James Holst: Change of Plans

Where are you from? How long have you been here? How long are you traveling? How far into your travels are you? Where are you headed to? Where did you come from? - These are the questions that come up over and over again when you're staying in low-budget hostals. It has all the charm of asking someone what they do for a living, but still, this is how valuable travel information gets passed along. Plus, they are questions that everyone has can answer.

So I was talking to this Dutch guy, and we were running over our travel itineraries. He seemed genuinely disappointed at how many places I would not be visiting in South America. Since I don't have a strict travel agenda, I was curious to hear what he thought were good places to visit. It was quickly clear that he thought I should spend my entire trip in South America. I told him I would also like to visit Africa and Asia. He sort of scoffed at the idea of visiting Africa and said that Africa didn't interest him at all. At that point, I stopped caring about what he had to say.

The questions still remain: Where to go and how long to stay?

There is no answer, only hunches formed by small tidbits of information. A destination "sounds" nice because of a blurb in an article or movie, or because of an offhanded comment overheard at a party. Doing the research to find out what a place is really like is only going to form expectations and eliminate the possibility of discovering the unexpected, so I try to avoid that. Also, I'm lazy.

My itinerary in Argentina began to feel stale. I felt immersed in the culture of the tourism industry and a sea of other travelers, all following the same route, all doing the same things. So I headed to Boliva to see the salt flats and to take Spanish lessons. I stopped off in Santiago to get a Bolivian visa and to replace my camera battery charger, which I left wedged between the mattress and the wall at my hostel in El Calafate. The visa was a 20 min stop at the Bolivian embassy. The charger ($15 on amazon) took an entire afternoon of shopping and cost $85.

As far as big cities go, Santiago is a really pleasant: relatively clean, friendly people, good metro system, modern retail stores. Just outside the city is one of Chile's largest wine producers, Concha y Toro. I took a tour of the vineyard, sampled, wine and ate Cabernet Savignion grapes right off the vine.

From Northern Chile

The 24 hour bus ride north into the desert of northern Chile was extended by 3 hours due to an ignited oil tanker in the middle of the highway. It was something right out of the 6 o'clock news. Fifty-foot flames,blacking billowing smoke, the whole bit. We sat 100 yards from the accident in the desert's midday heat, watching the tanker's metal frame disintegrate from the intense heat.

I did some hiking in northern Chile before crossing the border to Bolivia.

From Northern Chile

The Bolivian salt flats and extra-terrestrial mountain landscape has been on my "to-see" list for a long time. It's an area that is largely uninhabited and resembles nothing familiar to me. The altitude of the road climbs to 16,000 feet. A few tough species of grass are the only vegetation. Minerals and algae create foreign colors in the earth and lakes, sulfur smokes from open geysers.

The only way to see this region is to go on a guided tour with an outfit that is prepared to driving at high altitudes and on unforgiving terrain. I was promised that there would be mechanical failures, and there were. We had three Toyota Land Cruisers, with 5 or 6 people in each car. Two of our vehicles broke down over the course of the 3 days. The "roads" we traveled were just 2-tracks in the gravel, or sometimes we were just flying over wide plains of nothingness.

The Bolivian immigration office is the most remote border crossing I've ever done. It's probably 60 miles from the Chilean immigration office and at an altitude of 15,000 ft.

From Southern Bolivia

My body was not happy with the sudden elevation change. I've trekked at similar altitudes in India without problems, but also had the chance to acclimatize. By noon the first day, I was curled up in the back of the Land Cruiser, getting tossed back and forth, and quietly praying for death. I had the worst stomach ache, my head felt like it was being crushed in a vice, the sun seemed blindingly bright and I was entirely drained of energy. By evening I was feeling much better, and by the next morning I had just a slight headache. Most of the other people on the tour had headaches, but I seemed to have it the worst. I took some beautiful photographs that day, but when I look at them, I'm just reminded of how awful I felt.

From Southern Bolivia

Accommodations were sparse. The first night we stayed in a basic concrete shelter equipped with solar panels for electricity. The second night we stayed in a "salt hotel", where the floor, the walls, the tables, the chairs, are all made out of salt blocks. It's very strange. The next day, on the salt flats, we could see how they harvest the blocks.

From Southern Bolivia

The salt flats in Bolivia are the largest in the world and not surprisingly, really flat. Over the area of 4,000 sq miles, the elevation changes by less than one meter. They are used for calibration by NASA's altimeter satellites. Also, you have a lot of fun with photography because the perspective never changes!