In search of a village.........

May 14, 2011

Not really knowing what to do with myself, I turned south from Bolivia into north western Argentina. I was also looking for a warmer climate, having had enough of the constant wind in the Alti Plano of Bolivia.
I had been to Argentina and Chile twenty years earlier with a friend and loved both countries. At some point we took a bus from Mendoza into the Andes, on our way to Santiago, Chile. Somewhere high up in the mountains, just before the border facilities, the bus had veered off into a small mountain village, where we stopped for a brief time. I remember looking out the window of the bus and being stunned by the view. There was a golden shine over the village and entire valley. I heard a voice urging me, to get out of the bus. Even though this was repeated several times, I resisted, because I was travelling with a friend and our agenda was to go to Santiago and begin our journey south through Chile along the Austral.
It had been a very strange moment, because on some level I knew, what I was seeing was something else. I had blinked a few times, wondering if it would change the image I was gazing upon, and it did for just a second. My ears were buzzing at the time, but there was no detectable sound.
The bus rolled out of there after 10 minutes and we were on the way to Chile.
The image however remained with me over all these years. I often wondered what I had seen and what might have happenend, if anything, had I gotten out of the bus that day.
Since I had been feeling a little at a loss on what to do next on this journey, I decided to go back to that place in the Andes and investigate what had so captured my attention twenty years earlier.
Never mind, that I could not clearly remember the name of the village. It was something with viejo in it and I was certain I would be able to locate it.
The North of Argentina turned out to be warm and incredibly beautiful, with red rock formations spanning for miles, which gradually gave way to miles and miles of vineyards. Each Valley, each village had it`s own characteristics with lovely whitewashed houses, beautiful treelined streets and small markets and stores in the center of the village. I could have whiled away in one of the villages, I loved it so much, but my radar was fixed on that Andean village.
In Mendoza I organised myself, checked out some maps, got the laundry and other necesseties done. The maps did not show a village with Viejo in it, which puzzled me quite a bit. I decided to take a 1 day tour up the mountains, which would go all the way to the Christ Statue and would include every village along the way.
It was a beautiful, sunny day and a magnificent drive into the high Andes, but I never saw the village. There were some sights I recognized and a couple of the villages that I remembered comming through, but not even anything that looked or was located at the point where I remembered it to be.
Was my mind playing tricks on me. It had been a long time ago, but the memory had always been very vivid over all these years. I spent another night in a village about 100 km from Mendoza, needing time to think about this. By the next morning, I was willing to believe, that maybe the village was on the Chilenan side, although I did not really think so.
I took the next bus over the Andes, having purchased a ticket to Los Andes, the first town on the bottom of the Cordillera.
No matter how hard I looked, there was no sign of my village on the Chilenan side of the mountains. I got off in los Andes, found a hotel and wanted to get on internet to check some maps on this side.
Los Andes was a very busy, strange town. There were hardly any internet places, no restaurants to speak of at all and I must have been the only tourist in town.
My search on local maps did not reveal any more information, other then what I already knew. This village did not exist anymore, or it never had.
At first I was so shocked about the whole ordeal, that it took me a day to become aware of where I had landed, in this strange town. There was a point where I was ready to bang my head into a wall, but humor pervailed and I had to laugh about it all.
Since my focus had been solely on that destination, I had not made any further plans on where to go next. As soon as I started asking myself...now what...I heard loud and clear: go back to Peru!
I turned north along the coast to La Serena, a beautiful coastal town, enjoying the Pacific Ocean and the warm climate. Not far from La Serena lay a valley I had heard about from other travellers and I decided to visit there. The Elqui valley, also a winegrape growing region, but mostly used to produce Pisco, turned out to be gorgeous country side. It was so lovely, that I remained there for nearly two weeks, exploring the upper valley of Cochiguaz and the lower valleys of Vicuna with all it`s stargazing observatories. Although the mountains reach up to 2000 meters, it is basically a desert with very dry clear skies for 9 to 10 months out of the year. There is plenty of water comming out of the mountains, allowing the valleys to be irrigated. It seemed like everything grew there. I thought this area would be a great place to be, should there be a major problem in the world.
The northern coast of Chile did not offer too much. It was also the end of the season and many beach places were closed down for the winter. I continued north with a few detours here and there but remained on track to return to Peru soon.

