Two guys have joined me for breakfast, as it turns out an elderly Dutchman and a wiry and strong-looking and tanned Englishman.
The running man
I get into a conversation with the young guy, and it turns out that I'm dealing with an extraordinary member of the human species. You rarely meet them, sometimes you might read something in the press, but when you meet them in reality, wow.
His name is Jamie Ramsay, and he is the Running Man. I can't remember the exact distances and places he's run through, but it must be thousands of miles. Currently, he has put the running shoes aside and is now riding his bike, for months in South America, averaging 140 km per day. Quite a distance when you think of the sometimes miserable road conditions (my own maximum is hardly one hundred kilometers and I was - as a non-biker - absolutely at the end of my strength).
Of course, it is not possible - especially when running - to arrive at a village or town in the evening, so he sets up his tent somewhere in no man's land, cooks his food and spends the night in peace. Honestly, I might listen to the guy for hours, but the clock is ticking, at 10.30 the jeep leaves in the direction of the salt flat.
Railway Cemetery
A group has already gathered, a typical mix as always: a Latino couple from Houston/Texas, a Chilean, a young Yankee boy from New York and two older Frenchmen.
The driver is called Fausto, speaks only Spanish and nothing else and turns out to be a less than ideal example of a guide. Well, with a little delay we start, first destination Railway Cemetery.
Surreal structures appear in the distance, foreign objects in the untouched landscape, reddish-brown monstrosities that a giant must have left behind. The closer we get, the clearer the outlines of the monsters become.
A multitude of jeeps have gathered in the huge parking lot, and selfie-hungry tourists spill out, feasting their eyes on the sad remnants of past railroad glory.
And it really is sad. On a plain without a horizon, hundreds of once magnificent vehicles are rusting to themselves, some still on the tracks, some next to it, and slowly sinking into the ground. The dry air prevents it from rusting quickly, and so it will be some time before the destruction process puts an end to everything.
It's old trains, locomotives in all states of deterioration, long trains that have been laid to rest here. An infinitely sad sight.
One would like to weep in the face of the once so proud locomotives, which are now discarded and at best only serve as a background for photos and selfies.
So these are the last remnants of a once thriving railroad industry.
Maybe one of these little cuddly locomotives was the one that brought me 1981 from the Atacama Desert to La Paz, maybe the carriages behind it are the ones in which I spent one of the coldest nights of my life. The thought saddens me somehow.
But it's not only that. You can hardly find a locomotive or a carriage without graffiti and some stupid slogans scrawled all over it (like "Ken was here", "so was Bryan", or "Ana para siempre"). Idiots.
A shame and as everywhere in these strange times absolutely disrespectful. The mainly young tourists climb onto the roofs, stare out of the windows with pitifully stupid faces and have their pictures taken. This also includes posing in all kinds of ways in order to take a selfie.
Well, once again the effects of mass tourism (in this particular case also of individual tourism), and once again it is true: humans have a fundamental tendency to destroy everything beautiful ...
Stop on the way to the Salt Flat
Then let's hope that the very destination of the excursion is less exposed to the vandalism of people.
The jeep follows a surprisingly good road for a few kilometers before turning left onto a dirt road. Once again, numerous vehicles are wedged between huts, the road is full of deep puddles, and all around are stalls selling the usual stuff.
We are released to the shopping mile for exactly twenty-five minutes, but the confusion makes it difficult, especially if we have absolutely no interest in buying these products that are over and over the same.
The great Salt Flat of Uyuni
The road to the Flat (one can no longer speak of a road) is atrocious to say the least, but after half an hour of shaking we finally reach the shore.
Boots are distributed, so we can splash a little in the barely foot-high water. Quiet disappointment sets in: this is supposed to be the wonderful salt flat everyone is raving about? But no, it really starts now.
Some information about it: the Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world with slightly more than 10'000 square kilometers, so it corresponds to about a quarter of the area of Switzerland.
The salt mantle can be up to thirty meters thick in some places, allowing even buses and trucks to drive over it safely. The flat is up to 72 meters or even at least 121 meters deep. The amount of salt in the Salar de Uyuni is estimated at about ten billion tons. Every year, about 25.000 tons of it are exploited and transported to the cities.
With glaring brightness during the day and very cold nights, it resembles a frozen lake. The flat is almost devoid of any kind of living creatures. But it is a breeding place for some flamingo species found only in South America.
Salvador Dali
On this dead bottom, shining through in the water and showing strange structures (hexagons, pentagons like garden slabs), we now drive out at walking pace. The horizon slowly disappears, the boundary between heaven and earth dissolves. The further one ventures out, the crazier the aerial reflections become. They are pictures that Salvador Dali might have painted, the only thing missing is a burning giraffe in the distance.
A restaurant in the middle of the lake
There is a kind of restaurant in a round tent shape in the middle of the lake. It is surprisingly hot inside, so I quickly get rid of the warm clothes. Here the customers of the different agencies are catered for. Our food, brought by the driver, consists among other things of llama meat.
A treat that I will do to myself for the first and almost certainly the last time.
In the shallow plain in front of the restaurant, strange, wonderfully shaped stones lie in the water.
A storm threatens
The black clouds on the horizon suggest that a real storm is on the way.
The reflections now take on an additional component: if they have been light blue, white, milky so far, they now become looming monsters, doubly mirrored on the lake, approaching quickly. The roof of the restaurant starts to move, a thunderous creaking sound, some windows are pushed inward by the force of the storm, shattering on the ground.
But as quickly as it came, the thunderstorm disappears, calm returns, only the splashing of the heavy rain enters from outside.
Way back
And eventually, after another trip even further out onto the featureless, shimmering, strange expanse, we turn back, silent.
We are kind of blown away by the impressions, which we might not get to see anywhere else in this form and intensity ...
Mileage: 3450
Matching Song: The Rolling Stones - Salt of the Earth
And here the trip continues ... to La Paz
