It is a pit — literally

Calama, Chile is a mining town. It has no other claims to fame, at least until we arrived. The original town of Chuquicamata right next to it, was built to house the workers for what has become the world’s largest open pit mine. The entire town was abandoned in 2004 due to extreme pollution from the mine and all of the inhabitants moved to Calama.

We took a tour through the now abandoned Chuquicamata, with its beautiful Plaza de Armas, theatre, banks and schools. There was an eerie feeling driving through an empty, perfectly intact town. At first it was not clear to us why the town had been evacuated and left as a ghost town. Our tour was run by the national company that now owns the mine. Our guide waited until he had taken us through the whole town centre before explaining what had happened. Mining activities were simply getting too close to the town and it would no longer be safe for people to live there.

The huge copper mine is alive with activity 24 hours a day. Simply stated, the process is to blast holes in the pit and then big diggers arrive and are filled with rocks that are moved up to the top of the open pit on the roads built for that purpose. The rocks are broken down into smaller pieces to expose the copper and the waste rock is dumped all around the town creating artificial mountains. It is not clear what keeps the mountains from falling apart. I guess that is part of the worry about having a town too close.

Violet and I had many mining clients in our day and we saw a lot of photos of mining operations in South America and Africa. We learned a lot about the activities of mining companies in countries in far off lands and the reclamation process to return the landscape to its natural state. It was quite another experience to see this massive hole in the ground and all that was connected to it. The dimensions are so huge that even seeing it with my own eyes was hard to comprehend, especially seeing the man made mountains towering around us and knowing they were simply displaced waste rock from all of the digging in the pit.

We were told that there are at least 50 more years of life to this mine that they are sure of. It could be more.

The mine employs thousands of people. The jobs are well paid. And so it is not surprising you see all kinds of people in Calama from neighbouring countries that have made their way to Calama to get a piece of the action. The miners live in prefab houses and drive big SUVs. Big buses bring the workers to and from the mine site. It is an unreal kind of place. Coming from Bolivia, directly into this strange western environment took a bit of getting used to.

A visit to the mine was really all there was to see and do in Calama, so we decided right after our visit to head for the bus station to get a bus to San Pedro de Atacama, a quaint resort town just 2.5 hours away.

Looking back, there were other options that would have changed our fate that day. We could have taken a later bus, or even spent a second night there. Maybe we could have been better rested and more alert. Maybe the scam artist that targeted us would have been watching someone else. I think about that afternoon over and over again. Now more than a month later as I write this post it is clear to me that I will never forget those few minutes that changed our South American adventure. Although I have already written about the “calamity in Calama” and I have replaced the most important items stolen from us that fateful day, the experience has taken something much more valuable from me. From that day forward, I was less at ease and much more suspicious of the kindness of local people. Time, they say, heals all wounds and I hope I just need more of that.

For now we both refer to our visit here as the calamity in Calama!

(By the way, Calama is so non-descript and so unremarkable that I realized after leaving that I had not taken a single photo. I looked online today to see if I could fill in other peoples photos. The only photos I found were of the pit! Need I say more?)

Another amazing tale — the journey from Bolivia to Chile

We purchased what we thought were the last two seats on the 4:00 am bus to the Bolivian/Chilean border and onwards to the mining town of Calama, Chile. Unfortunately, that meant several more hours in Uyuni — oh joy! We had found the only (and I mean only) nice hotel in this god-forsaken town and thankfully they had one room left. After we packed up and said our final goodbyes to Raoul and Noemi we moved over to our new digs, the Hotel Tambo Amaryo. We invited Bjorn and Joachim to join us so they could utilize the reception area to recharge their phones and computers. The hotel would not let us have guests in the room so we all sat in the reception area together for the rest of the afternoon. Considering that just a few hours earlier we were all suffering from food poisoning, it was quite miraculous that we were all feeling healthy.

Around 6:00 PM we gave our Swedish companions final hugs and off they went, as they say, into the dusty sunset, along the unpaved and garbage strewn road to the god-forsaken spot where their dilapidated bus awaited them. We, on the other hand, headed up to our lovely clean and modern hotel room for a luxurious hot shower in a private bathroom with fluffy white towels and toilet paper! Four days without any of this made the experience one to savour!

