The salts fields of Bolivia or Salar de Uyuni, is a shallow basin of reflective water sought after by many tourists and photographers.
After numerous days of 10 hour drives, we finally arrived at the salt fields of Bolivia or Salar de Uyuni. We started our journey in northern Chile and had driven on many miles of dusty roads and crossed mountains over 16,000 feet. We had been taking medications to minimize the effects of high altitude. However, by this time most of us had either experienced food poisoning or altitude sickness. I was down a day from dehydration. We were dead tired from photographing stars through the cold mountain air and then driving for hours through mud hut towns to our next destination. Now the fun was about to get into high gear….
The salt fields of Bolivia have one to four inches of water covering them. Because the water is so shallow, they are most often very calm, providing photographers with great reflections.
The first hotel we stayed in while visiting the salt flats was the very best in town. A large part of it is made from salt blocks harvested from the nearby salt fields. Much like an Eskimo would use a saw to cut blocks of snow for the igloo, the Bolivians cut blocks of salt and built a hotel. Not all of the salt blocks used for building were totally dry when used in the construction, so salt stalactites are often hanging down from the ceiling. Of all the crazy coincidences, I saw one of the photographers from my previous Antarctica trip sitting in the lobby of this hotel. Guess it is a small world after all.
The Salt Hotel or Palacio de Sal
The entrance and lobby of the Salt Palace, Palacio de Sal. The entrance mat looks dirty, but everyone who walks in has salt on their boots.
This is a view of the ceiling in my room, looking up from my bed at some salt stalactites.
Getting to the Salt Flats, Salar de Uyuni
So what does one do when they reach the highest altitude of the trip? We jumped out of the Land Rovers, scampered up a hill and held our phone as high as we could to check the altitude.
An altitude of 16,134 was the highest I could get my phone to register.
I grew up at a high altitude in Los Alamos, New Mexico, 7,500 feet. Therefore, I thought it may be possible I would have no high elevation problems and did not wish to take the suggested altitude sickness medicine. Would my childhood hometown produce any favorable effect 55 years later? The worst situation would be to get sick and have a negative impact on the entire group. So I went ahead and took the altitude sickness pills, acetazolamide. You can either take large doses when you feel sick or take smaller doses for the entire duration as a preventative.
The highest elevation we reached crossing from Chile to the Bolivian salt flats and on to La Paz.
So what is up here at these great elevations? I’m told this was a promised power plant generating power from the thermal activity in the area. It has never gone online they say… Power station for who? (or is it whom?) During several days of driving, I never saw more than ten houses and certainly no towns.
This area is mostly devoid of all life. No bushes, no plants, trees or birds. The birds have no place to land and a roadrunner would have no lizards to eat. The lizard would go hungry as I never saw any insects either.
It is mostly an area to survive in, get through it and come out the other side where we will be working at only 12,600 feet, Oh what a relief it is…
Bolivian Rest Stops
As bad as the rest stops were, they were still a welcome sight from what we had been driving through for the past 8 hours.
We got to study and learn new plumbing methods in the restrooms.
We got to get a peek of their possible political leanings.
Bolivian Restaurants and Food
It is a complete mystery to me how so many of our group got food poisoning from dining on fine Bolivian cuisine. When we stopped for lunch, at times we would be the only customers. Hummm, never a good sign.
Let’s think about what often happens when you have visitors from out of town. It is likely you ask them what kind of food they would like for dinner. You tell them they have their choice of Italian, Thai, your favorite Mexican spot, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, seafood or the always reliable Texas BBQ. When living in Chicago we even had Ethiopian, French Vietnamese, Argentinian steak houses and Armenian restaurants to choose from. Do you know why you never offer up a Bolivian restaurant? Because their food is no good. Also, there seems to be a lack of unique cuisine. Maybe they are short of a fresh food supply. The only farm produce we saw growing was Quinoa. If the delivery trucks had to drive the roads we did… good luck. The costs would be prohibitive to deliver fresh food.
Bolivian chef’s salad. Ummmm, did not know where to start to save the best for last.
While eating in a restaurant, poor people from the street would wander in and ask for our food. Of course our leaders obliged and packed up a lunch for them.
Asking for food… She did not want our corn on the cob…
This lady was harvesting Quinoa, a very common crop. She was using the oldest and most basic grain preparation technique. From a plate held high at head level, she would dribble out the seed in the light breeze for the wind to separate out the seed from the husk.
