Flashing white diamonds
Día 62: This is why you ride a bike across a continent (62km)
Part of Chapter 8 The Bolivian Diary
Día 62 (GPX) Uyuni to Salar de Uyuni, 62km
The best part is the flashbacks. They can strike at any time. I have a thousand vignettes; enough to sustain a lifetime of absent minded thoughts. They are filed discreetly in the corners of my brain, faded but genuine. They await their turn to be selected at random, flicker into view and pulsate with the spirit of adventure. Then they are swallowed once more by day to day contemplations. It’s a delightful legacy.
The sky is black outside and the rain patters against the window. It’s well before dawn. Waking to a bleating alarm in Bristol in January is a far cry from that sweltering Caribbean coastline in December. I stare at my bedroom wall for a moment before accepting my fate and throwing off the duvet.
The rain lashes my blue coat on the walk to school, the same canvas that kept me alive on freezing Atacaman nights. Arriving at the varnished wooden doors I scan my card, step briskly inside and walk the deserted corridors to my classroom. My suit trousers are soaked and my rucksack drips onto the floor beneath my desk. It’s still dark outside as I open my laptop and plug it in to charge.
A few minutes later, standing over a photocopier in the brightly lit staffroom, I lift the scanner, place a book beneath the lid, flick through the touchscreen and hit copy. I gaze blankly, eyes unseeing in a moment of quiet pause. The scanner interrupts, a sliver of flawless white beams through a gap in the machine.
In an instant I’m back to another time, another space, a different world. It’s the only spot you can cycle on sparkling diamonds in every direction.
There’s only one place on my mind this morning, Salar de Uyuni.
On our 4th day in Bolivia, the weird and wonderful theme continued. At the Llama Cafe the restaurant owner Bismark played noughties indie tunes by Two Door Cinema Club and the The Kooks. I asked him if he’d ever heard of Glastonbury and he hadn't. He was delighted to see the rippling crowds and festival gear in a YouTube video on my phone. In response to my referencing his namesake, the late 19th Century German Chancellor Otto he replied sincerely,
“Yes yes, my father was fond of history. von Bismark and I have the same birthday, but I think it’s a coincidence.”
As you may well have guessed this was shocking news to me, because I had, until that point, presumed he was the reincarnation of the bald headed imperialist himself.
In total, we spent eight days cycling across or skirting the edge of various salt flats. In this region you can barely move for vast white plains. By the town of Uyuni, we’d already done 3 days, but the headline act was still to come. We underwent a 36-hour recharge in the hot showers and stiflingly warm shared dormitories of the Piedra Blanca hostel. Almost a week of punishing leg work over 3,500m had ground us down but deep sleep prioritised and the traditional family size pizza scoffed, we readied ourselves for a spellbinding adventure the next day.
Measuring over 10,000 square kilometres, Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world. For context, my home county Somerset which stretches from Frome in the east to Porlock in the west and from Portishead in the north to Chard in the south, is less than half that size. An estimated 11 billion tons of salt rest within its parameters, with each kernel yearning to be left alone in heavenly peace rather than end up in a grinder on someone’s kitchen table. Even more valuable than salt are the vast stores of lithium beneath the salar’s surface. The much sought after metal is a vital ingredient in smart phone and electric car batteries. It’s value has increased more than 10-fold since 2020.
“With the exploitation of lithium in a 400 sq km area, we’ll have enough to maintain ourselves for a century,”1
boasted then-president Evo Morales, as he ramped up investment in the potential treasure trove. His government loudly proclaimed that 100 million tonnes of the stuff could be found at Uyuni, but the US Geological Survey put the figure at a more modest 9 million tonnes. Exaggeration by a nationalist government. Who’d have thought it?
In the morning we spun a cool 20km on tarmac, the first paved road of any kind on our 4th day of cycling in this most unusual of nations. The terrain relief was short-lived. By Colchani, the closest settlement to the official gates of the park, and the last chance to buy snacks, it was time to turn left. After a brief foray into the luxury toilets of the Luna Salada hotel, who’s website proffers a ‘sumptuous, secluded retreat for adventures’ made ‘almost entirely of salt’, we pedalled, biscuits and all, straight for the pans. We swallowed our distaste at the £1.20 bribe demanded by officers on the edge of the flats. Truth be told, a bribe ten times that would have been more than worth what came next.
