Caves, Deserts and the Badlands

Update: 17

Before I start, an observation:  Yesterday as I sat down for some quiet time, I noticed a long slow hiss coming from under me. I'd noticed it before, but thought I was imagining things. The first thought to cross my mind was that I'm not yet thirty-one and already I'm having problems controlling my bowels. Turns out, Bolivian toilet seats (if you're lucky enough to find one) are made out of a kind of hard foam that resembles a softer version of one of those safety rings you find on the side of ships. When pressure is applied, they hiss.

***

So we left La Paz, after a two day stop over, for Sorata. Our guide book describes Sorata as "Alpine". This is true, I suppose, if the relevant Alpine village was experiencing it's ninth year of drought and experiencing severe economic melt-down. Sorata itself is a bit run down, but the surrounding countryside is beautiful and peaceful and lies in the shadow of the snow capped peaks of Illampu (6,362m) and Ancohuma (6,427m). Since the main square, which looks like the starting point for the Incredible Journey with all it's stray dogs, provides little more than three pizzerias and a dial up internet cafe, Tam and I thought we'd do the famous 12km walk to the Gruta de San Pedro, a large cave with its own lake. After an hour or so, we were welcomed at the cave's ticket booth to the beats of some late eighties Eurotechno. Being the only tourists there, we waited for a lady to open the ticket office. Normal procedure at national parks and state controlled visitor sites is for the tourist to hand over an entry fee, and the park attendant to provide a ticket. Not so at Gruta de San Pedro. Here, we paid the 8 Bolivianos (about 1 USD) and watched in amazement for the next few minutes as Bolivia's most diligent civil servant wrote out a tax invoice. I didn't have the heart to tell her that (a) I didn't think Bolivian entertainment expenses would pass as a deduction on my UK tax return, and (b) even if I did claim the 60 pence, I doubt Gordon Brown would query it's legitimacy. Nevertheless, for this small sum we were granted access with a guide. In the cave, we were joined by two decent looking Austrian girls - late 20's I reckon - who'd arrived a little after us and completed entry formalities in under ten minutes. The cave itself is well, pretty much like a cave, but the lake is an impressive 400m long. After a walk around, the guide asked if we'd like to swim. I was keen, but a bit apprehensive to go alone in the dark. Who knows what lurks in a cave lake? The Austrians, also a bit uneasy, thought we'd be better off in a group. So I stood behind Tam and as discretely as I could, I changed into swimming trunks. It seems I needn't have bothered. As I walked up to the water, I was joined by two fine naked specimens. So that's Alpine! This put me in an awkward position: should I say "ok, that's how it is," strip off and look like a pervert, or should I act like nothing's unusual, keep my trunks on and spend the rest of the afternoon feeling like a prude? For the first time in a long time, I went the prudish route.

So there we were: me, splashing around in my shorts, and two bare bums climbing the far wall of the cave. As if that wasn't weird enough, one of them asks Tam - who didn't fancy the water - if she'd mind taking a photo. Next thing I know, I'm in a lake, in a cave, with two nude girls posing for a photo taken by my wife. You couldn't make this up.

When it rains, it pours. After our photo-shoot, three well dressed middle-aged Bolivian men entered. I'm still trying to get my head around who visits a cave, four hours from the nearest office, in a suit on a Friday afternoon, but apparently people do. Catching sight of the newcomers, the Austrians start to panic and making a snap decision between swimming for the shore and grabbing a towel to cover themselves or swimming out to deeper, darker waters, they head out to the bats. I'm unsure as to whether I should be insulted or flattered that they were prepared to show me their wares but not the Bolivians. Tam reckons they felt safe with me because she was there. Secretly I reckon they were enacting a fantasy.

***

As we were only in Sorata for two days, we soon found ourselves heading South to Oruro. This time in a minibus. This had the potential to be our first normal Bolivian trip. But no. I had to find myself next to a woman in what seemed like her late 40s breast feeding what seemed like a 5 year-old while eating pork rind and throwing the leftovers on the floor. I'm all for women doing what's natural, it's just that I felt a little uneasy when, unplugging her kid (in some countries he was near working age) she left her mammary flopping about on my elbow. Five boobs in two days and what extremes.

It was only when she blew (not wiped, blew) her nose on her sleeve that I started to consider the differences between her and a well-behaved chimp. It came down to clothing. That's all.    

