Americas

[Visited: January 2020]

After driving through spectacular altiplano landscapes under a blue sky, dark clouds sail in when the afternoon draws to a close. We have climbed for a while, and when we get off, we are at around 4800m. A wind blows over the barren landscape, making it cold. We walk down, past a wooden table on which an old man has some items for sale. After the unrest in Bolivia of the last months, tourism has dropped and the effects can be seen. We feel sorry for the man, but walk on. Below us, we see the ruins of San Antonio de Lípez, a town founded by the Spanish in the 16th century. Nearby silver mines needed miners to get the precious commodity out, but the town fell apart and was abandoned, according to legend because of a broken pact with the devil for which the inhabitants were punished.
While it is dubbed Bolivia's Machu Picchu, San Antonio de Lípez is less impressive. Similarities are the setting: it lies at the foot of majestic, snow-capped mountains, which look even more daunting under a dark grey, heavy and threatening sky. The town itself is much less exotic than the famous Peruvian ruined Inca city: it has ruins of buildings and a cathedral. We walk further down, explore the ruins that get more of a ghost feel with the dark skies above. There are openings in walls, through which we see the Andes peaks above. We reach the entrance of a mine, and one after the other, enter for a little bit. Just enough to experience the total darkness, the bad air, the slippery floor, and the amazing thought that people spent hours in this mine, days, weeks, months, hundreds of metres deeper in the mine, in search of silver. It suddenly feels like a heavily underpaid precious metal.
When I continue exploring a little on my own, I see my first viscacha, a rodent which looks similar to a rabbit, although it is not related to it. Then, I start to see more and more of these cute animals. I walk past walls that once supported roofs, past buildings that probably were shops, and try to imagine how life must have been, here, at this altitude about the same as the Mont Blanc in Europe and still dwarfed by much higher mountains around me. The altitude means there is no more vegetation here; it seems like a harsh place to live. All for the silver mines. When we continue driving the exceptionally beautiful road, snow starts to fall, the clouds in the sky turn almost black, giving the landscape an even more dramatic look. It is probably the best possible weather to drive this road, meandering through high altitude mountains. We descend, get our ticket for the Eduardo Avaroa National Reserve which we will explore the coming days. When we finally reach Quetena Chico, a small settlement, night is about to fall, and we hope we will wake up under a blue sky the next morning.

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San Antonio de Lípez ghost town > Bolivia > Americas

[Visited: January 2020]

Around the World in 80 Clicks

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