To most U.S citizens(I have started calling Americans that since coming to South America) Bolivia is probably a fairly unknown country. With the worst economy in South America and no coast line, Bolivia has been isolated from the outside world until the recent rise of the internet and globalization. Therefore, many people probably don't know that Bolivia actually has a very interesting tourist attraction, one that I would dare to say should be considered one of the seven wonders of the world(that, of course, is just my opinion). That tourist attraction is the Salar De Uyuni, and I just got back after traveling to the Salar for a couple days.
The Salar De Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat. That may not sound very exciting at first, but just hang in there, and I promise you'll be amazed. The Salar was formed after two techtonic plates collided, causing two large lakes, one fresh water and one salt water, to flow into one another. I am not sure how the chemistry behind this works, but apparently it created the Salar. Therefore, when you think of the Salar think of one of the Great Lakes being covered in solid salt. It takes approximately one hour to drive from one end of the Salar to the other if you're going at a speed of about 50 miles/hour, and the Salar has an island in the middle of it called Inca Huasi.
So now that you have the background info, let me tell you about the trip and all the ways that God provided for us. Our plan was to travel to the city of Oruro by bus and then to take an overnight bus that we could sleep on to the town of Uyuni, and we were also going to take buses back. However, as many of you know, traveling rarely goes as planned, especially in the third world.
First of all, I forgot to bring my passport(I realize this was a bonehead move in hindsight, but I had good reasons behind not bringing it). I wasn't sure if I would need it for the trip, and I didn't want to lose it in the process of traveling, so I left it behind. Nevertheless, I called the guest house and got my passport number from someone that was there. I never had to look back from that point, so a disaster was averted. This was just the beginning of how God provided for us and gave us(as the phrase goes) traveling mercies.
The bus ride to Oruro was fairly pleasant. The roads were steep and windy, so I got a little carsick, but all in all the drive was very picturesque and pleasant. The overnight busride to Uyuni was another story though. After arriving in Oruro, we looked at the departure times for buses going to Uyuni from all of the different companies to try to find the latest time. The latest departure time we could find was 9:00 P.M, which put us arriving at Uyuni at 4:00 A.M. Since we were determined to see the Salar, we decided a 4:00 A.M arrival was a price worth paying. Uyuni is a very isolated town in the middle of the desert and if it weren't for the tourism surrounding the Salar, the town would probably not exist today. Therefore, the road to Uyuni was, perhaps, the most uncomfortable road I have ever been on. The bus shook and rattled all the way to Uyuni while we tried to sleep along the way.
Upon our arrival, we realized that some of us had stomach sickness, but we persevered throughout the day and made it a positive experience anyway. Our bus driver was kind enough to let us stay on the bus until 7:00 A.M, which was very kind of him since Uyuni is so cold and no businesses would have been open at 4:00 A.M. This is just another that I feel God provided for us.
When 7:00 A.M rolled around, we wandered into town and were approached by several travel agents. I had only brought a certain amount of money for the trip, so I was nervous about having enough money for the tour and for bus rides back. On a gut instinct, we went with a travel agent that ended up giving us a grand deal, and she even let us stay in her office late at night because we decided to take a train back to Oruro with hopes that it would be more comfortable than a bus(more on that later).
We went on a tour that took us to a train graveyard, over the Salar, to the Island of Inca Huasi, to the town of Colchani, and to a salt museum. All of these things were very exciting, but the Salar definitely topped them all. We stopped at the beginning of the Salar and took several pictures before driving for another half hour to reach the Island of Inca Huasi in the Salar's center. The Salar appeared to go on and on, never stopping. As we drove over it I felt like I was in some arctic wasteland and that Penguins and Polar Bears should be surrounding me. I remember our driver made some sharp turns, and I always felt like we were going to spin out on the "ice," but I had to remind myself that we weren't driving on ice; we were driving on salt.
There was a man from Chile named Roberto in our group who spoke just a bit of English, so I practiced my Spanish on him while he practiced his English on me. He told me that the Salar is one of the few things in the world that astronauts have reported seeing from space, and he also said that during the rainy season the Salar gets covered with a small amount of water that reflects the light from both the sun and the moon, making the sky and the ground indistinguishable from one another. Roberto also told me that he doesn't have many friends, so he travels a lot. I hope from the kindness that our group showed to him that he saw the love of Christ in us. Please pray for Roberto.
After the tour was over, we ate dinner, wandered around town a bit more, and went back to our travel agent's office. As I said before, since we booked a train that left at 1:45 A.M, she let us stay in her office until that time, and she even lit a gas heater for us before we left. This was a huge blessing, because we didn't have to pay for a hotel room, but we still had a warm place to stay and rest. While in the office, we had a time of praise and worship and a time of prayer. It was awesome to see how God had provided for us so greatly while on this trip and led us to places that we could not have planned to go ourselves.
Unfortunately, at about 12:30 one of our team members fell very ill. We wandered around town looking for a bathroom for her, but there was not a single open public bathroom in the entire town. This was the first time during the trip that I think we were all wondering what God was doing, especially after he had provided so well for us up to that point. We got to a point where we picked up our bags and went to the train station, having lost all hope of finding a bathroom. Thankfully, God provided for us once again while we were in the station. There was a very nice couple from Santa Cruz in the station who offered our sick team member immodium. We gratefully accepted their offer and hopped aboard the train, feeling relieved that God has provided for us in a miraculous way. We even saw that couple again before we boarded our bus from Oruro to Cochabamba, and they told us their address so that we could visit them in Cochabamba.
In the end, I felt very blessed by our trip to Uyuni. While it was rough at times, God continuously provided for us and got us out of jams in times of need. This was the first time during my entire time in Bolivia that I had done something strictly as a tourist and not as a volunteer. Yet, during this experience I and my group had to rely on God and learned and grew in bigger ways than we had foreseen. In addition to all that, we got to see one of the greatest things in all of God's creation, the Salar De Uyuni. I wouldn't have traded seeing the Salar for seeing any other wonder of the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment