What Would You Like to Know About Bolivia?

I realized that you may have questions about this place. So, here is your chance to ask them, and I will do my best to answer them. Whether it concerns politics, the economy, its people, or every-day life, it doesn't matter. Ask. I think the resulting discussion and opportunity for me to do some research can turn out to be quite interesting. So, what's on your mind? (And, please, don't leave me hanging :) )

Bolivia's Mythical Sea Access

Bolivia is a land-locked country, but that hasn't always been the case. There was a time (which ended in 1883-84) when Bolivia enjoyed access to the Pacific Ocean. A time that most Bolivians would like to see return. Many of them think about this quite a bit, as I have come to discover. How did they lose their access to the sea? Like most countries that lose territory, it happened in a war, against Chile. (As a side note, Bolivia has sadly lost all of the wars it has fought. And since its independence in 1825 it lost over half of its territory to neighboring countries.) What I hadn't realized is that before Chile gained that territory, it was divided in two parts by Bolivia's territory - so there was Chile, Bolivia, then Chile again. I am sure the Chileans were very happy to see their country become one undivided territory. But back to Bolivia's sea access. The topic has come up several times in conversations I have had with the guides or locals we have met on some of our trips. The predominant view seems to be that had Bolivia not lost its sea access, the country would be more developed, richer, and better off than it is currently. One man kept talking about some "impressive" (according to him) mine in Chile that would have been on Bolivia's territory had they not lost it. Mostly, there is a sentiment of great loss and hope that what has been lost will be recovered one day. (This monument pays homage to this hope.) Bolivia still has its navy for example, stationed presently on Lake Titicaca.

The question of whether Bolivia would have been better off had it not lost its sea access is a contentious one. Of course, one can see how having cheaper channels for transportation of goods, especially for export and import would help. How not having to depend on the whims, policies, and sometimes the good will of neighboring countries would help. On the other hand, however, all of that matters little if these resources and advantages (and the rest of the economy) are not managed rationally and smartly, governed by the right policies and their thorough implementation. So, as much as some would like to believe that things could have been very different, I am afraid that they probably would not have been that different. (But, a counterfactual is hard to prove either way.)

However, I can relate to Bolivians' sense of loss. Bulgaria lost much of its territory to neighbors during wars to end up with the approximately 111,000 square kilometers its area covers currently. We can try to blame many things on history - if it wasn't for the Ottomans, then the Communists... and before them all, the Byzantines. But, at the end of the day, history only plays a role in teaching us (hopefully) not to repeat the mistakes of the past. It is what we do at the present moment that matters. And instead of wallowing in hopes that events of the past may be reversed we should take charge of what is happening right now. I think Bolivia has to stop yearning for the sea and focus its energies on the resources currently at its disposal. Its lithium reserves in the Salar de Uyuni for example, which apparently make up 50% or more of the lithium reserves in the world. And its amazing nature resources - there are so many opportunities for real eco-tourism, for carbon offsets, and much more. The sad thing for me to see is that among all this plenty, the majority of people here still live in poverty. But I guess this situation describes many developing countries. Noticing it is not hard; it's fixing it that's the tough part.

How You Got Here

I've been playing around on alexa.com these past few days looking up traffic ranks and other stats for a number of websites. So, I decided to check how my blog ranks. I got a laugh out of the keywords that drive traffic here. Apparently they are (in order of frequency):

Hmmm, not sure how the last one leads people to my blog (for non-Bulgarians, the translation is "problems with becoming pregnant"), but hey, at least it might get a few more people interested in what I write by accident.

Traversing Southwest Bolivia: Salar de Uyuni to the Chilean Border (and Back)

Date of trip: 30 October – 2 November 2009

The southwest part of Bolivia is one of the most remote corners of the country, almost exclusively popularized through tours of the Salar de Uyuni (Uyuni Salt Flats). Without these tours, I doubt that the majority of tourists passing through Bolivia would ever make it down there. We took the opportunity to visit one of Bolivia’s top attractions over the long weekend of Todos Santos (All Saints). You need three days and two nights to do the standard tour of the Southwest and that’s exactly what we had, if we made two overnight bus journeys there and back.

