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I checked out of my room at Los girasoles and made my way to the tour operators office fro the trip to the Salar. He agreed the day before that he would take my bike to his house for secure storage. However,  as I reached the office, there was a scene of absolute chaos, with people jostling about trying to ensure that their group wasn’t split up. I couldn’t see how he was going to have time to take the bike four blocks away, and leave by 10.30. It would appear, however, that Bolivian time is a bit like Argentinian time! After taking the money from the various groups of travellers, he then took me up to his house, where he locked my bike and trailer in one of the rooms. We eventually got moving at about 11am.

 

I met the three other people that would be joining us on the trip. They were also French, Claudie, her boyfriend David and Violletta, who I think was David’s sister. The tension between the French group and other travellers was visibly apparent. One German girl, after listening to the French being spoken, said, in English “Are they all French? I’m outa here”. There was no attempt to disguise her disdain to them or anyone else! That was to be a recurring theme for the next few days, and bearing in mind we had to meet up at the various stop points, and more importantly spend the night in the same hostels, there was a very good chance of a fall-out.

 

Our first night was spent in a very nice salt hostel. Not thee salt hotel, the first one, which is now a museum, but one that has been built recently at the edge of the Salar. It was constructed of salt blocks, salt pillars and even the beds were constructed of salt. It had been a tiring day and after a tossing of the coin as to who was getting the room with two beds rather than four (albeit slightly separated, by a partition), which David and Claudie won, we went through to the dining area for our dinner. That was when the full scope of the tension reared its head. I’d spend the day listening to French, and was able to understand enough to know that the French guys in my group had very little time for the people travelling in the other groups. The other groups were made up of irish, British, German and...wait for it; French! Now you would have thought that there would at least be a meeting of minds between the French in one of the other groups and ours. The simple answer is no, or at least not until the end, where the French girl Cammi from another group and Amelle started to get on well! The French guys-  there were three from the other group- insisted on speaking English, which was really pissing off my group. Now I don’t think there was anything wrong with what they were doing. They were predominantly in English/Irish company and as they could clearly speak very good English, decided that they would do just that. The problem is that if they had to come over to our table to get something, say the mustard, they insisted on speaking in English, which was winding up my French colleagues to fever pitch. I suppose I was also being a bit of a martyr. It would have been easier for me to join in the English speaking group, than struggle through trying to understand French and respond often in Spanish, but I decided, as they were my group for the next couple of days, that’s where I would stay. There were barbed comments about the French coming from the other table, where two groups had joined together. I believe it was entirely directed at the French in the larger group, who were no doubt giving just as much stick to the Brits. However, all my group could here is the barbed comments about French, albeit with limited understanding of the language! It all made for a particularly uncomfortable couple of days. Individually, the French in my group, did a very good job of trying to communicate with me in English, when they had a question or comment directed at me, but generally it was French all the way, with little bits of Spanish when they had to ask the driver something. I had agreed at the beginning that I would expect them to speak in French at the table or in the jeep and that I would probably understand a fair amount of what was said, I wouldn’t be speaking in French, rather very slow English or poor Spanish. It was a very interesting exercise in group dynamics, but unnecessarily tense!

 

Even my limited understanding of French didn’t make my interaction with the group very difficult. It was all very friendly and amicable. Samuel and Amelle, being the first people I met from the group, were especially nice. Samuel and I found a common language in music, and he was entertained by my devotion to the Jazz bars just off Saint Germain du Pre in Paris such as Le Bilboquet, where I spent, as I described it a mis-spent youth .....or mis-spent late twenties/early thirties – if youth is stretching the definition somewhat! Turns out this is exactly where Samuel works, close by Le Deux Magots.

 

There were times where I did switch off however, especially when they all started talking over the top of each other. The seating arrangement enabled me to switch off easily, as I sat up front with the driver and Claudie, David, Violletta, Samuel and Amelle sat in the bench seats behind. The driver and I had discussions in Spanish which, though again had its limitations, it nevertheless broke the tedium of a long journey, especially on the second day during the uncomfortable drive through the desert area! When I mentioned that there were times when they all talked over each other that I didn’t understand a word. Claudie, promptly and quite rightly explained that that is what it is like listening to people speaking in English.

 

“So enough of the group dynamics, what about the scenery?”, I hear you ask. Well let’s say it was a mixture of awe inspring beauty with long periods of tedium. It all started with a trip to the Uyuni train cemetery, which was home to many old steam trains, which were rusting away to ruin. As for the scenery, you have to remember that I have been cycling through some spectacular scenery in Argentina and Chile, and at times it was difficult not to draw comparisons between the scenery of the Salar and that of the Cafayate Qeubrada or Patagonia. Even the Savador Dali mountains and desert, which, though spectacular, didn’t match some of the sights through Argentina and Chile. However, the salt plains, different coloured lakes wildlife and volcanic springs and geysers were special and well worth the trip, as indeed was the rather packed thermal bath which we travelled to at 5.30 in the morning. I suppose sitting in a jeep travelling hundreds of kilometres over very bumpy terrain was the bit that I didn’t like.

