So weit das Auge reicht

Sinja's tales of the salt and Atacama desert in Bolivia have fascinated me from the beginning. Originally, Bernd aka Bernardo, Barbara, and we planned to rent an off-road vehicle and venture into the adventure on our own. Apparently, during the rainy season, it's too adventurous for the few car rental companies in the area, so they don't rent out vehicles during this time. So we found a car with a driver and finally started on December 22nd.

Our group consists of Bernardo (Sinja's father), Barbara (Bernd's girlfriend), Ludi (studying artificial intelligence in Berlin and also the most loyal photographer of our trip), Yosi (our friendly driver, whose driving skills are hardly inferior to those of Dakar Rally drivers), Sinja (my love) and me.

I try to estimate the distance to the volcanoes with their colorful peaks on the horizon. In vain, because there are no references here. Salt, as far as the eye can see. It's unbelievable that we are standing here on over 60 meters of thick salt crust. This hard, crystalline crust is an impressive relic from the time when the massive Andes mountain range formed and simply separated a huge part of the Pacific Ocean. The relentless power of the sun eventually dried out this lonely, motherless part of the sea over thousands of years - what remains is the infinite expanse of this white desert. The salt flat and the adjacent Atacama Desert will captivate us for four full days, leading us through landscapes that would be more likely attributed to Mars than to Earth. It is one of the driest regions on Earth, as hardly any dripping cloud overcomes the monumental height of the Andes and rains down on this thirsty land. Despite all these adverse circumstances, some artists of life have settled here, apparently nourishing themselves on hot air and love. During our journey, we will encounter Vicuñas, the wild ancestors of domesticated llamas, for example. And large pink and small black flamingos, who indulge in the algae of huge saltwater lagoons - a shimmering spectacle of color. Towering cacti grow close together and populate hundreds of stone islands in the middle of the salt flat.

But let's start at the beginning:

After the first hot day in the desert, visiting a salt mining site with mountains of finest salt powder that would have made even Pablo Escobar's nose twitch (Escobar means broom in the local language), obligatory photo shoots in which, among other things, Sinja made us appear as rabbits coming out of her hat due to the lack of perspective relations and a dinosaur eating us. When we arrived at our accommodation in the evening, we felt our lips resembling the intense sunshine more and more like the salt crust of the desert. But when we saw the full moon rise during a late walk - in its monumental size, which it only shows near the horizon - I forgot all the dryness of my lips.

Close by, on our second day, we experienced an impressive sunrise. We started at 4:30. Probably out of excitement, I have been awake in bed since 2:50 am, and I finally went to visit Ludi who was stargazing. But I couldn't find him. I sat down next to a rock to meditate. After half an hour, I saw Ludi in the distance. I held back and didn't startle him like a mountain lion. The shock that I caused yesterday in an ancient cave inhabited by mummies when we all peered into a hole or grave and I caught them off guard with a piercing scream might still be too deep. We returned to our accommodation, a hotel built from salt blocks, in complete darkness. We quickly packed our things and drove back to the endless salt flat in the foreseeable dawn. There was not much talking, Pink Floyd set the tone.

We got really into it. Touched by music and impressions, we looked out the windows. It was a full moon and everything was bathed in its silver light. In the distance, more cars rolled, their headlights shining against the black-blue sky, still showing the stars. The crystalline structure of the salt flat stood out particularly well in these hours, as its contours are almost burned out by the glaring light of the penetrating sun during the day. We parked in the middle of the white expanse, bundled up because it's freezing without the sun. We were not far from the car, the doors wide open, the music continuing to play in this ungraspable scene. The atmosphere made me feel like I was floating.

I kept looking at the top of the colorful volcano to my left, anticipating the first rays of the sun. The shades of blue in the sky, the huge full moon still behind, the bright morning star on the sunlit side - overwhelming. When the horizon starts to burn, Sinja and I huddled close together in our sleeping bag and felt the rays instantly warming our faces. It is something very special for me to witness the light of day flowing back into the world like this, it makes me feel more reverent. It breathes a feeling into me that makes me forget many things I have learned about the world, its explanations, its truths. Perhaps it is a similar feeling that overwhelms me when I lie under a starry sky without lanterns nearby and imagine the infinity.

The vast stretches in the salt flat seemed to invite our driver to close his eyes and relax. So Sinja noticed in the rearview mirror that Yosi would occasionally doze off for half a minute while going 80 km/h. So, anyone who manages to have an accident in a 120km x 130km void will probably receive an award from Flensburg [author's note: referring to a German traffic registry office]. It amused us greatly, especially because he didn't notice our attention. Yosi is one of the few people I know who earn their money while sleeping.

On this day, we visited more mummies, who greeted us almost unscathed in their caves, and then climbed the colorful volcano that enchanted me from a distance during the sunrise. While Barbara and Bernd retreated after 20 meters of ascent, Sinja, Ludi, and I managed to motivate ourselves to the edge of the collapsed crater more through deep breathing and groaning than through long words. We were rewarded for all our excursions with a fantastic vegetarian lunch, not cooked, but deliciously served by Yosi, our driver. In the evening, Sinja and I were able to buy a new camera on eBay Classifieds through a hotspot provided by Yosi. Sinja's cousin Biggi picked it up (at a swingers club of all places) and it is now on its way to Colombia with David (a friend from Marburg) as he is going to start working there. Since Sinja and I plan to travel to Bogota in early February, this works perfectly! And for all of you, dear friends, fans, and followers of this blog, it means that there will be plenty of self-shot treats for your eyes in the near future!

