At Hell's Gates

Well, a lot has happened in the past week or two. I’ve crossed two borders, camped on the edge of the driest desert on Earth, saw geysers at 5000 meters, crossed the largest salt flat in the world, visited one of the most dangerous mines in the word, eaten heaps of coca leaves and seen the Bolivian president in person. Piece of cake.

After a week in the glorious northwest of Argentina I left that wonderland for good and crossed into the desert oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. San Pedro is quaint and located amongst amazing natural beauty and wonder…but is overrun with gringos. Fortunately I was able to jump on a thee day 4x4 trip into and through the SW of Bolivia and ending at the Salar de Uyuni…the largest salt flat in the world.

The entire trip was surreal, like being in Alice’s wonderland. Driving off-road at 5000 meters in a volcanic desert sprinkled with multi-colored lagoons, Vacuña’s (a wild relative of the llama), geysers, smoking mountains, pink flamingos, rocks shaped as trees, hotels made of salt, and sees of salt with cactus covered islands…all to finish in a graveyard of trains. Who could want more?




After ending the hallucinogenic escapade in Uyuni, Bolivia I traveled to Potosi, the site of the once second biggest city in the world, the current highest city in the world (4060 meters), the once richest silver mine in the world and site of over 8 million slave and miner deaths (all related to mining and silver purification). Whew, that’s a mouthful. In Potosi I experience the absolute worst environment I have ever been in…a couple of hundred meters inside a 400 year old (yet still) operating silver mine at 4350 meters. It was hot, claustrophobic (think crawling down vertical tunnels on your stomach when you can’t breath or turn around), dark and had extremely dangerous gasses and rock dust floating around…nothing to fret about, unless your one of the five thousand miners who still spend a majority of their lives inside this hellhole. It’s so bad inside that the miners worship a devil named Tio to protect them. On a bright note, we got to blow up four sticks of dynamite and I saw Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, speak (not inside the mine)!

Here's a pic with miner-me and some dynamite...an explosive combination!

Whew, writing all that makes me feel almost as exhausted as doing it was. So, now that I am in Sucre, a beautiful colonial city at a much more manageable elevation, I think I’ll have a rest and a beer. Cheers!