The following days filled me with a sense of elation that is difficult to convey here. It’s like the end of the school year, burning the old school books of your least favourite subject and watching the pages crinkle and shudder as the negative thoughts flutter away for good. Or the moment you walk away, for the last time, from a workplace whose existence you resented for years. An exquisite release. A rising sense of wonder at what the moment holds.
First, we set a course for la Casa Bandera, a site of billowing flags on a forest of poles, the standard pilgrimage spot for tourists in packed 4x4s. Four hippies with mismatched shaven and braided hairstyles overtook us lounging on the back of an open trailer. They beam and wave, then hop off to duck and sway towards a gigantic salt statue with rainbow coloured hoops spinning around their midriffs. They are garish flecks of colour dotting the whitest expanse on earth.
Beyond that populated spot, heaven stretched perpetually onwards. Hexagonal ridges latticed away on each side. The road cuts a worn path through their centre. Stray too far and the bump and crunch of miniature salt walls begin. That afternoon we had a few sweet hours left to chart a course westwards and revel in the unchanging horizon. You close your eyes and cycle free; there’s only empty space ahead. I’m not sure if this is available as an antidepressant on the NHS yet, but cycling into sweet nothings for days on end would surely do something for most troubled souls.
In the late afternoon, we bumped our way 400m off the central path to camp in a spot identical to millions of others. This would offer minor protection from any night time traffic. We’d been warned that locals sometimes drink-drive the night away screaming aimlessly through the void. We used Dwayne ‘The Rock’, a recent addition to our travelling duo, to hammer in tent pegs that otherwise would not have penetrated the hard surface. Jake was hopping and leaping around and at one point jogging in circles, mainly for warmth but also because the serotonin fizzed in our veins; our bodies filled with nervous energy. Somewhere, the worlds busiest cities are on full gas. Here, majestic silence reigns supreme. And diamonds sparkle in every direction.
I once watched a set by French multi-instrumentalist FKJ on the salar at sundown. His Nu Jazz synths melded smoothly with the gleaming surroundings, unspoiled by vocals. In fact, tracks with lyrics, particularly those with day-to-day references don’t land well on the pans. It’s better suited to Bicep’s abstract, plunging ‘R&B melodic contrails coming together in effervescent arrangements that push and pull at something primal in your DNA.’2 There’s no professional DJ tonight, but my compadre comes through with an eclectic set of his favourite electronic tunes that suit our environment perfectly.
Listen to Apricots as you flick through the Jake’s photos below and you’ll see what I mean.
As the fire drops from the sky, silence reigns and the cold bites hard, knifing through exposed skin. A jumbo pot of spicy noodles is slurped down by each man and then it’s every piece of clothing pulled on and an early night. We funnel ourselves deep down inside sleeping bags, battening down extremities with all the wool we can find. Despite being wrapped more effectively that an Egyptian mummy, I’m awake at 2:30am and can’t get back to sleep again as my legs won’t stop shaking. It was somewhere around -10 degrees Celsius out there, behind the paper thin strips of netted canvas.
At dawn we set out after clearing up our little patch of colour in a sea of white. We take everything with us and leave this marvel undisturbed. Love the Salar, leave no trace.
It’s likely that no-one had ever camped in that exact spot before, and probable that no-one ever would again.
“Morning! How was the weekend? Manage to get a break from all the marking?”
Another teacher greets me with a bright-faced smile. I blink, coming back from a daze. The printer is bleeping its finishing tune.
“Yeah I did actually, I had some good thinking time this weekend.”
I stroll off towards my room to get ready for my Year 10 tutor group. In the back of my mind, the flashback fizzles out. It’s as if the stylus has been removed from a vinyl record, severing the connection.
I smile contentedly. I know I can always hit play again.
“Right then Year 10, how are we feeling on this wintry morning?”
Odometer: 62 Tours. 311 hours. 5129km. 49,870m climbing
The story so far
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8
Podcast appearances: 10Adventures | Seek Travel Ride
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Bolivia’s lithium boom: dream or nightmare?https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/bolivia-s-lithium-boom-dream-or-nightmare/
Flex your muscle – nine years of Bicep https://jaegeroslo.no/flex-your-muscle-nine-years-ofbicep/#:~:text=They%20are%20known%20for%20their,something%20primal%20in%20your%20DNA.