Travel Notes S2 E6: Getting high
Originally published on Medium on January 24, 2019.
December 2018
Location: Chile-Bolivian border
Head fuzzy, stomach funny, breath short; welcome to the high Andes five vertical kilometres above my home.
Oranges and browns dominate the landscape interspersed with only the hardiest of vegetation. Dried river beds lead to scorched canyons, ducking through caves formed in ancient years past.
Civilisation is found only in the oasis of the desert, infrequent shade gifted by irrigated groves and sandstone dwellings. Sunlight scorches colour away: a sephia vision of existence brought to you with a pipes led sound track better fitting a western than the 21st Century.
Days end with the return of contrast, long shadows and juxtaposed colour setting the landscape alights. Nursing sun-stroked bodies and altitude leaden heads we celebrate the darkness, finding relief in the heavy silence.
My companions for this journey are four newly qualified doctors. Portuguese in origin, passionate in temperament; insults of past folly and surprisingly tuneful ballads from home marking our time. Translations passing from Spanish to Portuguese to English and back giving a taste of international diplomacy, yet with a desert to explore we have no need to hurry our conversations.
Descending to the salt flats; sepia gives way to monochrome, the horizon disappearing into a mirage, eyes constantly searching for points of reference beyond the infinite wind blasted shapes. We stand on another world, as if civilisation had ended a thousand years ago leaving just footprints in remembrance.
Ahead lies the ‘real’ South America; not the tamed Eurocentric culture of Argentina and Chile, but the lands the Conquistadors never quite converted to their cause, the lands of the Inca, the lands of the coca leaf, the lands still trying to find their place in this 21st century globalised technocratic world.