We managed to get a few hours of shuteye before our 3:15 AM wakeup call (Marc’s iphone alarm). Our hotel was about two blocks from the bus stop. It was 3:30 am when we left the hotel and the streets were dark and deserted. As we neared the bus stop, however, we saw a very large crowd of people boarding our bus which was already there waiting for us. I left Marc with our luggage and I made an attempt to board, to secure our seats at the very back of the bus. By the time I got up the stairs I could see that the bus was already completely full of people in each seat as well as dozens of people in the aisle. I could see our seats way at the back of the bus (with people in them), but it seemed impossible to get to them. No one was moving. A young Spanish speaker looked towards me and said something in Spanish, which I did not understand. Eventually he translated what he had said into English. “They have oversold the seats! If you have paid for your ticket, you have to push through all of the people to get to your seats.” he explained motioning to me to push forward.

This was easier said than done. As I have described in previous “bus” posts, people who board the bus with the intention of standing bring all of their luggage with them in the form of woven blankets full of stuff or just wrapped boxes and misc parcels of all shapes and sizes which end up in the aisle. They are also not, may I add, necessarily small people. I worked my way over and around many obstacles to get to the back of the bus and finally into our seats. (I had to politely ask the people sitting in our seats to please move into the aisle.) I could see Marc boarding the bus, now even fuller than when I boarded. I had to actually yell at the top of my lungs from the back of the bus that he was going to have to bulldoze his way through if he had any hopes of sitting for the next eight hours.

By the time Marc got settled, the bus was literally packed like sardines. There were as many people standing in the aisles as sitting in seats. Some of the people sitting in seats were doubled up as well. This was by far the most bizarre bus trip yet. And it had only just begun. We rolled out at 4:00 AM.

The bus stopped in the middle of nowhere, but there is always a concession stand!

By about 7:00 am we arrived at the Bolivian border. We all got off the bus where there were the usual food stands with big women in their multilayered skirts serving up huge bowls of chicken soup with potatoes and rice from large tin pots covered with blankets to keep everything warm. Eventually the border office opened and one by one we entered and paid 10 or 15 Bolivianos for the privilege of leaving the country. Marc tried in vain to ask for a receipt (since we all knew that there was not supposed to be a charge to leave the country). But, eventually, we too paid the bribe that went directly into his pocket.

Then we waited and waited and waited, until we finally got back on the bus and traveled for about 15 minutes to the Chilean border. This time we were literally stopped at the side of the road in what looked like nomads’ land. On the other side of the road was a Chilean bus that had just arrived from the Chilean border. Both buses asked their occupants to disembark and take all of their luggage out of the luggage compartment. Then we all waited. And waited. And waited.

You will notice that someone in the back is knitting. There was time to complete a sweater while we waited!

The shadow from the bus afforded us some shade but as the wait approached two hours, we were all huddled in the now very narrow area of shade left. Eventually a bus arrived and we all put our luggage into the luggage compartment and boarded the bus — for the 5-minute ride to the actual border!

I don't have pictures to prove it, but there were a cute youngster wearing this mask and the paws that went with it throughout the journey. There was another very cute little boy that was quite sure the mask was real. We were all in need of entertainment, so this was a nice distraction.

There we worked our way off the bus and took our luggage once again from the luggage compartment and waited to be interrogated and searched by the Chilean border guards. They are very picky about any vegetable matter entering so they check each bag. And then take a very close look at the bus, inside and out, and the baggage compartment. The guards were actually very nice and had fun talking English to us. The search of our bags was, in the end very cursory and we were through quite quickly — and no bribe to pay this time around!

I think by now it was about noon and we had been traveling since 4:00 AM. Within an hour we would be in Calama, a well-to-do mining town at the other end of the spectrum from what we had experienced in Uyuni. So it was really a shock to us that it would be in Calama of all places that we had our first really negative experience of this leg of our journey. And one that changed the tone for the rest of the trip.

A few words on that on my next post!

And at long last the Bolivian Salar

Quick note: I know there have been huge gaps between posts. In fact we are already back in New York, but I promised myself I would complete this journey on this blog, so here we go. When they were written each post made sense as a continuation of the previous one. But now it may be very disjointed if you have not read the previous entry. If you are confused, please take a look at the previous post  If that doesn’t work, try starting here.

