it. Time for some of that then.
Potosi is another extraordinarily high city, sitting at about 4100m. Quite enough already, honestly. Being high up is nice by way of vantage, and definitely equates to curious, natural beauty, but boy do my gums cry out for agua in the dead of night. Not to mention stairs: huge arch nemeses. Cerro Rico de Potosí is a biiiig ol’ mountain that looms over the rather lovely cobbles and brickwork; it is also the world's largest silver deposit and has been a magnet to young and old men for over four hundred years. Difficult to know how to write about it, in all honesty. It’s another example of promise and necessity in a country where so many are struggling to make ends meet. Across Bolivia there are tiny pop up shops and floor-bound blankets with limited produce, as well as squeezed, stacked storefronts round every corner. You wana buy dynamite? Go ahead. You wana buy a smashed up old bumper — be my guest. You wana spend 10 hours a day in the choking darkness lugging rocks and minerals? The elderly and the emerging in equal measure, just doing what they can to support loved ones or get by themselves. It’s agonising and it’s admirable; feeling both is a tricky emotional space.
Near Cerro Rico, dried llama blood above abodes signifies good luck and the continued yield of minerals.
We visited the mine with a former miner — an exuberant and well-connected fellow whose name I’ve now forgotten. Let’s call him Horatio. It was dusty and hot and cramped, with tight crawl spaces and falling rocks and trolleys shuttling the day’s take to and fro at pace. Via Horatio we spoke with miners on the job and learned a heap. There are seventeen layers to the mine. We explored two. That was quite enough. Between the distant rumble of explosives and sound of shovel excavation we hear that you’re supposed to be 18 to legally work the mines but many start younger as a means of starting to earn for their families. We saw one guy who can’t have been older than 15. I asked him how he felt about the work: ‘it is good; makes you strong’. I asked him how old he was and he said 18. Codswollop.
Horatio also told us that women have mined in the mountain before but such progress has waned to zero. Men ridiculed other men if they allowed their wives to enter and earn. Aren’t men ridiculous? There’s also a wild culture of constantly sipping 99% alcohol. That can wind up dangerous for women in the gritty darkness. And to complete the lineup you’ve got plenty of issues with fair pay. Go figure.
For most — i.e. for men — mining in Potosi is more lucrative and holds more shimmering promise than working in construction or retail etc. Every other face down there had gerbil cheeks stuffed full of coca leaves.
Afterwards, we were rather out of beans. Something or other about us fragile gringos spending a couple of hours in a testing environment that countless locals frequent every long, hot day to stay alive. Such were the sentiments as we sat in the quaint main square and watched people flicker by. An elated dog bounded after pigeons. A marching band marched and banded. There were plenty of old men enjoying ice creams from the mobile cholita heladerias. In other news, the roof of San Francisco church is wavey and remarkable; we spent a little while up there looking out at the city.
Onwards some more then, no?
Paul Theroux waxed lyrical about trains. For him, rail travel was “an adventure and a relief”. Well, there aren’t many at all out here. So what are we left with? These Latin American bus stations are an absurd and incredible cacophony. Company reps holler and howl through echoey halls, all pitching similar journeys for similar prices. Once the wheels are moving, things rattle and creak, and people snort snot into the backs of their throats. If train travel is about freedom and solitude, bus travel is about marvel and mystery.
So to a few days in Tupiza, a regular desert of staggering red rock formations. Spent several hours ambling and clawing our way through a beautiful arid canyon, and one sunset up a big hill. Other than that we chilled and ate and yada yada yada. Big Wild Western feel to the whole scene. Plenty of enduring conjecture that Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid had their final stand in this town, tucked away good and proper in the dusty blood-coloured Andes.
The mild desperation in my brain and fingers re: getting this down and getting it gone is the principal reason it’s all very A then B then C. I’m not usually a huge fan of conventional narrative in that sense but you’re just going to have to suck it up and take it to my Chief Complaints Officer. That’s Georgie. Her default response is ‘hey leave him alone’.
Uyuni is a deadout town; dry and hot and high. Classic trifecta. We get to the hostel we’ve booked and it’s fully booked with other bookings so there’s no space for our booking despite the very nature of booking. We get walked to a ‘hermana hotel’, where a smileless adolescent tries to overcharge us. Having none of that you little screb. Eventually we are given a room and the beds are ridden with stains and it’s all very lovely content.
Alas, in the AM commences our three day tour across the ginormous Uyuni Salt Flats and through other-worldly desert terrains, via countless stunning lagoons and gnarly volcanic valleys. Throw in rusty abandoned trains, flocks of flamingos, and hissing geysers whilst you’re at it. All quite remarkable. Once more, this rushed brand of travel journalism pales in its capabilities compared to mere visual splendour, but there are some especially fine moments to mention:
1. The seemingly endless hexagonal constellations encrusted on the flats; nature’s way of showing us that beauty is not about contouring cheek make-up but about structure, strength, tessellation, and captivating colour.
2. An hour or two on Incahuasi Island, an absurd pop-up where cactuses abound and the rich, spiky greenery offsets remarkably against the white around. As the sun fell, refraction of its light led to hues of orange, red and pink ahead of us, but if we spun 180 degrees and looked behind us there was a rich purple and shades of green. Not sure how it works but it looked well nice.
3. With the air temperature kissing 0 degrees, we lay on our backs in a natural hot spring, staring up at a night sky dotted with shimmering stars and clusters of celestial smudges. Slept in a hotel made of salt. I assume it was reinforced, but the walls were salt, the base of the beds were salt, the salt was salt etc. Mattress was not made of salt, thankfully.
4. Once we were in the Andes’ Central Volcanic Zone, there was one curious crater that absolutely resembled an Orangutan’s concerned face. This reminds me of how Douglas Adams, in a wonderful book called Last Chance to See, discussed the phenomena of a landscape’s textures, grooves and undulations reflecting the wildlife for which it’s best known. His coverage relates to Komodo, which starts to resemble a grand dragon. As far as I know, there are no orangutans in the Central Volcanic Zone. Moot point. Anthropomorphic though. There’s your link. It’s staying in.
5. What these extraordinary plains lack in orangutans they make up for in vicuña, which are like desert deers crossed with camels. They bound across the road ahead of the jeep now and then, and graze on limited shrubbery in small herds.
Going from Bolivia — arguably the cheapest country in South America — to Chile was a shock to the wallet. Here’s a joke for ya: £7 for 5 cereal bars. Straight back on the shelf cheers. The fuck’s up with economic stability?
San Pedro de Atacama was cool. Hot. Cool and hot. Our hostel was full of fascinating people crammed round giant tables for communal dinners. We didn’t see much of the desert, nor did we opt for any overpriced tours. Felt we’d seen enough extraordinary landscapes on the way in. Ohhh on the way in, yeah — I had a mild and good-mannered breakdown whilst weighing up whether to declare some Crocodile teeth. Animal products, sure. Weren’t on the list though. Hooves and limbs and corpses and meats and stuff, but no mention of teeth. They ended up not giving two shits either way, so that was a waste of a mild and good-mannered breakdown. Did see them charge a fellow $10 for not declaring an unpeeled orange, mind.
Of our 22hr bus from the Atacama to Santiago, I only really recall the stint to Antofagasta, which looked like a series of cardboard coloured shipping containers hugging the coast. We made some sandwiches, drifted in and out of sleep, and headed to the slender country’s cool capital.
BYEEEEEEE.
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