***

Oruro was really a stopover for us and we weren't there for long enough to do much other than buy train tickets and take a walk around. The lady at hotel reception seemed a little disappointed when we left, that we hadn't visited all 15 museums and the lookout. I said we'd do it next time.

***

Uyuni at midday is weird. At four in the morning after a nine hour train journey and no sleep, its frightening. The small, bleak town is high up on the alti-plano at 3,665m where night time temperatures drop well below freezing. Dogs scavenging in the empty streets give the place a feeling of some futuristic, post-Armageddon science fiction film set. Only it's colder. Bewildered, we found accommodation. Exhaustion won over frostbite and we drifted into a painful sleep.  It's a smart idea to open a tour agency here: as soon as people arrive, they're happy to pay good money to get out.

Twenty six hours later we found ourselves in a Land Cruiser with another South African, two Poms, an Aussie and a miserable guide called Javier. For the next four days, we drove through scenery like I've never seen before. How do you describe the indescribable? The salt flats, all 12,000 square kilometres of them, provide a photogenic backdrop for all kinds of stupid depth of field tricks. We spent two hours taking pictures of ourselves climbing out of hats, marching into sweet packets and sitting in each other's hands.

Javier, who was clearly bored to death of this, has been doing the trip twice a week for twelve years, so our first day in surreal (a word used too frequently, but in this case it's totally justified) landscape was cut short by a grumpy driver who wanted to get out of there. That said, the first of a mind-altering four days ended with us eating spicy chicken and chips in a cosy hotel made completely out of salt while bitterly cold winds thrashed around outside.

Tam and I have a ranking of all our experiences and this has been topped for the last three months by our trip to the Galapagos. A perfect ten that I never thought would be beaten. Day two, heading down from the Salar to towards the Chilean border, redefined my ranking criteria. I'm not prone to hyperbole, but - admittedly I do have a thing for deserts - this honestly was one of the best days of my life. Standing in the sun, surrounded by sand and sky for as far as you can see really spins my wheels. We'd stop (with Lord Javier's permission) every twenty minutes or so and take pictures in nothingness that was totally different to the nothingness we'd just photographed on the stop before. At the risk of going on about it, there were times when the sheer wonder of the place brought a lump to my throat. I would go back to Bolivia solely to relive that day.

All good things come to an end and the high that was the flamingos at 4,000m breaking their way through the ice on different coloured lakes, hallucinogenic rock formations and vast expanses of space ended with us arriving at our resting place for the night.

If I decided to open a hotel in the most inhospitable place on earth, I'd install heating. Not so with Bolivian landlords. This place was a room with seven shagged beds and a window. The bathroom consisted of three seatless toilets  floating in a pond of of near-freezing water. To flush, users needed to collect water from a barrel at the door and carry it precariously in an old five litre turpentine container back to their cubicle. This ensured that the pond stayed full. It's times like this when you thank the gods of Constipation for a carbohydrate rich diet.

Some of us slept. I, in an all-wool long sleeve vest, matching long johns, another jersey, a fleece, a scarf, alpaca beanie, alpaca socks, my sleeping bag and under two blankets, didn't. This was the first time in my life that I'd seen my breath condense in front of me while in bed. And it terrified me. The long, dire night ended, thankfully, at 6 am when Happiness woke us for breakfast: A frozen roll and coffee. The window in our dormitory had all our condensed breath as a half centimetre sheet of  ice on it. I know this because I scratched a smiley face into it. I wasn't being serious. Having a head cold in a place like this is asking for pain. Blowing your nose is like forcing shards of glass through your nostrils.

So we picked up our bottles of frozen water - I'm not making this up - and headed out for a swim. The hot springs, at 30 Celsius feel like heaven when it's minus twenty outside. The problem is, you can't stay in them for ever!

***

We returned to Uyuni and did what any sane person would do: booked a train out of there. We rose early, took breakfast, joined the queue, let the Israelis push in front and argue over the price of their tickets and bought our own tickets to Tupiza.

Tupiza is famous for the shootout that saw the demise of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The mystery that surrounds the place is a bit of tourist agency spin to get you to buy tours from them. The scenery, on the other hand, can't be spun and is incredible. We spent yesterday cycling through gorges, hiking through riverbeds and horse riding through the kind of Badlands made famous in Hollywood westerns: cacti, weird rock formations, brutal sun and barren, barren landscape. What a day.

We've just arrived in Argentina and it's all good. I'll fill you in soon.

Take it easy...