Adventures in Bolivia
by: Sandin Phillipson
As a graduate student, I finally had the opportunity to work on a
project in southern Bolivia. Although I had spent previous summers
camping alone while conducting fieldwork in remote areas, this was
to be my first journey overseas, to a country known variously for coca
growing, revolution, and the final resting place of Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid.
La Paz is nestled in a series of steep valleys that are eroded in a
jagged, blasted moonscape of sun-baked volcanic rock. One of the
city parks is called 'Valle de la Lunas' or Valley of the Moon. The city
has sprawled up the valley slopes onto the Altiplano, or high desert.
As my taxi drove from the airport over the lip of the high desert, the city
was spread out below, partially obscured through a haze of heavy
smog. After finding the company office, a driver took me to a hotel in
the old part of the city, popular with young, dominantly British and
Spanish backpackers. Left to my own devices for several days, I
taught myself the phrases and words to order breakfast and dinner,
and wandered through the open-air market to practice my nascent
Spanish skills on vendors of flashlights, jeans, and trilobite fossils. I
found Bolivians to be the friendliest of people, who seemed to delight
in talking to a Norteamericano. At first, I felt no ill effects from climbing
the steep streets in what has been described as the World’s highest-
altitude capitol city. After several days, altitude sickness left me with a
feeling of exhaustion and constant headache in spite of six weeks of
hiking in the Colorado Rockies.
At last I was to depart for the exploration camp in southern Bolivia, as
the pickup laden with fuel drums and survey stakes arrived to collect
me. My driver, Nicco, guided the pickup through the bustling, chaotic
streets of La Paz and we rolled south on a two-lane, newly paved
highway toward Oruro, a hot, dusty, windblown town that represents
the end of pavement. There, the sun-baked main street was covered
in a one-inch layer of dust that was excited into whirling vortexes as
lines of Volvo flatbed trucks trundled through. Gray, windblown silt
covered the cobblestone street, sidewalks, building facades, and
withered decorative trees to produce a desolate dreamscape devoid
of color.
We rolled through a featureless landscape beneath an endless
expanse of blue sky and mercilessly bright sun. As the daylight
began to wane, the highway degenerated into a pair of deep ruts
across the featureless desert, passing desolate adobe towns. We
forded streams of frigid meltwater from the Cordillera Oriental, often
breaking a thin film of ice. Night fell and still we rolled south, now
across the Salar de Uyuni salt flat. Despite the heater in the Mazda
4x4, the cold crept in, and in the ghostly play of the headlights, the
shimmering white deposits of salt might have been snow drifts. Time
dragged, with only the constant rumble of the tires on hardpan
marking a cadence in the darkness that surrounded the small,
heated compartment of the pickup.
At last we reached a town, a sign of human habitation in what
seemed increasingly like a harsh wilderness. Not a single light bulb
was evident as we thumped slowly over the cobbled streets. Dark
shapes shuffled along the sidewalks, and the shadows of adobe
buildings rose and fell, capering in the glare of the headlights. Stars,
bright and brilliant as diamonds, but equally as cold, seemed to
provide the only other light. Amidst this scene of harsh desolation,
the corpses of dogs littered the streets, frozen stiff where they had
ultimately succumbed to the uncaring elements.
After another three hours of crawling through the frigid darkness, the
road seemed nothing more than a gully, with sagebrush whipping
the sides of the truck. Almost imperceptibly, we left the desert and a
sheer rock wall suddenly loomed out of the darkness. The truck
climbed the rapidly rising road, which clung to the side of the cliff, and
the engine whined in protest at the exertion caused by the steep
grade and thin air. In the days to come, my own heart and lungs
would register a similar wheezing protest. We passed through a
looming cleft in the rock wall, beneath towering ramparts massed in
the impenetrable gloom. Suddenly, the truck stopped and we had
arrived. Arrived where?
In the dim light, I could barely discern an adobe wall. There were no
lights, no sound of people or animals, and no hum of machines that
we have come to expect virtually everywhere in North America. In the
dead quiet, pitch black surroundings, I might have been standing in a
cavern instead of in front of the quadrille where I would live for the
next four months. I had arrived in Bolivia.
About The Author
I am a geologist, and have visited several countries in Latin America
and Europe, and have worked on various civil engineering and
mining related issues throughout the U.S. and other places. I have
written journal articles from a scientific viewpoint, but thought it would
be fun to write about some of my travel experiences on a more
informal level. I have other photos and geology related items at http:
//sedward.home.netcom.com/petrography.html
sedward@ix.netcom.com
by: Sandin Phillipson
As a graduate student, I finally had the opportunity to work on a
project in southern Bolivia. Although I had spent previous summers
camping alone while conducting fieldwork in remote areas, this was
to be my first journey overseas, to a country known variously for coca
growing, revolution, and the final resting place of Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid.
