The Southwest Circuit

We left Tupiza and headed southwest towards the Chilean and Argentinean borders and the Reserva de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa, into some of the most isolated and desolate scenery on earth.

The second morning our first stop was San Antonio, a ghost town once famed for gold mining. Our guide explained the local legend, that the townspeople grew so rich gold mining than they became wasteful, building houses out of gold, burning wheat for fuel and killing babies. In retribution, an old woman went from house to house sweeping, brining plague and pestilence with her. While the story is certainly charming, I think the actual sequence of events, environmental collapse as a society on the margins of survivability grew too large, might be even more interesting. Among the ruins there were these crazy creatures called viscachas, which look like crosses between squirrels and bunnies, but even cuter. We also saw ostriches just outside of San Antonio, absurdly out of place in the Andean highlands.

The figurative and literal highlight of the second day was Laguna Verde, a day-glo green lake. It’s stained such a startling color by lead, sulfur, arsenic and calcium. An icy wind blows constantly, churning the lake into green and white froth. Volcan Licancabur rises imposingly above lake, straddling the border between Bolivia and Chile.

We also visited the Mañana del Sol Gysers, a field of furiously bubbling mud pools and steaming fumaroles. We were warned to approach carefully, as the ground has given way underfoot, scalding imprudent tourists to death. It was nearing dusk, and the temperatures dropping, so a soak didn’t seem like such a bad idea to me.

On the third day we visited Laguna Colorada, a rusty red lake ringed with brilliant white sodium, magnesium, borax and gypsum sediments and bright green grasses. It appears apocalyptic, except for the flamingo population, eating algae and plankton from the florid waters. They were the first of many flamingoes we saw, thriving at highs of 4300m and lows of 0°F.

We also drove through the Desierto de Dali on the second day and Desierto de Siloli on the third, high-altitude wastelands of volcanic ash and red rock. Over the centuries the relentless wind has sandblasted the boulders into surreal shapes, creating perfect climbing rocks. There was not a sign of life in sight, except vicuñas, like llamas, but smaller, softer and super hardy.

Again, I can only say so much before Mira has to take over for me.