Heaven on Earth: Amazing salt flats where the sky and ground merge into one to create dreamy landscapes

By Daily Mail Reporter

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

 

Who knows what awaits when St Peter lets us through those pearly gates. But perhaps influenced by the odd film or two, this is the sort of view of heaven many will have in mind.

It’s almost impossible to distinguish in these dream-like landscapes where the sky ends and the ground begins.

And with the addition of a few figures praying and dancing, even a few cars rumbling through, they take on an outer-worldly feel.

Popular spot: Tourists have been visiting the area for years, and can stay in homes cut off from the modern world

Mirror image: This tourist visiting the South American region is reflected in the salt flats, which are over 3,000m above sea level

Volcanic region: The Tunupa volcano can be seen in the background as these cars negotiate the flats

But they are of course taken here on Earth, in Bolivia's Uyuni salt flats to be precise.

The flats, located in Southern Bolivia near the country's Tunupa volcano make up the world's largest salt desert, around 11,000 km sq.

That makes it even larger than Lake Titicaca, the vast stretch of water shared by Bolivia and neighbouring Peru.

Mirror image: It is hard to tell where the lakes end and the clouds begin in this beautiful image

Power: The lithium in the area makes up half the world's supply and is used in batteries for mobile phones and computers, as well as being a key element in electric cars

Stunning: The salt flats themselves are 3,600m above sea level in the Andes - making it almost possible, it seems, to reach up and touch the clouds from the ground

And the salt flats themselves are 3,600m above sea level in the Andes - making it almost possible, it seems, to reach up and touch the clouds from the ground.

The area has long been popular with tourists, particularly those looking for a holiday with a difference.

 

Visitors to the area can take in the vast white expanse of salt and the stunning surrounding vistas, while staying with locals in an area which feels cut off from the modern world.

Distant: This hiker is just a dot in the distance in the beautiful salt lakes

Out of this world: Bolivia's Uyuni salt flats are spectacular

Hypnotic: The flats, located in Southern Bolivia near the country's Tunupa volcano make up the world's largest salt desert, around 11,000 km sq

Stunning: The hexagons in this landscape evolved after the salt pan, near Bolivia's Volcano Tunupa, had dried up

At dusk: Photographed at twilight, the dried up salt pans appear blue in colour

For just $15 a day, tourists can lodge with peasant families in homes without running water or electricity - and outhouses used as bathrooms.

But despite the loss of home comforts, they can join in with local activities - such as the annual llama-shearing season in August, or joining llama caravans that deliver salt blocks to remote villages in exchange for food and other goods.

Although tourists have long been visiting the area, it wasn't until around five years ago that interest grew in extracting the 5.4m tons of lithium which is found just below the surface of the salt.

The lithium in the area makes up half the world's supply and is used in batteries for mobile phones and computers, as well as being a key element in electric cars.
The impact of mining on the tourism industry remains uncertain.

However it has yet to deter tourists from staying with the locals in Atulcha, Villamar and San Juan, all located around the salt flats.

'There is great interest in community tourism, to live with the people in the countryside, and even join them in their meals," said Rosa Perez, who heads the Uyuni regional tourism board.

'The communities have set up a few rooms with beds to be able to live with the visitors.'

Exact location: Bolivia is home to the salt flats, while a NASA satellite pic shows the area from above

Bolivian Coca Colla Is The Real Thing -- Coca Leaf Included

By Marc Perton
From http://consumerist.com/

(roitberg)

Back in the late 19th century, Coca-Cola hooked customers with a narcotic hit drawn from its namesake coca leaf. These days, Coke is cocaine-free, and may or may not still have coca-leaf flavoring, depending on who you speak to. But a new drink from Bolivia, Coca Colla, isn't shy about its ingredients, even sporting a bright green coca leaf on its label.

The energy drink, produced by a small Bolivian company that develops legitimate uses for coca leaves, uses coca-leaf flour as a key ingredient. It apparently lacks the cocaine that made early Coca-Cola popular, but is gaining cult status since being served at President Evo Morales' inauguration. Morales is no fan of the leading American cola, and the Bolivian government may help its own drink build some buzz:

“

The beverage is named after both the coca leaf, a plant that is virtually the national symbol of Bolivia, and the local population. The word "colla" is a local term referring to the descendants of the indigenous Aymara people, a heritage Mr. Morales shares. Mr. Morales has also headed a union of coca farmers.

Although the Bolivian government is still studying Coca Colla and hasn't provided any financing, Mr. Morales is no fan of the other Coca-Cola. He has criticized the soft drink, and referred to Coke in a recent speech as "the liquid that plumbers use to unblock the toilets."

”

The American company isn't currently planning any legal action against the Bolivian startup -- though we hear Coke may be investigating the local plumbing industry.

Global Marketing: Bolivian Coca Colla Is No Coke [Advertising Age]

Fighting for the Right to Chew Coca

By Jean Friedman-Rudovsky/La Paz

Bolivians celebrate the 'acullicu' day or 'coca chewing day.'

