360 Degrees Longitude (43 page)

Eventually the day unfolded like it had the day before. We bumped along a primitive road, stopping once or twice an hour to flush the lines. For lunch, we dipped into, yet again, our emergency food supplies because there were no facilities to cook the food that was “included” on the tour.

Around midafternoon we rounded a mountain, and what lay in front of us was astounding. As far as we could see stretched a white horizon of salt, covered in shallow water. The Unimog plunged purposefully into the water. September looked out the window, concerned. “With all the water in the fuel and the trouble we seem to be having, are you sure this is a good idea?” She seemed to be talking to the thin air as much as asking a real question.

“I think these guys know what they're doing.”

“Can you give me an example?” September asked pointedly. “They're adventurous, yes, but that isn't the same thing.”

We drove several miles into the Salar de Uyuni and stopped. I had crossed salt flats before, and had been skeptical of this excursion, but now that I was here, I had to admit it was beautiful in an other-worldly sort of way. From horizon to horizon the surface of the water was perfectly flat, and gave a mirrored refection of the sky above.

The result was that it looked like we were standing in the clouds, and out toward the horizon, you couldn't tell where the earth ended and the sky began. The horizon was utterly lost in the reflection, yielding a disorienting surreal effect. Patrick's enthusiasm for the place came into focus.

We waited for the sunset, as the colors promised a spectacular show.

Spectacular it was. Over the next 30 or so minutes the sky turned from red to orange then to yellow, green, blue, and finally purple. We climbed out of the Unimog and waded in the water, marveling at the reflected colors as the sky grew darker. I don't think I have snapped so many pictures in one place in my life.

As dusk gave way to dark, I wondered where we would bed down for the night. “There is a small village, Jirira, on the northern edge of the Salar,” Patrick said. “It's about an hour away. In Jirira there is a small inn run by a woman named Doña Lupe.”

“Is she expecting us?” I asked naïvely.

“No, they have no telephones in Jirira.”

We turned our backs on the now-black sky and splashed our way back into the Unimog, to start our last push to Jirira.

But the Unimog wouldn't start. Patrick and Ciprián climbed back down into the ankle-deep water and cajoled and coaxed the beast for a very long time in the dark, peering into the bowels of the engine. September peered into the bowels of her suitcase and pulled out a flashlight. But even with the aid of September's flashlight, no amount of fuel line flushing and coercion from Ciprián would make the truck go. Patrick and Ciprián were looking more and more grim as time passed.

It was now very dark, we were in the middle of a freaking lake, we had eaten the last of our emergency rations, excepting one item, and best of all, no one knew we were here. The wind picked up and the night grew colder. September passed around our new winter clothes.

As September handed out the scarves and hats, I turned to Jordan and said, “Would you please pass the Armageddon Pills?”

With a huge grin and a cheer, Jordan dutifully retrieved the M&Ms.

March 6–March 12
Bolivia/Chile

P
anic hadn't quite set in yet, but we had already made a fair dent in our M&M supply when Patrick and Ciprián emerged, anything but victorious, from under the hood of the Unimog. They were speaking earnestly in Spanish, but I motioned for them to come have a treat. Ciprián quickly wiped his hands and cupped them, and I poured out several peanut M&M's for him. He looked as though he had never seen a peanut M&M before and he bit into one. Ciprián's face brightened and he nibbled the chocolate away from a peanut. He and Patrick then started speaking in Spanish. Ciprián's native language is Quecheua and I could tell he was struggling to make Patrick understand something as he was making a sucking sound with his lips while holding the peanut. Ciprián ducked under the hood again.

A few moments later the Unimog roared to life. I asked Patrick what happened. Ciprián, our Latin MacGyver, repaired a vacuum leak with a peanut from an Armageddon Pill and a bit of electrical tape. Jordan, and to a lesser extent Katrina, were genuinely sad that we wouldn't be spending the night in the Unimog.

It was oh-dark-thirty when we rolled into Doña Lupe's inn. Of course Doña Lupe had no idea we were coming, but when you have an inn at the edge of the Salar, you learn how to throw open the doors and get something good to eat on the table in nothing flat.

Doña Lupe was a large, grandmotherly sort dressed in a traditional brightly woven skirt and bowler hat. As soon as she saw us pull in she came running out of her one-room adobe house to welcome us. It was clear from the warm greetings between Ciprián, Patrick, and Doña Lupe that they all knew one another, and held each other in high regard. But when our family of four came tumbling out of the back of the Unimog, Doña Lupe gave Patrick and Ciprián a withering look and started to scold them like school boys.

Doña Lupe spoke to Ciprián in Quechua, and although we didn't understand a single word, the message was pretty clear. She spoke rapidly in a scolding voice as she pointed first to the salt flats, and then to the pitch-black sky, and then to our children. When she was finished berating Ciprián for endangering two young children, she gestured imperiously for all of us to follow her inside.

