The experience there at night leaves you speechless. I could say magnificent, galactic. I was in an area of the desert flooded with water about 10-20 cm from the “permasal”. I got rubber boots and went down to the pictures. The water was very very cold and you could feel it even through your boots and 3 pairs of socks.
Photo credit: Attila Munzlinger
We managed to take magnificent pictures. I didn’t manage to get exactly the mirrored galaxy effect in the water, because there were still a few gusts of wind that stirred the water a bit and distorted the reflection in the water mirror a bit. But the pictures turned out super amazing anyway and the Galactic experience, the sky being extraordinarily clear, without light pollution.
A bit oh throwback and context:
In the summer of 2019 I went on an intensive tour of western South America. Passing through five territories of the continent took me through fascinating places, unique in the world. I stood by the Hand of the Desert, looking up at the southern night sky of the Atacama desert, and drove the largest dunes in the world and the paths of desert valleys with such a different appearance that people gave them names like the Valley of the Moon or the Valley of the Planet Mars.
I took night pictures near the Three Sisters in the Valley of the Moon. I gazed westward into the Pacific Ocean, out in the open, alongside the stone statues of the vanished civilization of Easter Island—the eastern tip of Polynesia. I had lunch in the middle of the Bolivian salt desert and at night I photographed my reflection in the water mirror of the flattest and whitest place on Earth.
We stayed in a villa made of salt and cactus wood.
We went to the cactus island of the salt desert. I listened to the stories of the astronomers from ALMA – an observatory located at over 5000m altitude, but also to those of the native inhabitants of the floating islands of Lake Titicaca.
We drove fast on dirt desert roads to see the flamingos at sunset. I went to Macchu Picchu.
We went to Cusco.
We saw the oldest pyramids in South America, the over 5000 year old ones from Caral.
We went to the witches market in La Paz and saw the singing fountains in Lima.
It was a monumental trip in just one month, parts of which could be monumental trips in themselves.
The pretext the hole trip was the few minutes of solar eclipse, the third solar eclipse for me.
The rest of the trips and the fascinating things experienced concentrated within a month make me wonder what I do with my time at home when week after week, month after month goes by without discovering anything notable.
And I miss leaving my home again, to go and discover these amazing places on remote corners of the planet.
Photo credit: Attila Munzlinger
The tour was organized by the SARM Romania astroclub, of which I am a member. The official name was SARM Romania Expedition – South American Eclipse 2019, extending from June 25 to July 22, 2019.
Given the intensity and extension of the trip, we have divided the story into 9 parts, presented in chronological order as follows:
- Buenos Aires;
- Chile – Introduction to Chile and The Solar Eclipse 2019;
- Easter Island;
- Chile – Atacama Desert, Valley of Death (or Mars) and other amazing places;
- Chile – Moon Valley and the Flamingo Birds;
- Bolivia – Salar de Uyuni or the Salt Desert;
- Bolivia – La Paz, Tiwanaku and other amazing places;
- Peru – Machu Picchu and Cuzco;
- Peru – Lima, Nazca and the Caral Pyramids.
Salt Desert or Salar de Uyuni
July 11 – Thursday
Thursday we left in the morning back to Calama where I handed over the cars and went on with a coach to Uyuni.
At the border with Bolivia we changed the bus. The more exotic part of the trip began, exotic not in the tropical sense of Easter Island but the entry into Bolivia and then Peru, poorer countries but somehow more bohemian.
Entering Bolivia was on foot, we picked up our luggage and went to the border for passport and visa checks. The border there is old school. It looked more like a prison than a border crossing.
The more poetic and exotic part of the trip had begun. I felt like I was in an American movie set in El Paso.
On the way to the first accommodation in Bolivia, a salt house, the coach took us on a magnificent road, the altimeter registering just over 4000 m altitude, like coming close to Mont Blanc.
Of course, the acclimatization being done gradually, the effect of the attitude was not felt. I remember the drivers were already chewing coca leaves, they had a plastic box with leaves next to them.
You will be very disappointed if you imagine that chewing coca leaves gives you any special sensation. I drank a lot of coca tea in Bolivia, it’s like green tea, a little weaker, and the leaves are quite weak, much weaker than say tobacco leaves. It was as if tobacco was being chewed in the American Wild West.
We stopped by some naturally formed rock formations. The sphinx of Bucegi is a shapeless boulder in addition to the very clear shape of this Bolivian eagle made of high-altitude Atacama desert stone.
I arrived at the Casa Andina de Sal Hotel 3* in the evening, around 18:00.. Casa de Sal in its own right. A hotel made at least partly from what we saw, of blocks of salt. We were already in the area of the huge salt desert Salar de Uyuni, 3656 m altitude. Traditional building materials in the area include salt, in stone-like blocks, and cactus wood (cacti the size of trees). Besides, we were later to visit a kind of island or forest on a hill or small mountain, full of cacti as big as the trees.