Martin Alipaz / EPA

Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela have avoided war, but now two other Andean nations are gearing up for battle. This time the foe is the United Nations, and the cause is the right to chew coca, the raw material of cocaine. It may not sound as important as the diplomatic row that shook the region earlier this month. But the dispute is momentous for millions of people in Bolivia and Peru — where the coca leaf is sacred to indigenous culture and a tonic of modern life — and for anti-drug officials in the U.S. and other countries who are desperate to stem the relentless flow of cocaine. Says Silvia Rivera, a sociology professor at San Andres University in Bolivia's capital, La Paz, "This is the most aggressive attack [Bolivians] have faced" since the U.N. designated coca a drug in 1961.

The latest affront, they say, is a recommendation this month from the UN's drug enforcement watchdog, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), that Bolivia and Peru criminalize the practice of chewing coca and drinking its tea. The move has provoked widespread anger and street protests in the two countries, especially among the majority indigenous populations. For them, coca has been a cultural cornerstone for 3,000 years, as much a part of daily life as coffee in the U.S. (La Paz is home to perhaps the world's only coca museum.) From the countryside to swanky urban hotels, it is chewed or brewed to stave off hunger or exhaustion or to ease the often debilitating effects of high-altitude life in the Andes. It is also "used by healers and in ceremonial offerings to the gods," says Ana Maria Chavez, a coca seller in La Paz, who refers to her product as "the sacred leaf." Pope John Paul II even drank coca tea on a 1988 visit to Bolivia. It is, says Chavez, "part of who we are."

The problem is, it's also considered the building block of broken lives in the rest of the world, where cocaine consumption and addiction remain rampant in developed regions like North America and Europe. The U.S. has spent more than $5 billion this decade aiding Colombia's largely failed efforts to eradicate coca cultivation. Meanwhile, Washington and the U.N. have tried to get Bolivia and Peru to reduce their coca crops to the bare minimum for traditional consumption. Peru and Bolivia are the region's second and third largest coca producers, behind Colombia, with about more than 75,000 hectares (185,000 acres) under cultivation, or almost half of global supply.

The 1961 U.N. convention called for coca's elimination by the late 1980s. A new accord struck in 1988 recognized the plant's traditional attributes and allowed for limited local use, while anti-narcotics forces continued to work to wipe out coca's drug-related cultivation, destroy the labs that process it into cocaine and intercept traffickers. But this month's INCB report seeks to end that uneasy arrangement. A big reason is that despite the decades-long, multi-billion-dollar drug war in Latin America, cocaine production has remained stable at best. Criminalizing even traditional coca use may be the only means agencies like the INCB feel they have left to salvage the anti-drug mission. Consuming the raw, unprocessed leaf, says the INCB report, abets "the progression of drug dependence."

Critics of the report call that conclusion an absurd stretch, especially since there is no published evidence that the coca leaf itself is toxic or addictive. Foremost among the detractors is left-wing Bolivian President Evo Morales, who remains head of one of the country's largest coca-growing unions and was elected as Bolivia's first indigenous head of state in 2005 in part because of his defense of the leaf. "This leaf," Morales said at last year's U.N. General Assembly, holding one up at the podium, "represents... the hope of our people." Bolivia accounts for about 17% of worldwide coca supply and Morales gets much of the international blame for coca's persistence. But while critics like the U.S may call him disingenuous for arguing that coca and cocaine are apples and oranges — analysts say that despite government efforts, much of the coca grown in Bolivia ends up in drug cartels' hands — he has also helped lead what experts like Rivera call "a revaluation of the coca leaf." "Many people," says the sociologist, "have begun to rediscover its nutritional and medicinal benefits."

Indeed, several international studies, including one published by Harvard University, say that raw coca is loaded with protein, calcium, iron and a range of vitamins. As a result, Morales has encouraged a local industry, with an eye to exporting, that is turning coca into everything from flour to toothpaste, shampoo and curative lotions. (Morales sent Fidel Castro a coca cake for his 80th birthday last year.) Even as the INCB was issuing its report, the Bolivian government was reaffirming its desire to increase Bolivia's legal coca crop limit from 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) to 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres). The Bush Administration has warned that the latter move would put Bolivia in violation of its international agreements — it is "not consistent with Bolivia's obligations," said the State Department — and risk tens of millions of dollars in U.S. aid.

Seemingly undeterred, Bolivia said this month it was also set to invest another $300,000 for developing new, legal coca markets. Not surprisingly, the Bolivian delegation was the first to issue what it called an "energetic protest" against the INCB's recommendations during the agency's annual meeting this week in Vienna. It also put forward a proposal to remove coca from the U.N.'s narcotics list. That's not likely to happen. The big question is whether the U.N. will adopt the INCB proposal — which would essentially leave Bolivia and Peru in breach of international law if they continue to allow coca's non-narcotic use and commercialization. That in turn could result in the U.N. calling for commercial or other embargoes against them.

Many Bolivians say they don't care. "My grandfather and my grandmother sold coca and I've been doing it for 48 years," says Josefina Rojas, another La Paz coca seller. "We aren't going to let them take coca away from us no matter what." Such is the latest Andean conundrum. One that might be harder to solve than a potential war.