The long detour.....Bolivia

March 27, 2011

It is interesting how subtle the messages we receive often are. Then we decide to ignore it, because the image or the thought was so faint and gentle. Not like a sledge hammer right infront of our face, where it would be hard to discard.
In my case, I got scared of what I had seen, what I should be doing next. Instead, I decided to run, telling myself, I am not ready for it or I don´t know how to go about it, or whatever other excuses served to justify my actions.
Over time I even felt let down and disappointed, wondering why I was not receiving clear guidance on what is next.

My travels led to La Paz, Bolivia and beyond. Riding the World´s most dangerous road or the La Cumbre, as it is referred to, on a mountain bike. It was fun, but my heart was not really in it. I felt moody. In addition, I had chalked up some judgements about Bolivia and Bolivians. Something that was said by a Peruvian friend about Bolivians, which I had bought into without ever questioning it´s validity.
Of course, the Universe gives us what we think about and it delivered. My inter actions with Bolivians were not very enjoyable. Most seemed to be short and to the point. In turn, I slid deeper into the murky waters of judgement and feeling disgruntled, but I continued south through Bolivia.
In Sucre, the beautiful white city, at the edge of the Altiplano desert, I got hit by an allergy for several days. To make things worse, this was followed by intestinal upset. I kept slugging on to the next adventure in the Uyuni Salt Flats, thinking, I will be through Bolivia soon enough as this place obviously does not agree with me. Still I wondered, how this country could be so challenging to me, considering how pleasantly I had sailed through so many different countries in the past.
The day before I left on a 3 day Jeep tour through the Uyuni Salt Flats and Altiplano, a gentle thought kept nudging my mind. You could change your thoughts and attitude. By now I had already been sick for a week, I was willing to do whatever to make this go away. I sat for a while in Uyuni to investigate my past thoughts, what had been going on in my psyche and had to admit it was time for a change in attitude.
Although I still struggeled through 2 days of stomach cramps, I started to enjoy all that Bolivia had to offer.
The Salt Flats and the high Altiplano are incredible. I had never seen anything like it. We could see hundreds of miles. A Volcano, that looked very nearby, was 100 km
away. The mirror images of mountains and clouds were so perfect, that at one point I got Vertigo for a moment and almost fell over. The colors were the most brilliant blues, whites, greens and red contrasted to the stark sandy landscape at between 4000and 5000 meters altitude. Laguna Colorada, the nesting ground of Chilenan, Andean and James Flamingos, was filled with thousands of them. Our guide told us up to 20,000 Flamingos arrive there for the mating and breeding season. The accommodations at 5000 meters were rustic, but very adequate, but there is no heating anywhere. Israel, our guide, sweetheart that he was, had brought warm water bottles for us to lay under the covers, so the beds would be nice and warm by the time we slipped in. The nights out in the desert were equally spectacular, with millions of stars and the Milkyway stretching over the far horizon. It did get very chilly and the wind never seems to abide. On the third morning we arose at 4:30 am in order to arrive at the hotsprings by sunrise. Wow..!! Soaking in the thermal waters, watching the sun come up, illuminating the stark landscape bit by bit, was amazing. Nobody spoke, as the magic of nature presented it`s daily show. We were very fortunate over the 3 days with beautiful blue skies and sunshine all the way to the Chilenan border and back, until we returned to Uyuni where it rained.
My stomach problems had vanished, I could eat again and I had had a marvellous time with my travel companions, our guide Israel and driver Victor and all the people along the route.
At this point I was ready to say good-bye to the windy Altiplano and head for lower ground, where it was warm. Getting there was an adventure. The dirt roads were wet and soggy. We traveled for hours without comming by any village or sign of human habitat. There had been reports that people got stuck with buses for many hours, due to the heavy rainfalls everywhere.
Our bus was old and clunky and so was our driver, but he was magic behind the wheel. How he got through the river crossings and by the flooded areas, edging within inches over the abyss, I don´t know, but I did send him a lot of love, praying for him to be guided.
Bolivia is a very rocky place. We came through valleys with incredible rock faces,
changing colors from a soft yellow to deep red or almost dark blue in places.
At other sections the earth was just strewn with large, medium and small boulders everywhere. The road leading down to Tupiza cruised through amazing red rock formations, natural arches, towers and cones. The area is like Bryce Canyon and Sedona mixed together, spread over a large terrain with a beautiful river flowing through it.
This is also the area where Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid hung out and met their maker eventually.
Tupiza is a nice little town at a mere 2950 meters. It was hot and sunny, exactly what I had been hoping for. The perfect weather and surrounding for gentle hikes and soaking up the sun before continuing south to Argentina.