... If Tupiza could be described as a small and unremarkable town with basic accommodations, Uyuni would have to be described as the godforsaken town at the end of a dusty and garbage strewn road to hell! And I am being kind. Raoul’s mood deteriorated as we drew near. He told us right away that he hates Uyuni and we would soon see why. After three days on the road without a shower, feeling grungy and tired, all of us were looking forward to being in a town with running water. Our hostal was far from the town centre and far from luxurious. There was running water though and Noemi got set up to make us dinner while we all got settled. All of us needed to make plans to exit Uyuni so we walked into town to investigate buses out of town as well as alternative accommodations if we had to stay an extra night. We looked into buses and stopped in at a few hostals that were far from satisfying. We were both feeling we had had enough of roughing it and were looking for an exit strategy that would take us out of this hell hole as quickly as possible!

It was about that time that Marc started feeling ill. I was still feeling fine, so we got Marc a sprite and started walking back to the hotel. Bjorn and Joachim arrived back at the hotel at the same time and we exchanged notes about buses booked and plans made.

It was about that time that I began feeling ill. I excused myself and ran to the bathroom as gracefully as I could. I think you see where this is going. Within an hour or so, we were all sick, including Noemi. Joachim came to our room to announce that he too was sick and Bjorn was not far behind.

I don’t have to tell you what being sick in a hostal with communal bathrooms is far from ideal. But somehow we all made it through the night and felt remarkably healthy the next morning at 4:00am when we all were up for our last day, and most important day of the trip: the visit to the Salar (salt flats).


It being the summer holiday for South Americans, there were literally hundreds of university students and other tourists with the exact same itinerary. We, and all of the multitudes of tourists, were on our way before 5:00 am driving through the saltwater onto the glistening salt flats to see the sun rise. I could feel Raoul cringing as the salt water splashed on and under his jeep and then the salt from the surface of the salt flats was kicked up by its tires into every crevice of the underside of the vehicle! But for us, the experience was spectacular, even with dozens of jeeps racing past us throughout the morning hours.

We had breakfast in the first hotel made of salt, which is now a museum. There are now a couple of others that have popped up that are fancier and much more expensive. We did not visit them, but were able to view them from afar. 

Everything is made out of salt including the furniture. Sort of like an Igloo made out of salt blocks instead of packed snow.

All made out of salt!

Canadians have been here!

As well as everyone else!

Raoul taking a quick nap while we took in the amazing scenery. I guess he has seen it a couple of times!

It seems there is a tradition of taking funny pictures on the salt flats. Not sure where this idea originated, but Raoul had all sorts of ideas and had us pose in all sorts of ways that were actually hysterical. The boys really got into it and they were out there posing and snapping photos long after Marc and I were too cold to stay outside any longer.

Raoul then took us further onto the salt flats where we witnessed the family teams scrapping salt into heaps for drying while others moved dried salt onto trucks for transport to facilities where the salt is further dried, cleaned and processed for table and artisanal salts.

The last stop on our tour was what is called the Train Graveyard. It is a place where train cars no longer fit for service are laid to rest. They are over time disintegrating with the help of the salty air as well as disappearing piece by piece with the help of entrepreneurs looking for ways to make a bit of extra cash selling scraps of iron. Graffiti artists have also had some fun here. I don’t know what it is about trains, but people just have to climb on them. And so the Train Graveyard has become a living sculpture, ever changing as people climb on and off the cars.

And with that final tourist attraction, our trip was over. Raoul drove us back to the hostal, and Noemi prepared our last meal. Bjorn and Joachim had a bus out at 7:30 pm to Potosi and we had a 4:00 am departure to the Bolivian/Chilean border and onwards to Calama Chile. We sat together at our last lunch filling out a comments form that Raoul had given us, exchanging email addresses and talking about our amazing journey together.

Just before we all went our separate ways to finish packing up, I turned to the boys and told them that one of the biggest highlights of the trip for us was sharing it with them. I had to hold back a tear or two. We were going to miss them very much. When traveling, you meet people on the road and share your life with them for a few days or a few weeks. Each time it is a different experience. But this encounter was very special. And of course that is because these two young men are very special. I would love to meet their parents one day to congratulate them on raising such good boys!

The rest of our Uyuni story includes yet another incredible bus journey, which deserves its own post!