Salt Flats Picnic
Picnic on the salt flats
Driving along the seemingly endless salt fields, we saw from a great distant a small hill. That was our destination for lunch. The lunches provided by the tour group were somehow very good, much better than what the restaurants provided.
This was our view from the lunch spot.
Finally, Let’s Photograph the Salt Fields of Bolivia
Of course we are not going to stand around the salt fields waiting for midnight when the stars are aligned. We continually look around and search for scenes to photograph.
Sunset on the Salt Fields of Bolivia
Sunset over the salt fields
The Bolivian Night Sky
It is not like you get to go out at 10:00PM and wait for 1:00AM to start shooting the Milky Way. Oh, no. The serious night sky photographer goes out at 4:00PM, drives around to look for some composition and clicks away waiting for the right view of the Milky Way. Most members in our photography workshop knew the constellations and would happily point them out to me. Guess that is why they were on a tour of nighttime photography. They would try to help me out… Harold, look at Lupus, Musca is right next to it and right there above it you have Horologium. And of course you know the Southern Cross, it is that group of four stars right there… What? Four stars? They are waiving their hands in pitch black while I’m looking through my camera seeing millions of stars.
The sky was so bright with stars a star shadow was cast. No moon, just bright stars. The water was reflecting them as well and I’m supposed to pick out four stars?? All of this is happening at 1:00AM and we would not get back to the hotel until about 2:00AM…. then do the same the next night….
Hopefully you can see the four stars they are referring to.
Much of the goal of this workshop was to learn a very unique, difficult method of capturing the night sky. We then spent hours trying to learn how to process the photos for maximum result in 812 steps. I still have much work to do learning this process. Prior to arriving at the salt flats, we had a practice session along the way, in the scene below.
Night Sky and cactus. It was odd to find a stream in the middle of one of the driest places on earth.
Here is a daytime photo which may look like night due to the way I processed it.
Goodbye to Bolivia
Having had enough of the late nights photographing the stars, we just photographed the sunset. This was primarily to give the drivers a good night sleep for the 10+ hours of driving ahead of us to La Paz.
Our last photo shoot before we head off to the highest capital city in the world, La Paz, Bolivia.
La Paz, Bolivia
At the risk of having too many photos in this blog, here are some from our Bolivian departure city, La Paz. By the time I got to La Paz, my main goal was simply to get home. I was beat. But La Paz was not a place for sleep nor relaxation. However, the view driving into La Paz is stunning. The approach by car is high above the main section of the city. One starts to get a glimpse here and there of a big cliff and a massive city below. The driving is not done by cautious, law abiding drivers. Honking and constant ‘close calls’ was the order of the day.
Top of the tram down into the city of La Paz.
The more well-to-do residents can pay to take a tram down into the city. Others take a longer route by car or worse, walk.
La Paz hikers
No Restful Nights
We stayed in a very nice hotel in La Paz. However, my room faced the street. Turns out there was some celebration that weekend, as I think there is most weekends. This loud, indecipherable chanting went on all night and stopped at daybreak. I played this recording for the front desk employees, and they had no idea what the man was chanting, nor did they seem too concerned.
Bolivian Women and their Bowler Hats
Bolivian women, Cholitas, and their famous bowler hats.
In case you are interested in these unusual fitting hats, I wrote a blog on them during my visit to Peru in 2018, The Importance of Peruvian Hats
Well I’ve had it with Bolivia and this post…. Next comes a great experience, seeing Iceland from the air.
If I were a dentist, I’d dentist in the morning, I’d dentist in the evening, all over Bolivia. Aside from my pre-occupation with teeth (after a recent DDM visit), the photos and related stories are amazing.
Thank you for sharing.
Yes, Bolivia would certainly benefit from some dental work. Problem is they may only get paid in Quinoa.
Great photos! Thank you for the details of your visit.! very interesting!
Patty, I appreciate you continuing to look at my blogs and photos. Many are simply iPhone photos for documentation. I found Bolivia difficult from an artsy perspective.
Wow. Very cool. Good to see you all are doing well.
Thank you for following Rich, better photos on the way…
EEK! Thank goodness you made those excruciating sacrifices through the land of bad oral hygiene, lame cuisine and questionable political mores so we ignorant folk can bypass that destination without hesitation. Thank you for your service Harold!
It will all get MUCH better in Iceland for next weeks blog….