BOLIVIA

I arrived in Bolivia as part of a long trip in South America in which I also touched Peru and Ecuador including the Galapagos Islands. While for the rest of the trip in South America I was in the company of two friends, in Bolivia I came alone. I arrived by bus from the border with Peru near the small town of Copacabana.

It's precisely in Copacabana that the bus I had set off in from Puno in Peru ends its journey. I stop while waiting for the connection to La Paz and take the opportunity to take a short walk along the lakeside and to the Marian Sanctuary that gave its name to the famous beach of Rio de Janeiro, Copacabana. Having taken the bus for La Paz, the road suddenly breaks off in front of Lake Titicaca where the Port of San Pedro de Tiquina is. Together with the other passengers I get off the vehicle and, having bought a ticket for a boat, cross the strait to reach the opposite shore at San Pablo de Tiquina. The bus too has to cross this short stretch of the Lake and does so on a large raft. In the afternoon I arrive in La Paz, which although not the formal capital of the country is so in fact.

It's among the highest cities in the world, situated between 3,200 and 4,100 metres, since some districts are located higher than the historic centre and are served, besides by the roads, by a cable car that performs the function of a metro. The centre of La Paz is fairly tidy but the surroundings are very poor; I've never seen so many houses with the outer walls left rough, without plaster. In La Paz I walked through the streets famous for the sale of fetishes for magic rites, then went to the square that hosts the Government Palace and the Cathedral.

In the evening from the large bus station I take the night bus for Uyuni. The following morning, having arrived in the dusty town of Uyuni, I booked the tour at an agency. In the late morning an off-road vehicle, in which three Ecuadorian tourists had already found places, came to pick me up in front of the agency.

First stop the so-called Train Cemetery, where some convoys once destined for transporting minerals to the Chilean coasts lie, worn away by time and the salt air. We make a short stop at a market of odds and ends where I buy sunglasses because we're in the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world, and it's very white. It's so white that the sun's rays reflect off it and it's hard to keep your eyes open.

The next stop is at the Restaurant whose walls but also tables and chairs are made of salt bricks. Here we have lunch with not very inviting food, but then Bolivian cuisine is rather poor. We're in the place where the Paris-Dakar motorcycle race stops since they moved it here from Africa. We continue inside the Salar, a truly spectacular place. It feels like walking on snow even though in fact we're in a desert. Every now and then the whiteness of the salt is broken by the hills on which the cacti stand. They look like islands emerging from a very white sea and the contrast between the Salar and the cacti makes it one of the most sought-after places by photographers from all over the world. Climbing one of these islands lets you enjoy a magnificent panorama. We set off again in the off-road vehicle and go deeper into the Salar, waiting for the sunset.

When the sun goes down, endless plays of light are projected onto the white surface of the Salar, which now looks like an immense floor of hexagonal tiles. Once the sunset has happened, for a few minutes the surface takes on sky-blue tones. We return to the town, which is dark, just in time to say goodbye to my tour companions and get on the night bus for La Paz.

The following morning I'm in the pseudo-capital of Bolivia, where I take the first bus for Copacabana. As on the way there I have to ferry across Lake Titicaca between San Pablo and San Pedro Tiquina. In Copacabana I take the bus for Puno, although, as on the way there, it will be necessary to cross the border on foot and resume the vehicle once past to the other side. My brief stay in Bolivia was tiring but the Salar de Uyuni was worth it.