Cholitas and Salt

the mess that is La Paz

La Paz is a beautiful constellation of city lights by night and an overcrowded, loud, hectic city by day. We arrived at night and from the top of the mountains we overlooked a valley full of lights. Unfortunately the next morning we saw how ugly the city was in the light of day. We had no desire to stay for very long.


Our English friend, Vernon, was determined to make it into the San Pedro prison. This is the prison that the book, Marching Powder, was written about. It is a community within a city. Apparently when you enter as a prisoner you have to buy your cell. If you can’t afford one you sleep in the floor. So in order to make money a whole community has developed. They have little stores, restaurants, bars, and drug trafficking. They also take stupid tourists for tours through the prison for a small fee of $400 bolivianos, which is equivalent to about $60 US. We went with him to wait outside the prison. How it works is you wait outside for one of the prisoners to send you a message, usually by one of their wives or girlfriends. Vernon managed to get a message scribbled on a scrap of paper. It said, “Hi this is Luis from South Africa if you want to meet me and see our way of life please call this number.” Vernon called and arranged everything with the prisoner. He was to get $400 bolivianos and put them in an envelope and give Luis his name and passport number so he could put him on the guest list for the day. Well we waited for a couple of hours and nothing seemed to be happening so we left to see some of the city. Unfortunately for Vernon, he never ended up making it in.

One night we went to see the Cholitas. These are the women Lucha Libre wrestlers who fight in traditional dress. La Paz is famous for them. We had front row seats and popcorn ready for the show. First the men fought, it was so staged it was funny. After a few matches the first Cholita match began. We were under the impression the fights were between two women, but in fact they were between one women and a man. It was still staged but the fights were rather brutal to the women. In the end the women always won, but it was after a severely humiliating and brutal beating from the men.

death by smelly shoe

classic spin move

a kid was having his birthday party at the cholitas match

The next day we left for Uyuni. This was our starting point for the salt flats. We arrived around 6am after an all-night bus and started our tour at 10am. We were in an SUV with two other couples from France and Spain. They were all very nice and we had a fun time with them on the tour.

We started the tour at the train graveyard. They have lots of old trains sitting in the middle of the dessert just rusting away. We looked around a bit, climbed on the trains, and snapped a few pictures then headed out for the salt flats. I didn’t know what to expect, but when we got there I was blown away, and the further we went in to the salt flats the better it got. It was flat and stark white for as far as you could see. We went to a spot where they refined salt. They make piles of salt and let them dry then send that to be refined further. I was surprised when I asked our guide if they exported the salt and his reply was no. Here we are on the biggest salt flat in the world and they don’t export any salt out of their country. Under the salt is also the largest lithium (used to make batteries) reserve in the world and they don’t exploit any of it. It is the country with the most natural resources in South America but it is also the poorest. It makes you wonder why they can’t capitalize on any of their resources.

old steam engines

drying salt

That night we stayed in a hotel made entirely of salt. Everything from the walls to the bed to the floors and tables and chairs were made from salt. In the morning we headed out and visited a pre-Incan archaeological site where there were lots of mummies. They lived in these little cocoon/caves made in the rocks. Their homes became their graves when they died, so all the homes contained bones and pots. It was one of the best archeological sites we visited. We also visited a few lagoons that were inhabited by thousands of pink flamingos. We saw a white lagoon, a green one, a red one, and a couple that where blue.

honeycomb pattern of dried salt

view from on top of a small island of rocks and cactus

the road though the salt flats

On the last day we drove through the dessert in between the mountains and volcanoes. It was beautiful. We stopped at a sulfur field in the morning and the steam rising from the crags created a foggy mystical setting. It felt like we were on another planet. One that smells kind of bad. We also saw a dessert full of large strangely shaped rocks. They called it the Salvador Dali dessert because it looked just like one of his paintings. We passed one rock in the shape of a tree. It was creatively named “tree rock.” All in all the salt flats were amazing. I have never seen so many landscapes so different than those I am accustomed to.

two thousand  year old cactus

Christina