You Won’t Get Me, I’m Part of the Union

Tuesday 20 April
Reserva Eduardo Avaroa – Uyuni

We had a really early start today – 5.00 am – and the first thing I did was go to the toilet. I had also been awake coughing for half the night so I was pretty tired. But the night sky was clear and the starts were the brightest I ever saw on the whole trip. There was no light pollution this far from civilisation, and you could see the milky way clearly. We packed the cars and set off.

The first stop was a bunch of geysers that made the air smell of bad eggs. Their steam spouted off impressively though I noticed the locals had places a few rocks over them to increase the pressure. Well, it is all about the tourism around here after all. After that we stopped off at another place that had hot springs. It seemed a bit much to ask to get undressed in the freezing temperature to get into a hot spring but, after I had been to the toilet, everyone else was in and enjoying it so I guess if it was OK for them... I jumped in and it was absolutely lovely. With the post-dawn sun shining through the steam rising off the pool, it made for a magical experience. And it was my first wash since the start of the trip. After breakfast we were back in the car and the driver said I looked like a different person. So that wash was needed then.

We stopped off at a few more mountains, volcanoes and lagoons and dropped one of our number off at some place where he was getting a connection to Chile. We then had a long drive back to Uyuni. Usually it would take four hours, but because of the strikes we would have to go off-road, through the scrubland that surrounded the area. At one point we picked up some random people who were walking through the area – an old woman and her kid. The woman sat next to me and the kid was on top. The woman and our driver spoke to each other in Quecha, the local indigenous language which unsurprisingly sounds a bit like Japanese.

I slept for a lot of the way. The sun set at about six and was beautiful once again. Once night had fallen things were getting tight – I had a bus to La Paz to catch at 8. We were working our way through the desert outside Uyuni. The main obstacles were the small river valleys that crossed the area.

Then just as we were approaching one of the rivers, there were a group of people standing around and some cars. What was it? The driver explained it was the blockade. They had come off the roads to catch the people driving off-road as well – just like we were. This was bad news. I could miss my bus.

The strike was against the Washington Group. They were running a mine in the area that was full of silver. One of the concessions to the locals in return for letting them mine there was to build roads for the surrounding area. They had built one road – from the mine to the local village and to the airstrip that they had constructed, but nothing else. It seemed they were getting away with tons of silver without caring for the local population, some of the poorest people in the world.

The driver spoke to the people and then we drove off. “What’s happening?” I asked. Apparently we had to spend the night with the protesters at the main blockade about 300 metres away. Hmm. We drove towards them and then our driver killed the lights. The car behind us also did the same, but the third car in the convoy didn’t, which seemed a bit stupid. We turned around and started driving back towards Uyuni. Our car was faster than the others so we sped away quite well. Our driver phoned the others to make sure they were OK. After a bit of back and forth it turned out everyone was fine and we had all escaped the blockade without any trouble.

Then the main concern was to get to the bus station in time. As it was we arrived at around 7 so I had an hour. Everything was going to be OK.

I arrived at the bus and overheard two Irish girls talking about how they were held at the blockade for two nights before they managed to contact their consulate and arrange their release. Looked like we had a lucky escape. I also spoke to an older Dutch couple who were in our convoy but without a driver who spoke English. They had had no idea about what was going on!

On the bus they served a small spaghetti dinner which was lucky as I was thinking I would have to survive on snacks, given I didn’t have time for an evening meal. The bus was really good quality and thankfully I didn’t have to suffer the chickens and so on. Soon enough I was asleep and on my way to La Paz.