Salar de Uyuni - If you want to kiss the sky

When God said, ‘Let there be light,’ He drug his fingers across the water and left an indelible mark in South America. And the waters separated from the land…

That is the lasting thought I had when I looked around and saw a 360 degree reflection of the heavens pouring through every sense I had.

I don’t know any other way to describe what I have witnessed. I was careful not to post photos of this to my social media prior to this post. I have treasured this moment, this place, this experience in the most quiet places of my heart.

Those are big words.

It is no secret that I am a person who enthusiastically embraces experience and relishes in the smallest joys. So, it is difficult to express how intense the beauty was in the moment. We were at 3,600 meters on 10,000 square kilometers of the largest salt flat in the world. This is not one of the seven natural wonders of the world. And I can tell you of the seven, I have only stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon. And the Grand Canyon pales in comparison.

We drove to the flats visiting first a train graveyard and then a small artisnal town…. If you want to increase success by lowering expectations, this is a great start. I had left my translator at this point, but was not disappointed to land in a group with a couple of Canadians, an Australian, and an upstate New Yorker. I was in traveling heaven to be among so many English speakers and we were quite the chatty group until one of the women looked up and said, “Look at those cars, they look like they are not driving on anything.”

I have lived in the desert. I am familiar with mirages, and this was a pretty good one… but we kept going.

And suddenly, suddenly the landscape was changing. We could look at the ground and see the water we

drove through; it was only a few inches deep. But when we looked up, we suddenly couldn’t understand, and the whole car fell silent.

“I can’t comprehend what I am looking at,” I stated softly to whomever was listening. And yes, yes I am easily emotional, but I felt tears form pools in my eyes and I fell back to silence and I became aware of trying to breathe – not from the altitude, but the overwhelming beauty.

Most cars there were for the one day tour, and we were surrounded by tourists and vehicles and noise.

But we went further. We signed on for the three-day tour, so we drove and drove guided only by a mountain and trekking only along a snake skin thread of the bottom of a lake long dried, but soaked in reflective water just for us. Eventually, we were the only car left.

Standing in two inches of lukewarm water, softened by salt to spa quality, I had another thought. When I die, this is what I expect heaven to look like. Followed by …. When Columbus set sail and Spain was afraid of falling off the Earth, is this what they envisioned?

We were almost 12,000 feet in the air. There was ground beneath our feet, but we were suspended in stillness ad silence.

At this point, Physics stopped existing. No joke. The sun was intense and the reflection created a light heat you cannot imagine. So, we unrolled the windows happy to see the wind blowing across the water, even if it affected our view (only slightly)…. But no wind entered the car.

We chased a rainstorm and watched lightening make the leap from the ground to the sky an back again in angry, punctuating marks – far enough away to be a spectacle without fear … and we were suddenly driving through an ocean.

Ok, look, I am no car mechanic. But I know engines stall at some point. But the vehicles kept going. Through a sea. And suddenly we were sliding to the left, and we all grew a little nervous as to where the waters were carrying us. But, no. This is Bolivia. The driver knew where a 4 foot wide gap led to higher ground and we left the water behind and the sunset washed away as we drove into the storm.

It rains less than 5 days a month here. Our tour guide was beside himself because this ... this was only the second time in his years as a guide he saw the entire flat covered in water. And the expanse was ours.

This is the best I can do to tell you the beauty I have seen. I can post the pictures here, but you can never understand that sometimes overwhelming can both press upon you while being the lightest moment you can embrace.