We organize salt caravans / integral crossing of the salar during certain times of the year.
THE SALAR OF UYUNI OR OF TUNUPA
During the day, without sunglasses, the eyes can’t support more than 5 minutes the intensity of the solar radiations.
Here, there is only the blinding whiteness of the salt left, as far as the eye can see. An immense smooth surface as hard as rock at 3640 meters above sea level. The area covered by the salt represents the equivalent of two or three average American counties making it the largest flat expense in the world.
The salar of Tunupa was created by the alternation of rainy and dry seasons. Located at the lowest point of the Altiplano (3640 m.a.s.l. vs. 3800 m.a.s.l. for Lake Titicaca), it offers a natural spillway for the rivers of the region, rivers that have today disappeared but that drained then quantities of minerals, coming from the surroundings basins. The salar is formed of a bloc estimated to be 500 meters in depth, where alternate salt layers and sedimentary layers (sedimentary deposits left when the salar was under water then mineral deposits when the water evaporated).
But, even here, life has not given up and a fragile ecosystem, result of thousands of years of adaptation, has succeeded in developing. On the rare islands of this desert, small hills of a few hundred meters of height piercing the ground like summits pierce the clouds. On these grow giant cacti and a few tenacious plants from which the few inhabitants, viscachas, little rabbits with a squirrel-like tail, live doomed to stay there, surrounded by salt. Well, the only inhabitants … not really.
Alfredo Ticona is Aymara. For 10 years, he was the only “human” inhabitant of the great salt desert. Still today, he lives on his island of Incahuasi (« the house of the Inca » in Quechua), at 80 km from all other human life, also locked in a sea of salt. He is from Tahua, a village to the West of the salar, built at the foot of the Cordillera separating the Altiplano from the Pacific coast.
At a very young age young, he participated in the convoys of the llama caravans with his father. To exchange merchandises with their Chilean neighbors, they had to climb over mountains. So the only solution was to cross the great white desert to Uyuni, the city, on the other side, where they could exchange their salt, their quinoa and their llama wool for more rare products. This is why existed the long llama caravans, work animal of the altiplano.
He recounts to us:
" We crossed on foot until the beginning of the 80s, in 2 or 3 days. We started by sleeping on an island close to Tahua, to leave very early the next morning. It was always preferable to walk by night, to avoid the strong solar impact. During the day, we had to wear pieces of black fabric over the eyes. We were leaving at 2 o’clock in the morning to arrive at the island of Pallali at 10 a.m. The llamas had to wear leather slippers because the salt lacerated their paws. A llama can go a week without water..."
It was during these influencial crossing that Alfredo Ticona fell in love with the solitude of the salar and that he decided to live on the island of Incahuasi. Today, his solitary residence on the island is threatened by a governmental project whose objective is to better manage the increasing tourism, and ironically to not leave this opportunity to Alfredo alone. But like Alfredo would say: ”Pues soy como el cactus y nunca me voy a ir” (I am like the cactus cactus and I will never leave).
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