La Paz is nestled in a series of steep valleys that are eroded in a
jagged, blasted moonscape of sun-baked volcanic rock. One of the
city parks is called 'Valle de la Lunas' or Valley of the Moon. The city
has sprawled up the valley slopes onto the Altiplano, or high desert.
As my taxi drove from the airport over the lip of the high desert, the city
was spread out below, partially obscured through a haze of heavy
smog. After finding the company office, a driver took me to a hotel in
the old part of the city, popular with young, dominantly British and
Spanish backpackers. Left to my own devices for several days, I
taught myself the phrases and words to order breakfast and dinner,
and wandered through the open-air market to practice my nascent
Spanish skills on vendors of flashlights, jeans, and trilobite fossils. I
found Bolivians to be the friendliest of people, who seemed to delight
in talking to a Norteamericano. At first, I felt no ill effects from climbing
the steep streets in what has been described as the World’s highest-
altitude capitol city. After several days, altitude sickness left me with a
feeling of exhaustion and constant headache in spite of six weeks of
hiking in the Colorado Rockies.
At last I was to depart for the exploration camp in southern Bolivia, as
the pickup laden with fuel drums and survey stakes arrived to collect
me. My driver, Nicco, guided the pickup through the bustling, chaotic
streets of La Paz and we rolled south on a two-lane, newly paved
highway toward Oruro, a hot, dusty, windblown town that represents
the end of pavement. There, the sun-baked main street was covered
in a one-inch layer of dust that was excited into whirling vortexes as
lines of Volvo flatbed trucks trundled through. Gray, windblown silt
covered the cobblestone street, sidewalks, building facades, and
withered decorative trees to produce a desolate dreamscape devoid
of color.
We rolled through a featureless landscape beneath an endless
expanse of blue sky and mercilessly bright sun. As the daylight
began to wane, the highway degenerated into a pair of deep ruts
across the featureless desert, passing desolate adobe towns. We
forded streams of frigid meltwater from the Cordillera Oriental, often
breaking a thin film of ice. Night fell and still we rolled south, now
across the Salar de Uyuni salt flat. Despite the heater in the Mazda
4x4, the cold crept in, and in the ghostly play of the headlights, the
shimmering white deposits of salt might have been snow drifts. Time
dragged, with only the constant rumble of the tires on hardpan
marking a cadence in the darkness that surrounded the small,
heated compartment of the pickup.
At last we reached a town, a sign of human habitation in what
seemed increasingly like a harsh wilderness. Not a single light bulb
was evident as we thumped slowly over the cobbled streets. Dark
shapes shuffled along the sidewalks, and the shadows of adobe
buildings rose and fell, capering in the glare of the headlights. Stars,
bright and brilliant as diamonds, but equally as cold, seemed to
provide the only other light. Amidst this scene of harsh desolation,
the corpses of dogs littered the streets, frozen stiff where they had
ultimately succumbed to the uncaring elements.
After another three hours of crawling through the frigid darkness, the
road seemed nothing more than a gully, with sagebrush whipping
the sides of the truck. Almost imperceptibly, we left the desert and a
sheer rock wall suddenly loomed out of the darkness. The truck
climbed the rapidly rising road, which clung to the side of the cliff, and
the engine whined in protest at the exertion caused by the steep
grade and thin air. In the days to come, my own heart and lungs
would register a similar wheezing protest. We passed through a
looming cleft in the rock wall, beneath towering ramparts massed in
the impenetrable gloom. Suddenly, the truck stopped and we had
arrived. Arrived where?
In the dim light, I could barely discern an adobe wall. There were no
lights, no sound of people or animals, and no hum of machines that
we have come to expect virtually everywhere in North America. In the
dead quiet, pitch black surroundings, I might have been standing in a
cavern instead of in front of the quadrille where I would live for the
next four months. I had arrived in Bolivia.
About The Author
I am a geologist, and have visited several countries in Latin America
and Europe, and have worked on various civil engineering and
mining related issues throughout the U.S. and other places. I have
written journal articles from a scientific viewpoint, but thought it would
be fun to write about some of my travel experiences on a more
informal level. I have other photos and geology related items at http:
//sedward.home.netcom.com/petrography.html
sedward@ix.netcom.com
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