The Spanish title “doña” is an honorific, bestowed only upon those few who, after a number of years, have attained a certain stature within their communities. Doña Lupe had the only inn in town, the largest fields of quinoa (the grain grown high in the Andes Mountains), and most importantly, a herd of nearly a hundred llamas. It was clear from her manner that she was used to being obeyed.

Doña Lupe immediately took the children under her wing and sat them in front of the warm wood-burning stove. Pulling pots and cooking utensils from the kitchen shelves, she muttered to herself in Spanish, shooting Patrick a “look” from time to time, as I picked up a few of her Spanish words such as “children” and “hungry.”

I thought about stepping in and coming to Patrick's rescue and telling Doña Lupe that we had a great dinner consisting of peanut M&M's, but then I thought it was best to play the part of “victim” rather than “perpetrator.”

Doña Lupe was preparing a meal of quinoa soup, which smelled divine, but we decided that given the late hour Jordan was in no condition to try something new. September quickly went to the Unimog and retrieved the last box of macaroni and cheese that we had purchased at Kinokuniya in Kamakura, Japan many weeks prior. September handed it to Doña Lupe.

Doña Lupe looked at the box as if it had just arrived special delivery from Jupiter and turned it over and over as if by so doing it would reveal its secret. September tried to take over and explain what it was and how to make it. Doña Lupe waved September off with her hand and proceeded to take the box and dump the entire contents, cheese sauce and all, into a pot of boiling water, and that was that. What came out some minutes later was a bit of a watery mess, but Jordan was so sleepy he didn't notice.

• • •

Doña Lupe had built her first guestroom more than 25 years ago and has been adding on ever since. In the tiny village of Jirira, she had a monopoly on the tourism industry, but at $1.25 per person, she didn't seem to be interested in capitalizing on it. Her inn was very basic: Its few rooms were constructed of adobe with ceiling joists made of dried cactus. Despite being made out of dirt, it was incredibly spotless.

The next morning Ciprián was once again under the hood; the entire engine block looked like a giant salt lick. He was taking apart all of the electrical connections and cleaning them, then sealing them with grease in preparation for crossing the Salar.

Our $1.25 per person included a hearty breakfast of bread and scrambled eggs. When we were nearly finished eating, Doña Lupe brought in cups of tea made from coca leaves. I personally had no issues with drinking coca tea; without an alkaloid catalyst, the drug is benign. Katrina was another matter; to her, moral issues are black and white. To drink coca tea would be a crime against humanity, much like buying a black market DVD—and I had already made that mistake. I had had a discussion about coca tea with her previously, but as every parent knows, sometimes you have to choose your battles. I was in the uncomfortable position of declining the coca tea that was offered.

“No, gracias,” I replied meekly.

Doña Lupe gave me a surprised, quizzical look. Perhaps we had not understood. She said in Spanish, “I have brought you some coca tea to drink after your breakfast.” I could actually understand what she was saying. It was a bit of a language breakthrough.

I didn't have nearly the Spanish vocabulary to explain myself, so I simply flashed my biggest thank you (but no thank you) smile and repeated myself.

She put her hands on her hips, frowned pointedly, and proceeded to clearly enunciate three distinct syllables in Spanish, as if talking to a small child.

“CO-CA TÉ!”

I answered again, “No, gracias. Solo agua, por favor.”

Doña Lupe's expression was a mixture of surprise and indignation. Surely we were imbeciles in need of a translator.

She marched away, muttering to herself, returning a few moments later with Patrick to interpret. He explained that coca tea is a standard breakfast drink in these parts. By Doña Lupe's audible “hmmph!” you would think she was Bill Gates trying to give away all his money, but these stupid people just wouldn't take it.

 

John's Journal, March 6

Bolivia is dirt poor. Then again, so were Cambodia and Tanzania. Somehow, this is different
—“
content in spite of poverty” is how I would describe it. Bolivia's poverty is a legacy of the Spanish explorations. The saying here is that Bolivians had the cow, and Bolivians milked the cow, but the Spaniards got all the milk
.

In the 16th century Potosi, Bolivia was the richest city in the Western Hemisphere. The Spanish were mining the silver from the surrounding mountains to pay debts related to their infamous inquisitions. Initially Catholic influence forbade the natives from chewing the coca leaf, but when they realized that production in the mines fell, it was once again permitted. This was about 50 years before Jamestown was first settled in Virginia. Potosi has since gone bust, the riches having been drained away centuries ago
.

We were still a long way from the Chilean border. Fortunately, after Ciprián had repaired the Unimog that morning at Doña Lupe's inn, it ran flawlessly. Bolivia is as big as the state of Texas and the parts we were now entering were some of the most remote and desolate on the planet. It is one of the reasons Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid chose to try to hide here.

That day we crossed the entire Salar de Uyuni without incident, and the next day we pulled into the town of San Cristóbal. I pointed out the window and said, “It looks like we fell out of Bolivia and into a Norman Rockwell painting.” Gone were the adobe houses and in their place were modern, yet simple homes that looked as if they had come right out of the American Heartland. We pulled into a café for breakfast; it seemed that it had been airlifted from Route 66.