Four amazing days three restful nights in the Bolivian wilderness

The scenery as we left Tupiza

 Our excursion from Tupiza to Uyuni would be by jeep with two other tourists, a driver/tour guide, and a cook. Everything we read and everyone we talked to about the trip warned that the accommodations were very basic and the drive rough. But everyone and every article and every review agreed that the scenery was outstanding and the food delicious and this trip was not to be missed. We had chosen a tour company that had received good reviews so we knew we were in good hands. All that remained was to meet our travel companions, our guide and cook. We knew ahead of time that we all spoke English as we had all paid an extra levy to have a guide that spoke English.

We finished our breakfast and walked to the tour agency office at the front of the hostal. There I was greeted by a very polite and very tall Swedish young man named Bjorn, who introduced himself and shook my hand. Shortly thereafter Joachim, his travel companion (just as tall, but dark hair instead of blond), arrived and similarly introduced himself with a smile and a handshake. We soon learned that Bjorn and Joachim had known each other since elementary school and were on a 6 week trip together through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru (sound familiar?). Luckily for us, they had started their trip in the opposite direction than we did, so we were able to advise them on Peru and Bolivia and they were able to advise us on Chile and Argentina.

We soon were also introduced to our driver/guide Raoul and our cook Noemi (no I did not spell that wrong, her name was very similar to mine). We were both amazed we had almost the same name! It must be a sign!!

sand dunes ...

And snow capped mountains!

Marc and I and our Swedish travel companions were immediate friends and the first long day of driving flew by as we talked about our respective travels and exchanged tips from our experiences in each of the cities we had traveled through. Although there was a huge age difference between us, the language of travel seemed to melt the years between us away and two generations melded as one. They spoke perfect English and we really could not have asked for a more perfect group.

Soon after leaving Tupiza any semblance of paved roads were left behind. For that reason, the extraordinary care our driver Raoul took to keep us on the road safely was a good indication we were in good hands. As we watched some of the other drivers racing over gravel roads raising dust and stones in their wake, we were thankful we were in Raoul’s car and not any of the others. Noemi had the back of the jeep packed with provisions, and the top of the jeep was packed with our bags, tanks of water and a cooking stove.

room we shared with the boys!

Noemi preparing our dinner

Breakfast each day was at our hostal where we spent the night. Lunch was prepared in the morning and packed in the truck, to be unveiled in some beautiful scenic spot along the way. We marveled each day at what Noemi had prepared for us in the middle of nowhere. In addition to a full hot entre and hot side dishes, there was always a fresh salad and soft drinks as well as bottled water. Dinner was prepared in the kitchen of the hostal where we would be sleeping. Although we all asked, Noemi would not let us help with preparation or cleanup. So, although the conditions were basic, we were really being treated as royalty. Raoul also kept his jeep sparkling clean, which was a feat in itself considering we were in the desert and then driving over salt flats, intermittently driving through rivers where the road disappeared altogether.

What didn’t we see on this trip? Looking back, it is hard to believe we managed to see and do it all in just four days. The itinerary was packed with so many attractions each day, that without our photos, it really would be impossible to remember what happened when. But there was one moment of this trip that will stay with me forever. When I will think back on our trip from Tupiza to Uyuni, this experience is what will summarize the very special nature of this journey.

It is a very rare moment for us, to be in a place so magnificent that it brings tears to your eyes. Where you gaze upon the scene in front of you as if you were an explorer coming upon this turn in the road for the very first time. Here we were, the six of us, in our jeep, all alone in the wilderness between Tupiza and Uyuni. No other vehicle, no other human beings. Just a vast lagoon stretching along the horizon, as if a mirage. The surface of the lagoon, like glass, was dotted with what looked like small specs of pink reflected in the water. On second look, the specs begin to move and soon fly from the surface into the air as our vehicle approached. In disbelief we watched hundreds of pink flamingos take flight in formation and resettle far enough away from us to be safe from our intrusion.

I turned to Marc, barely able to speak. We have been travelling for almost two years. Never in all of that time, have we been able to experience this kind of wonder in such a pure way. In this vast wilderness, our jeep was also just a spec on the horizon. For the first three days of our trip, we rarely saw another human being. Just our jeep, our provisions and mother nature.

That is the essence of this trip.

Marc enjoying the thermal waters at the edge of the salt flats

The distances were far, and we were for the most part in the jeep traveling over all sorts of terrain, stopping to view flamingos, volcanic rock gardens and geysers. Each night we rested our weary bones in hostals along the way and Noemi cooked us dinner. We were all ready for bed as soon as our meal was completed. Raoul then went to work cleaning his jeep and making sure all was well for the next day’s journey.