We left on Friday evening on what was to be a 12-hour journey to Uyuni on a cama (sleeper) bus with bathroom and heating on board. They were right about the bathroom. However, the heating consisted of a woolen blanket awaiting each passenger on his/her seat. Gotta love people’s exaggerations here sometimes. All in all, it was not bad however. The blanket came in very handy, as it got pretty cold during the second half of the trip. Highlights from the bus ride included: 1) The driver forgetting to shut the bus door. There was no way to communicate with him and make him aware of this fact since he was sitting in a separate compartment with a separate outside entrance and no access from the passenger portion of the bus. So, I had to call the ticket office in La Paz, to get them to call the driver, to tell him to shut the door. This happened twice. (The second time, Milos tried to signal to him by waving his arm out the door while the bus was moving slowly. The bus driver was not looking in his rearview mirrors. Oh well.)

2) The bumpy ride during the last six hours of the trip. An hour or so outside the town of Oruro (approximately six hours into the trip), the nice paved road is replaced by uneven gravel. (Actually sometimes it feels like the bus is simply driving over no road in the desert.) In addition to the constant vibrations and shaking, we also had to put up with the dust/sand that was constantly coming in through the bus windows that kept sliding open because of the vibrations. A thin layer of dust settled over everything, including my face. But it was all part of the adventure.

3) Being “propelled” out of your seat if you shifted positions. The reclining seats were great (and there was plenty of leg room). Only problem was that they didn’t really “click” into their reclined position. Thus, every time you shifted a little bit in your seat, the seat back would “unrecline” and seat your upright pretty fast. This was repeated numerous times during the course of the night.

Twelve hours later, we arrived in Uyuni. First impressions: dust everywhere and most buildings don’t have a second floor. We wandered around to find the agency with which we had booked our tour. That wasn’t hard. The center is approximately three by three blocks. Once we dropped off our stuff and changed, we went to have breakfast. At 10:30 our tour would start.

We were curious to find out who our travel companions would be – six tourists + a driver usually travel together in one Toyota Land Cruiser on these tours. We weren’t disappointed. We were joined by two American girls, one Australian girl, and one Croatian guy (yes, can you believe it! How did three people from the Balkans end up in one jeep in Southwest Bolivia?!?!) All great company. The driver, Cornelio, was super nice (and as we would later learn, also a very good driver and maintenance keeper of our vehicle). Uyuni thrives on these Salar + Southwest Bolivia (or Sud Lipez, as the area is known) tours. There are probably more than 50 companies in Uyuni that offer these tours – again, some better than others. Things to watch out for when booking are the condition of their vehicles, the type of food they plan to serve, whether they plan to fit 6 or 7 (very uncomfortable) tourists in your jeep, and how responsible the drivers are. (We had heard stories of drivers getting drunk or driving like maniacs, sometimes resulting in fatal accidents.) Also, it is good to ask whether the jeep has a connection for an iPod or other MP3 player. The drives can get pretty long and monotonous at times (especially on the last day driving back to Uyuni from the Chilean border).

We were off! Our first stop was the train cemetery just outside Uyuni. Steam locomotives and their compositions had been left to decay here after rising coal prices made their use prohibitive, and Bolivia switched to diesel locomotives. Cornelio told us that all the trains were German or British makes, and had been used until the 1930s. The cemetery had a sad feel to it. With a little bit of signage and more history retold somehow, it could turn into a pretty nice museum. After all, it is a unique place. Currently though, it did give more the impression of piles of metal simply rusting away, while plastic bags littered the surrounding area.

Next up, we stopped at an artisans’ market where salt figurines of animals and alpaca wool products were sold. Nothing too interesting or worth buying though. Plus, we were eager to get to the actual Salar.

You enter the Salar and you feel like you are in an alternate universe. An expanse of white as far as the eye can see. (Well, I guess this whiteness gets broken every once in a while by the jeeps that traverse it.) The Salar was formed through the transformation of several prehistoric lakes. Underneath the surface salt crust is a pool of brine consisting of salt, lithium chloride and magnesium chloride in water. The depth of this brine can vary from several centimeters at the edges of the Salar to several meters in the center. It is 10,500 sq kms in area (4,000 sq miles) – the biggest salt flat in the world. Supposedly, it also holds 50 to 70% of the world’s lithium reserves, which have still not been exploited. (Although we recently heard that the Bolivian government will give the rights for exploitation to the Russians – ah, if only they knew that they can be bigger capitalists than the Americans, but alas. Sadly, the benefits of this deal will probably not trickle down to the ordinary Bolivian people.)