 

The highlight of the trip for me, however wasn’t the sights and scenery, but a chance meeting with this German guy, Mike, who was cycling through the Salar de Uyuni, as part of a three year cycling odyssey . You heard correctly...cycling through the Salar de Uyuni. Now this is an area which to me seems un-navigable and absolutely impossible to cycle through, unless of course you have a really good mountain bike, back up and know the terrain. Mike had the bike, but had neither the back up or the knowledge of the terrain. But he had guts and determination and Bolivian military maps! Though he admitted it had been tough, especially given that he’d got lost on roads that weren’t on the maps, he was nevertheless making progress ....You can’t imagine what it’s like cycling through 100s of kilometres of sandy, and incredibly rocky areas, mountain bike or not!.   I read about a guy who had to picked up by the police, cycling in circles, after he had been blinded by sun bouncing off the salt plains. For anyone to attempt o cycle this area, they have to  be really, really good at what they are doing, totally dedicated to the spirit of adventure, possess a significant amount of testicular fortitude,  or be absolutely nuts.... or probably a mixture of all four.

 

I explained what I was doing and he offered some really helpful advice about the trip north, explaining which routes were almost impossible, including the Uyuni to Potosi route and which routes were preferable in Peru. He also suggested that I remain on the altipano instead of dropping to La Paz. I explained that I needed bike parts, including a computer, which he said I could get in Copacabana. I left him as he headed towards the bright red Laguna Colorado where he was expecting to camp for the night. Now the temperature dropped to minus 15 degrees that night, so this really was hardcore stuff. And I know; I have also slept it in the snow and freezing cold temperatures reaching minus 20 in Tierra del Fuego and Torres del Paine, but at least I knew I was getting up to a road, not miles of desert. Mike is a true hero, who has had his own fair share of challenges, including a severe skin inflammation around his neck, which took him out of action for sometime. He spent almost a month in a church in Copacabana, where he was accommodated by a very kind priest, until he recovered from the illness. I  checked he was ok for water, which he was, but only just, as the previous day he’d run out of water, and I supplied him with a couple of bananas and power shot sweets!

 

The Salt Plains are awe inspring and it seems that the main hobby for most of the tourist gangs are taking perspective photos, balancing people on their hands and feet, which, though fun and at times hilarious, do little to highlight the scale of the salt plains and the way they function. They are after all the largest salt plains in the world at 12000 sq kilometres. Berto our guide did a decent job explaining, albeit in Spanish, the structure of the salt lake. It included a brine layer which holds over 75% of the world’s lithium stocks and lies about 15 cm below the top layer or crust, goes down for a further 15 cm and then below that it is salt for approximately 140 metres.  We proceeded through the salt plains to Isla de los Pescadores, which is a big hill shaped as a fish, full of cacti  and interesting plant life....not to mention very strong winds. Our group climbed to the top and took some pictures of the salt plains. It was there that I met the American couple from the hotel I stayed in at Uyuni. They’d had a blast for three days and were on their way back home.

 

I can spend a lot of time writing up about the multitude of rock formations, the wildlife, the geysers, the bubbling lava at the Sol de manana geyser basin which sits at 4950 metres high in the nacional parque, the termas de polques- thermal baths (where i bathed and emerged to ice on my beard), the multi coloured lakes, the Salvador Dali desert or the sunsets, but these are all best seen with your own eyes, or at least a peek at the photos I took.

 

I was also struck by an incident on the second night where one of the drivers/guides took altitude sickness and had passed out in one of the rooms in our hostel accommodation that evening. We were at 4200 metres. I was asked to provide the agua de Florida, which I duly did. It seemed to do the trick of bringing him around. It was all pretty dramatic, and made me feel a little less soft for my few days of acclimatisation. This guy’s being doing trips in the Salar de Uyuni for years and still fell victim to the terrifying phenomenon that is altitude sickness or AMS (acute mountain syndrome). It turns out he’d been overdoing things in terms of treks, etc, over a number of days. When you see how these guys work, you understand why such illnesses are possible and indeed life threatening.

 

Amelle and Samuel, probably quite wisely decided not to attempt to scale the Volcano and joined me on the route back to Uyuni.  Claudie, Violette and David made their way for San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. We dropped them off at the Chilean border and made the long trip home- 8 hours through the desert and, yet again, some spectacular scenery. Unfortunately, I only have the one battery for my camera, so missed too many photo opportunities on the return journey.