The Salar De Uyuni Tour (Day 2)

The sand was alive! Each particle was a cell in the greater organism, and the wind animated the relentless, undulating mass. Fingers of sand crept up the tyres of our Landcruiser, and the windscreen was vigorously peppered until the sand slid in fractured sheets. The convoy had stalled, the faded path towards a seemingly arbitrary destination swept away by salted dust and sand. Ahead was a blur of pulsating beige. Behind, more blur. More beige. There was no horizon, no volcanoes, no lagoons. The only thing apparent was that our reluctant 6am rise from warm bedclothes to see the salar's landscape was for naught.

Instead, we passed two hours in the parked Landcruiser, playing the Julie-Invented games of "Guess Which Latin American Country I Am Reading About In The Lonely Planet", "Who Can Put Four Super Sour Lemon And Lime Flavoured Pringles In Their Mouth Without Making A Face" and I-Spy. Our guide Edgar offered us lollipops, but these were only good to silence us for mere minutes, as we were bored to fits of giggles.

The decision was made to turn the convoy towards a hostel where we could sit and wait out the storm. The 4WDs crept slowly over the plain, stopping frequently when the visibility was too poor to continue safely. I wondered if there was a car behind us and if they could see we had come to a stop. The sand beat the Landcruiser in all directions and so furiously that dust and grit found its way through tiny gaps in the windows. It trickled onto the window ledge and began to gather in the folds of my jeans.

We eventually arrived at a low-set brick building where other 4WDs were parked. It seemed to be a large sleeping quarters, with small cells holding two single beds each, connected by a long hallway. Backpackers from several tours filled the place; some were in good spirits, enjoying the experience of being trapped in a sandstorm, while others mulled about, cold, tired, and disappointed. They filled the cells, five or six in a room, more in the hallway. Cigarette smoke wafted about, buffeted inwards by the cold draught, as trapped as the rest of us. We found a cell and, with our tour mates, huddled under blankets as we dealt cards and sucked on Dutch liquorice. No guides or drivers were to be seen for hours, and we were oblivious to how the rest of the day would unfold. The answer would be: much the same.

The French and Les Misérables

No kitchen. No dining room. Definitely no agua caliente. Our accommodation for the night was a tiny shelter with a few bedrooms and a flushing toilet. Dinner was delivered by our tour guide, Edgar,  who profusely apologised for the sandstorm, as if he had had some influence on Mother Nature but was too afraid to raise his voice. After an overview of the next day's itinerary, he drove into the velvet night, leaving his charges in the middle of the desert without access to transport, more food, or a way to communicate beyond the reach of a hoarse cry. 

We were sharing with another tour group, a bunch of crazy French, who were already drunk, and they sang their rude sailing songs in unintelligible shouts. They spoke little English and raucously chanted for a performance from us. Our tour group could not have been more different to theirs. Anna and Celine were also French, but very quiet, and they smiled politely at their countrymen, teetering between loyalism and estrangement. Robert was a stand-offish Dutch guy who wore daggers in his eyes when the French pointed at him and demanded he sing his national anthem. A few melodic mutterings through tight lips was all he would offer, and he waved off the rest of his country's song. He pulled his knees in, as if wishing he could curl into himself and disappear into a Frenchless alternate universe. His travel companion, ever-weary Canadian Sarah, kept looking over her shoulder to her bed, and said practically nothing the whole night. 

But sing, we must! Julie and I started with the Australian National Anthem, Advance, Australia Fair, and began the first verse with passion, determined to compensate for the lack lustre Het Wilhelmus previously. The chorus dissolved into incoherence as we witnessed a collective boredom spread across the faces of our audience. Something else! was cried. And so, a few more meagre English offerings were hesitantly put forth: a verse or two of Waltzing Matilda, The Beatles, and Bohemian Rhapsody. It became apparent that staying up with the drunk French would only be fun if you were drunk and French, and thoughts of my sleeping bag became increasingly attractive between incomprehensible French songs, laughs, and cussing.