Around lunch time we arrived at Isla Incahuasi – one of several “islands” (more like oases) in the Salar. Supposedly, these were the tops of ancient volcanoes which were submerged in the prehistoric lakes, leaving behind a collection of coral-like rock formations and now also hundreds of giant cacti. The island is a complete contrast to the Salar – brown and covered in cacti. Then, came the time for the amusing pictures. Given that flatness and vastness of the Salar, one can really play with distance and perspective here. People standing on top of Coke bottles or Pringles cans; giant people stomping on miniature folks; one person holding another in the palm of their hand. These are only some of the ideas people have come up with. We, of course, came up with some of our own (pictured below). No Photoshop here. Only a matter of playing with distance and positioning.

We spent the first night in a “salt hotel” off of the Salar. (There actually used to be one on the Salar, but because of ground contamination, its operations were halted and it has now been turned into a museum.) Pretty basic accommodations, but good enough. All six of us shared one room. The beds and the furniture in the eating area were made of blocks of salt, and salt crystals lined the floor. Dinner was eagerly awaited. And it was pretty good. Although we still can’t quite get used to Bolivians’ love of carbohydrates. They like to eat pasta with rice, or potatoes with pasta, or any combination that allows you to eat as many carbohydrates as possible. It is quite amazing!

Second day – we got up around 6 am and were off by 7. The whole second day is an exploration of lagoons and volcanoes to the south of the Salar. First stop, a lookout point over to Volcano Ollague (5865m) in the distance. Gave us the chance to clamber up some interesting rock formations. Next stop, Laguna Cañapa and our first glimpse of the pink flamingoes we had heard so much about. Three species of flamingo frequent the lagoons of Southwest Bolivia, and they don’t seem to be disturbed by the frequently high sulfur content. I had been used to seeing flamingoes wading or standing around in nature videos/films. Well, these flamingoes spent all their time with their heads buried in the water. Apparently, they suck in several times per second in order to take in the algae and brine shrimp that they feed on and expel the water and silt. They also get their pink coloring from the high beta-carotene content of their diet – a fact I had not known until this point. After lunch at Laguna Hedionda (by far the most sulfuric one) and passing by several other lagoons, we entered a stretch of sand desert, broken only by strange rock formations along the way. We stopped at one such outcrop of rocks to look for viscachas (the Andean version of the rabbit, with long tails). After more than 30 minutes of trying to spot one, we were ready to give up, when someone suddenly pointed one out – sitting proudly on a rock. It’s amazing to see that any animals live in this landscape. But viscachas, vicuñas (something like a cross between a llama and an antelope), rheas (related to the ostrich), and flamingoes seem to do quite well in this climate. (Not to mention, the Andean cat and a couple of others that we didn’t spot.)

Just before dinner time, we arrived at Laguna Colorada (The Colored Lagoon) – named as such because of its stark brick reddish color (apparently because of similarly colored algae). Here we spent the night. Pretty basic accommodations once again, but given how tired we all were, I don’t think anyone cared. Dinner and a warm bed was all that was needed. The next morning we would be getting up at 4:30 am.

Third day – a bright and early start in order to see the geysers at Sol de Mañana at sunrise and make it to the hot springs in time for breakfast. The sulfuric fumes rising from the mud pots at Sol de Mañana while the sun slowly rose up from the horizon made for an eerie experience. In the midst of the fumes, you couldn’t see the person standing a few feet away from you. At the hot springs, we debated whether to take a dip. It was pretty chilly outside, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to be faced with that cold on the way out of the hot water. In the end, though, I decided I shouldn’t miss this experience and took the plunge. The water was heavenly. And it wasn’t so bad on the way out either.

After breakfast, we continued our way south, all the way to the Chilean border. The last highlights before the border were the Salvador Dali Desert (named as such because of the strangely shaped single boulders that dot the sandy landscape) and Laguna Verde (a turquoise colored lagoon, again frequented by flamingoes). At the border, some people transfer to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile instead of making the traverse back to Uyuni. We said goodbye to our Australian companion here. Then (around 9:45 am) we started the drive back to Uyuni, stopping only for lunch at the village of Mallcu Villa Mar. Desert after desert landscape changed before our eyes. In one part, we also drove through several green pastures and small rivers, with herds of llamas enjoying the lush grass. Once we got to the paved road, it was a fast and uneventful drive back to Uyuni, with only the occasional “Llama Crossing” sign signaling that we were still far from real civilization.

