February 4th, 2009

Running vicunia, blending with the red, brown sand.
Bumping, thumping and jiggling over sand, rock, and gravel,
For over 1000 kilometers on no roads,
We travel in a four by four truck.
Four days and only two flat tires and one broken water pump.
A wonderful trip.

The mountains surround us,
In soft reds, yellows, gray-greens.
The alto-plano, our very high plane
Is often at 5000 metres.
We rumble past red rock fins,
Herds of ostriches and llama,
Abandoned gold mining towns,
With piscatchios scrambling
Up and over the old stone walls.

Occationally we pass coloured lagunos.
Sharp green--Laguno Verde
Sharp red--Luguno Colorado
These lagunos have large areas of white salt flats,
And occationally mounds of salt which are surrounded
By pale green circles.
The reflection of the mountains is broken
By the bands of salt.
As we get closer, we see that every laguno
Has flamingos,
Often many thousands of flamingos.
Glorious pink, and white and black flamingos.
They walk magestically, stooping to fish.
Their huge bodies with graceful long necks and heads are
Balanced on two tiny stick-like legs.
Legs that seem unending because
They become reflection and extend until
They meld with the relected up side down body.
Suddenly, the flamingos take to the air
And glide past with slowly pumping wings.
The birds and their reflected parade of pink,
Dazzles my eyes.
Until now, I didn´t like flamingos.
Perhaps, they were falsely pink,
Like blue hydrangeas.
Perhaps even falsely shaped
Like fashion models for Florida parks,
Or plastic phoneys for
North American lawns to celebrate birthdays.
Now I feel blessed.
My eyes tear.
The world is a wonderful, amazing place
Because it has flamingos.

We race with a red four by four,
Piled on the roof like our vehicle,
With luggage, spare tires,
blue drums of gasoline,
Yellow bombas of propane,
Food, bottles of water,
A red pick axe.
Our cook Sylvia tries to sleep
In the front seat.
She too was sick in the night.
Soon the red four by four is gone.
¨Driven by a young Heffa´, says Gerando.

We are again alone in this vast landscape.
We spew a huge cloud of dust behind.
Occationally we see patches of coarse yellow grass
or a green mossy rock,
But mostly nothing else growing.
Huge rock shapes sometimes jut out
Of the altoplano.
They´re called stone trees.
Daly painted these rocks,
And now I stand in the cold fierce wind
And try to capture them.
Later I paint in the tiny adobe village,
That we stay the night in.
I paint until the sky is rent with lighting,
And hail pelts down.
The next morning the land is a white snowscape,
Until the sun burns through.

In the jeep, we creep, rocking and bumping
Down a stone gully,
A winding bouncing route
Surrounded by enormouse loose rock walls,
Even driving under bits of overhanging rock at times.
Eventually the gully widens
And we drive again on gravel or sand.

With no trees or plants,
It´s hard to find a little privacy
So I pay the 5 Bolivianos
And get my four little squares of tissue,
And the privilege of using
A seatless, waterless, toilet,
In a tiny adobe hut.

The road again becomes especially brutal.
We pitch and dodge
And inch over and around boulders.
Eventually we leave Gerardo to drive alone,
And we walk for ten minutes
To escape the jarring.
Our lunch destination is worth every moment
Of bone rattling.
We stop near an active volcano.
Smoke rises from a vent
And geysers bubble and spew in
Many holes around us.

On day four, well before dawn
We are woken and we climb out of
Our beds made of salt bricks,
In our salt block hostel.
We pack our bags by flashlight.
Then we are off across
Sala de Uyuni,
The world´s biggest salt lake.
It is 1400 square kms and 40 metres deep in places.
As the horizon lightens
We turn off jeep´s headlights
And drive alone in this flat gray landscape.
The sun breaks the horizon.
The vast white surface is suddenly
Marked with fantastic tiny salt ridges
That pattern the sufface with hexigonal shapes.
It is cold at this high altitude
Until the sun rises and warms us.
We arrive at a coral mountain.
Enormous cactus,
Some 1200 years old,
Catch the early light.

I sit alone on top of this island
And paint,
Internalizing the vast white quiet of salt,
Savouring the tall thick prickly cacti,
In dusty greens and oranges with strong mauve shadows.
The cati rises into the morning sky
From the pale bone-coloured coral
With its pitted, blossoming surface.
In the far distance,
Beyond the Salar de Uyuni
Is a ancient volcano.
All I can feel is love for the world.
And gratitude to have taken this adventure,
Into the beauty that is Bolivia.