Salar de Uyuni Desert


Period: October 1994

The Salar de Uyuni is the biggest and higher salt lake of the world; 10.000 square kilometers of salt crust sometimes more than ten meters thick at an altitude of 3.700 meters.
It's situated on the southwest part of Bolivia almost on Chile border. Any person had never crossed it by feet and alone. The people who live there are intimidated by the "eyes of the Salar", that as an Incas legend were swallowing the caravans that try to crossed back there.
In the reality they are holes on the top of the salt where the water comes out and are made almost invisible by the light reflection during the daytime.
Carla decided to try the crossing alone and without any radio assistance. To be able to carry all the necessary equipment was build a trolley made of ultra light material mounted on three mountain bike wheels. She would have to pull it with a strap connected to two rails to her waist and weighting 130 kilograms on full load. She left from a small place on the border of the Salar called Colchani on October the 16th and arrived six days and 180 kilometers later of walking in the east west direction at Llica located on the opposite side of the lake.
The enormous temperature change (25 degrees in the day and -20 degrease at night) the dry environment and the very strong icy wind that constantly hit the Salar took Carla's body to the extreme.
She had to sleep every night inside of the trolley after emptied out: fully dressed she slide inside her shelter and closed the drape that covers it with the terrible wind hitting the only obstacle that's find for hundreds of kilometers making it quiver terribly.
The combined action of sun, altitude, salt and wind quickly reaches Carla's skin making it full of cuts, abrasions and covering her lips with herpes. Even the eyes witch are protected with two pairs of sunglasses start suffering from conjunctivitis. Every centimeters of her body is protected and the white Tuareg turbant was a life saver but nothing can work against the terrible Salar environment
And painful blister on her feet make it even worst. A sense of anxiety start to grow, slowly at the beginning but soon growing faster; I immediately recognize it is the crisis of the beginning, the same one that in Tenere, made me have the internal fight…I'm alone with the trolley, I get closer to it and start talking at loud "come on Chico, it's hard but we can do this, help me to keep going we can get out of this". Give life to the objects is like going back to the childhood where we try to build our own world to escape from the outside attacks. It seams to work and a great feeling of tranquility grows over the anxiety.
To follow the direction Carla uses a GPS, the most known satellite tracking device; on the fourth day her husband with a small plane flies over her for few minutes to gather some pictures from above and to check how much she had already accomplished; the turbulence on the lake is very dangerous and the plane had to keep a certain distance to don't get swallowed by it. The environment is so beautiful to seem almost unreal and the small salt frame formed regularly makes the lake looking like a mosaic lighted by the sun. "The Salar is getting ready for a new sunset ….I stand up, take my gloves off and with my eyes wet with tears I applaud the spectacular scene. The water consumption is a lot less that the one of the Tenere and it doesn't go over the four litters daily. Carla set up a walking program to stop shortly every hour to check the direction and eat some power bars. Around noon she stops for an hour and a half: She's almost never hungry and the only food that she feels to eat is a soup with fresh garlic and hot pepper and a little Italian cheese.
Around five P.M the wind starts to blow again and she's forced to stop, making the camp before dark and tie everything down to don't lose it. Any small distraction can cost a disaster.
During the all trip she haven't encountered any living things and just two hours from the arrivals she sees a fly. At Llica, with her husband and the off road vehicle driver there was a small crowd of people anxious to meet the woman that alone had challenged the Salar.
A small lady goes close to her and ask in Spanish "What have you done so terrible to your husband to make you cross the Salar de Uyuni?".