Geysers!

Our jeep being packed for the journey

As we got closer to Uyuni, the illusion that we had this landscape to ourselves vanished as we began to see dozens of jeeps like ours parked at each viewpoint. There were still beautiful things to see, but they were now for the masses. Most trips to the Bolivian salar (Salt Flats) begin in Uyuni as you can make it to the salar and back in one day from there.


Our last lunch was a spectacular one with everything left in the larder. Roasted potatoes of all shapes and colors, corn on the cob, salad, cooked vegetables and roasted chicken. We managed to find a quiet place for lunch away from all of the other jeeps and crowds of tourists. Then we headed for Uyuni.

Shortly after lunch we encountered a jeep at the side of the road in need of help. The driver had a flat tire and no spare! It also looked like he was completely unprepared. Raoul of course was the opposite, so he jumped out of the jeep and got out his tools and his spare tire and helped his comrade out of quite a jam. We were all mumbling in our jeep about how ridiculous it was to be out here without a spare tire! And of course we were all very happy to have such a good and prepared driver. The ordeal took quite some time and even after the tire was replaced, it was discovered that the replacement tire was not really the right size. So the solution was to move the spare to the back wheel and the back wheel to the front. So two more tires to change. Eventually both vehicles were back on the road and in an hour or so we all made it to Uyuni.

Amazing day trip from Tupiza

By 4:00 am we were both asleep in our comfortable hostel bed and awoke a few hours later, quite refreshed in time for the breakfast promised us with our reservation. The hostel is a converted hacienda and the breakfast room was a converted dining room. Although the breakfast was very sparse and unsatisfying in itself, the surroundings somehow made up for it. And we knew we were at the beginning of a great adventure, so stale bread and jam (and almost anything else) was just fine.

We spent the morning checking out the town and doing our research to find the best tour company for our four-day three-night excursion from Tupiza to Uyuni, through the Bolivian salar (Salt Flats). Our Belgian friends Janne and Sami, that we had met in Sucre, convinced us to start our excursion in Tupiza rather than in Uyuni and we were soon to learn that his was very good advice.

Aside from having a great time on our excursions from Tupiza, we also met incredible people which I will elaborate upon shortly.

After doing our usual Broudo “shopping around”, we decided to book with the tour company associated with our hostal (La Torre). In order to get the best deal, we also booked a day trip with them to explore the geological phenomena around Tupiza which was our first taste of what was to come on the days that followed.

When we boarded our vehicle for our day trip, we found that our tour guide/driver had brought his son with him. It was a school holiday so we were happy to have him with us. This young boy (we think he was maybe 8 years old) was an absolute sweetheart. Extremely well behaved and able to keep himself entertained throughout the entire trip with out being any trouble to anyone. He was thrilled to be out in nature with his dad and was climbing rocks and trees at every opportunity. The only “toy” he had with him was a bottle of water, which he converted into a sailboat whenever there was a puddle along the way. He had obviously done this trip with his dad many times and helped us find our way. This boy was full of joy. Having him along was a real gift.

Our guide Fidel and his son did not speak a word of English, but luckily for us, our companion on the trip — Peter, a retired man from Germany, spoke Spanish and English well and was able to translate between us and our guide and the other way around. Peter had been traveling around South America as we had for several months and we had lots to discuss and many experiences to share.

Peter was also an amazing addition to our trip. Full of energy and travel stories, he reminded us of our friend Bob that we met on our India trip. Peter has been traveling extensively since retiring and is the kind of person that really “experiences” each place he travels to. He is a chef by trade and finds a way to cook for people everywhere he goes. Each story he shared with us was full of local colour and local flavours as well.

As you can see, we had great companions for our day trip and the places we visited and the sights we had a chance to experience were as remarkable as the company.

Our guide took us through amazing sandstone formations and canyons along a meandering river. A hot lunch had been prepared for us which we ate under the shade of beautiful trees in an unbelievably gorgeous spot. There were cactus gardens in bloom along the way. And endless mountain “slices” seemingly growing out of the ground. Our cameras were clicking non-stop as we traveled through the area.

Although the town of Tupiza itself had little to offer, the surrounding area was proving to be extraordinary. And our excitement was mounting for the four days still ahead of us.

We arrived back in Tupiza in the late afternoon amazed and exhilarated by the scenery we had experienced and the good company we had shared the day with.