Uyuni, dinner, and another 12 hours on the bus – this time with no bathroom on board, despite what we had been told. We were so tired though, that we couldn’t care less. I slept most of the way back to La Paz (even through the bumpy stretch). Had time to take a quick shower before making my way to the office and back to the “civilized” way of life.

I missed the desert already.

In the Footsteps of the Incas

Date of trip: 17-18 October 2009

The Inca Trail that most people have heard of is the one leading to Machu Picchu in Peru. And because of this very popularity, it is also quite crowded (or so I have heard). Well, Bolivia also has quite a few Inca trails of its own. Few people know this. I only realized this once I arrived in Bolivia. But the beauty of these Inca trails is that they are largely free of traffic. Or so we’d heard. So, we decided to tackle one of them, supposedly the easiest one, which runs mostly downhill – the Takesi trek. I would subsequently learn that downhill isn’t always good. But that comes later.

We started out early on Saturday morning – the two of us, two Danes we had met in La Paz, a guide, and a cook. (The cook was almost an hour late in the end, but I guess that should not be surprising at this point. We enjoyed a cup of tea while we waited.) The 2-hour drive to the beginning of the trek passes through several communities, the Palca canyon, and offers some great views of Mount Illimani. By the time we reached Mina San Francisco – the starting point of the trek – I was itching to get out of the car. The air was cold and it was quite windy. The first part of the trek is uphill for about 1.5 hours (depending on your pace it could be done in as little as 40 minutes, but at that altitude, approximately 4,000m or 12,000ft, it was hard for us to walk fast). I was somewhat out-of-breath, but for the first time I felt that my body had adapted somewhat to the thin air. The views around us were pretty similar to the other ones we had seen at that altitude – plenty of rocks and brown, barren space. It seemed like a moon landscape. By the time we got up to 4600m, all that seemed to surround us were piles of rocks. From that peak we started the descent on a mostly preserved “paved” Inca trail into the valley.

We had lunch in the village of Takesi. A sign at the entrance to the village informed us that 20 women and 22 men lived there. It was probably fairly outdated, since we saw only one woman (and very few houses). One of the most striking things about the Takesi Inca Trail is that it descends to approximately 2200m over 30+ kms. The landscape changes many times over, from barren peaks to lush valleys, from dense tropical forest to wide open plains. The contrasts are phenomenal. Over the two days of our hike, we didn’t come across a single other tourist and we saw very few locals. You really have the feeling that you have that space all to yourself and can fully immerse yourself in its energy. Over the course of the first day, we trekked for 8 hours. At the 7th hour, my knees were starting to hate the downhill and I couldn’t help but keep asking myself, “Are we there yet?” That was the point at which I noticed that the dense tropical vegetation was giving way to more tame varieties – flowers started appearing; the dirt path underneath our feet was quickly replaced by a thick carpet of green grass. It felt like I had entered some fairy tale world. I almost expected to see the witch’s house from Hansel and Gretel appear at any second. We were nearing Kakapi – a community where we set up camp for the night. We camped on a ridge overlooking a green valley. It was quite amazing to wake up to that view the following morning. We were a four-hour hike from civilization in either direction. Remote and free.

It was difficult to get up the following day, especially because my knees were still quite sore and I knew that more downhill awaited us. (I had already started wishing that the trek would continue uphill. It felt much easier to walk uphill than downhill at that point.) But at least I knew that the trek would be shorter – only four hours or so – until we reached the end of the trail at the Chojlla mine. We passed two more communities, a hydroelectric station, an aqueduct, and had to cross a river via a makeshift “bridge” consisting of a pile of logs, as the real suspension bridge had collapsed a few years back under the weight of a group of kids on a school outing (sadly, a couple of them had died in the accident). My favorite part of the trek that day was the last 1.5 hours or so on a smooth, even path with a slight upward incline. It felt great on the tired knees.

The adventure didn’t quite end with the end of the trail. After a quick lunch, we started the drive back to La Paz (the driver who had dropped us off the day before at the start of the trail had come to pick us up). To my dismay, the first 30 kms or so were on something very much resembling the Death Road (a narrow, gravel road winding along the side of the mountain), except it was probably not known as such given the lower volume of traffic. It also started raining pretty heavily. My heart stopped for a second at the prospect of having to squeeze by another vehicle every time I saw a bus or truck head towards us from the opposite direction. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, especially since our driver (experienced as he may have been) would gesticulate to his companions or turn over to talk to them in the middle of a curve. My relief was immense once we joined the main, paved road. Back to El Cumbre, and back to La Paz.