THE GRAND SCHEME
Catherine Sempill has an epiphany crossing the ‘cold, uninviting and inhospitable’ Altiplano
A S we careened through the desolate landscape, the desert around us took on a texture as smooth as whipped cream. The globulous clouds cast shadows on the mountains, creating a soft, dappled effect, while the visible patches of sky were as clear as glass. We peered out of the Jeep windows; the lakes were still, reflecting the landscape perfectly in their waters. It seemed to me then that the only thing out of place in this picture was us — the 10 or so overland vehicles snaking their away across the Bolivian Andes like a row of ants. There is nothing quite like a vast, seemingly untouched landscape to remind one of one’s own insignificance on Earth.
It took us four days to cross the Altiplano from San Pedro de Atacama in Chile to the small town of Uyuni in Bolivia, only seeing evidence of humanity when we congregated at the designated sights along the way, or when we pulled into the posadas for the night. Evidence of other life existed in abundance though, from the tiny lizards that somehow eke out an existence for themselves in the cracks of an abandoned stone cottage to the vibrant-pink flamingos who call those glassy lakes home. Somehow, observing life going on without the explicit interference of humans had a calming effect on the mind and the soul — not surprising, since both had space to wonder in those empty, mountain-top panoramas.
Each evening we pulled up in front of a rudimentary stone guest house, ate a basic meal and then went off to burrow ourselves into layers of thick blankets. The air up there was icy at the best of times, penetrating bones and turning cheeks pink. Night and early morning were the worst, and yet imagining what the day’s scenery might be eased the effort of emerging from the blanket cocoon at 6am.
Stepping out into the cold after an oily breakfast and surprisingly satisfying cheap instant coffee, we stood around the vehicles warming our hands with our breath and shifting from one foot to the other to keep the blood flowing. Given the signal, we piled back into the Jeep and once again sped off into the distance.
Over the course of the trip, we witnessed multi-coloured lakes and Dali-esque scenes of rocks sprinkled randomly across the sand. We sat in the shade of treeshaped rocks and climbed all over rusty, abandoned trains.
On our last morning, having arrived in Uyuni the previous evening, we picked our way through the sleeping town and arrived at the vast salt flats in time for sunrise. In under an hour, the colour palette changed from a dull grey with a smattering of stars in the sky to a violet-pink and finally the full-on glare of sunlight, at which point the immensity of the Uyuni Salt Flats became apparent.
As the name implies, there was not a hill or undulation in sight, just a seemingly endless stretch of white, which met the sky on the impossibly distant horizon. The texture of the ground was crunchy and lumpy but, when viewed in its entirety, it seemed as smooth as polished marble. It felt like being on a different planet — one where Earth’s dimensions were irrelevant and depth perception was not a necessary part of interpreting your surroundings.
As has been the tradition among backpackers in South America for decades, cameras emerged from backpacks along with an array of props, from plastic dinosaurs to stiletto shoes. The resulting photographs documented a world in which humans crawl out of Pringles boxes and women don heels that are disproportionately large in relation to their bodies.
As far as grand finales go, the salt flats did not disappoint. However, on a trip like this, it’s not really the destination that counts. As clichéd as the notion may be, the entire experience is an accumulation of small moments; of images flashing through the window; of llamas grazing on sparse tufts of grass; of flamingos wading in water the colour of rust; of plumes of gas belching out of the earth; and of perfectly-shaped clouds.
The Altiplano is a cold, uninviting and apparently inhospitable place but, as in so many desolate corners of the earth, life goes on. Some species survive, and some even thrive, and seeing them do so in this setting made the realisation particularly profound.
In the grand scheme of things, we are little more than a speck of dust, and unlike the sand, the water and the Andes itself, our time here is fleeting. That being the case, our problems must be fleeting too and, let me tell you, there are few thoughts more comforting than that one.