On the following and third day, we visited three lagoons. Besides their spectrum of colors, the flamingos, and the reflection of the volcanoes in the water, we were amazed by the highly professional tourists who arrived in small groups, each of them equipped with their own telephoto lens. If a flamingo dared to take off and fly to the other end of the lagoon, a camera storm would erupt, which would have prompted me as a flamingo pilot to perform an emergency landing immediately.

Actually, Sinja and I were briefly glad that we didn't have a camera, as we were not tempted to take pictures, but instead took in a natural and sensual impression of these beautiful landscapes by simply sitting on a high rock or by the nearby shore, meditating, or running in and out of dust devils to see if we could just take off for a moment (unfortunately not, just a lot of sand in the eyes).

At the end of this day, suddenly it was Christmas Eve.

It was the first Christmas I spent outside of Germany, and admittedly, it felt a bit strange to celebrate this holiday in the middle of a desert, with sun, long days, no tree, and no ringing bells. Fortunately, our guide had a brilliant idea and quickly organized us a place to sleep in a cozy accommodation right by a lagoon. The big highlight: hot springs. So right after our arrival there, we all jumped into the hot natural pool. At that time, it was already crowded, as it seems to be a local tradition to visit the hot spring on Christmas with a stimulating drink and to drink away the festive hunger. After this hot bath, I was already feeling more cozy and comfortable, and I was looking forward to the evening with our group - and to a very different Christmas.

For dinner, we had spaghetti bolognese. Our guide overloaded us with liquid gifts, which we used for toasting. Sinja and I unpacked candles and waxed them onto a stone. At the next table, two people were sitting with Christmas hats (probably two desert gnomes). It was dark outside. And suddenly, it felt like Christmas! Ludi borrowed a hat from the next table and spontaneously portrayed Santa Claus, conducting the gift-giving with loving but firm hand. We laughed a lot. It was peaceful. And we were happy about our harmonious group. And a little homesickness was also present...

We realized very soon that Yosi's brilliant idea to deviate from the original route was not entirely selfless because in that very accommodation, his lagoon pearl awaited him, welcoming him with great joy. Also, on the following morning, Yosi seemed clearly sleep-deprived, probably because he had many gifts to unwrap.

After our improvised successful celebration, Sinja and I went down to the hot spring one more time with towels under our arms. The moon had not yet risen, and Ludi was somewhere again, photographing stars. The atmosphere at the pool was now much more relaxed, with lounge music playing in the background. Both of us submerged ourselves in the water, which had the perfect bathtub temperature, felt the pebbles under our feet where warm water was flowing up. The clouds above the mountains were illuminated, and then, once again, the moon rose with all its splendor. Every now and then, the murmuring of the bathers filled the soundscape. It was so beautiful that we didn't want to leave the spring anymore. But eventually, we did because Sinja started feeling lightheaded, so we had to leave the pool. She almost collapsed and barely managed to hold onto a chair in the women's changing room. I put pants on her while I greeted the other women. Since the lightheadedness situation didn't improve significantly even after Sinja was fully dressed, I laid her down on the ground outside and recalled my first aid course: legs up, head in my lap, talking to her calmly. And it quickly got better. Merry Christmas!

The last day consisted mainly of the return journey, during which we regularly took off over sand ramps and Yosi had a lot of fun driving like in a rally. However, we did have a longer stop at the Black Lagoon. The Black Lagoon is not as black as the name suggests, but it is beautifully situated in a huge fossilized lava field. The rugged, water-eroded rock hid this little oasis until the last few meters, where llamas and mules grazed on its green meadows, and ducks frolicked in the thicket of reeds, making sounds as if Rainer Calmund was laughing heartily. A paradisiacal conclusion to an impressive journey.

When we arrived back in Uyuni, we barely had time to say goodbye to Ludi and Bernd & Barbara, or to talk over coffee, as Sinja and I had to quickly hop on a bus that would take us to Cochabamba with a short stop in Oruro. And here we are now, in Cochabamba, in an SOS Children's Village, where Sinja did a 6-month voluntary service 5 years ago. Every noon, we are invited into the different families and cooked for. With this great gesture of hospitality, we have a wonderful opportunity to get to know the girls, boys, and their mothers better. We also spent New Year's Eve in a culinary and very cozy atmosphere, invited to one of the houses. Since Wednesday of this week, our dance workshop has started, which we are conducting with 11 children here, as it is summer vacation in Bolivia and a pedagogically valuable program is naturally very welcome.

The first day was exciting and challenging at the same time, as the age range (12-16 years) is quite wide and the kids are overflowing with puberty hormones. They can't contain themselves when Sinja and I exchange an intense look and start singing in chorus 'tienes novia' which means 'you have a girlfriend'. They simply sense that there is a lot of love, which in turn throws them completely off track!