Coming back, the hotel room had salt walls and most of the salt furniture, salt sofa, salt table and others. Great experience although I didn’t feel like I was breathing any better because of the salt. But it was nice.
In the evening followed a main attraction of the trip from Bolivia, otherwise a highlight of the entire tour of South America, on a par with Easter Island, Eclipse and others.
This is the actual tour in the salt desert. In fact, the first shift, the night shift, with the jeeps. In Bolivia everything was cheaper, very cheap. The tour cost 30 dollars in conditions where anyway the prices are very high for tourists, relative to the prices for locals.
The experience there at night leaves you speechless. I could say magnificent, galactic. I was in an area of the desert flooded with water about 10-20 cm from the permasal. I got rubber boots and went down to the pictures. The water was very very cold and you could feel it even through your boots and 3 pairs of socks.
We managed to take magnificent pictures. I didn’t manage to get exactly the mirrored galaxy effect in the water, because there were still a few gusts of wind that stirred the water a bit and distorted the reflection in the water mirror a bit. But the pictures turned out super amazing anyway and the Galactic experience, the sky being extraordinarily clear, without light pollution.
There were amazing photographers in our group. The next photos are some of theirs. Much better than I could ever take.
Photo credit: Attila Munzlinger
By comparison, this is one of my photos:
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July 12 – Friday
The next morning we went to visit a sort of open-air museum of abandoned trains. British trains from colonial times. Much said about the museum, it was a landscape worthy of Mad Max, but super interesting. Old trains, rusty trains. You can climb, go everywhere, on trains, in trains, under trains.
Next to this Mad Max setting was of course an improvised souvenir bazaar. Except the souvenirs were really interesting. In fact, all of Bolivia is full of super interesting and very cheap souvenirs, many authentic, being a country covered by fakes and plastics to a lesser extent than the somewhat richer neighboring countries around.
I would get more money with me next time, just to buy and also encourage (a tiny bit) these artisans and the local economy. They really deserve it.
I took stones, boulders from that base. But boulders with ammonites fossils in them. They looked like split stone potatoes. Those who sold souvenirs there were very motivated, so some made them on the spot. I took a bracelet and filmed the process of braiding the bracelet in place. Great experience.
Back to the Salt Desert, during the day this time
After this experience, we went again with the jeeps in Salar de Uyuni, this time during the day.
During the day, Solar de Uyuni is a different amazing experience.
About the salt desert, it is an extraordinarily flat surface, a layer of salt spread over 10,582,000 sqm that is over 3600m above sea level, so flat that it is used to calibrate satellites, the level difference on this surface is more less than 1m, except for islands of hills or small mountain rises.
It appears that only a few large areas of the planet approach this level of perfection as a flat surface. Salar de Uyuni is unique in the world, and it’s not only about this or the special features it has, but about the feeling you get when you’re there.
It was super exciting to drive the Jeeps at over 140km/h on this huge almost perfectly flat and almost perfectly white surface that you can actually eat off of. I tasted the salt there, normal salt, good to put on the plate.
Some more photos:
Another highlight of the day was visiting Icahuasi Island, also called “El Corazon del Salar”, Isla Incahuasi is a completely different “island”.
It is heart shaped and the first thing that immediately catches your eye is the way it has been formed, when you step from the perfection of the salt desert onto the island it is like climbing a step, so abrupt is the transition! Giant cacti are found on the island, some reaching 12 m in height.
What impresses the most is the fabulous panorama of Salar on the island, the feeling of being in the middle of an enormous expanse of white is absolutely incredible.
190712 – Salar Uyuni zi – Insula Cactusi DZ Iphone
Another highlight of the entire trip was the lunch.
That’s because the company that drove us with the Jeeps also brought everything needed for a restaurant table (tables, chairs, tablecloths, cutlery, food) but in the middle of the white immensity of salt. I also had champagne, yes. Superb.
But all good things come to an end. But not anyway, but with a gorgeous sunset in the white desert. In the afternoon he took us to the hotel to collect our luggage and we went to the airport for the flight to La Paz at 20.40.
After only an hour of flight I landed at El Alto airport, one of the highest airports in the world (4060 m alt) from where I made the transfer to the Camino Real Apartments Hotel.
And in the capital La Paz, the altitude is between 3640 m alt to over 4000 m.
However, what I didn’t mention is that starting with Bolivia and continuing with Peru, the population becomes mostly Amerindian, as opposed to the white Latin America of Chile and Argentina. Descendants of the Quechua, Inca, Amarya, Uros and other nations make up the majority of the population.