The Altiplano

I knew nothing of the beauty of Bolivia when I decided to come here. Had no idea that between the border of Peru and El Alto lay the Altiplano that would steal my breath and fill me with the pleasure of being alive. It is extraordinarily beautiful. If I see nothing else of beauty in Bolivia the Altiplano will suffice to make a journey of several thousand miles worthwhile.

It begins at Laja an indigenous township several kilometres beyond La Paz. It begins with such subtlety at an arch near a filling station that the merging of land and sky is at first unseen. As the unfinished red brick houses and dirt streets of the pueblos lesson in number a view of the vast sky and farmland appears, unbroken by poverty. The cleanness of grass after dirt. An endless expanse of land that climbs to an inhospitable height of almost 5000 metres as it extends towards the border with Peru.

I travelled across this humbling landscape with 9 people from Chile, 3 worthy German students who had been helping the Aymara translate documents into English, German and Spanish, and one suitably beautiful Brazilian poet that this landscape deserved. We were travelling to Tiwanaku, an Aymara civilisation older than Macchu Picchu in Peru. We were allowed one stop to consider the view and use the toilet of the Incas, the ground.

An Aymara family got to the best viewing spot in the Altiplano before us. They were having a picnic seated on ground that allowed them to see Peru, Lake Titicaca and Bolivia, all in the bite of a crust of bread.

I for the first time saw Mount Illimani. A mountain that is so important to Bolivians that my Bolivian friend in La Paz is having the entire mountain, in miniature, I add, tattooed to the skin at the base of her spine.

I checked with the rest of the bus to see how beautiful in comparative terms the views were that I was looking at compared to the rest of South America. My research could extend only to comparisons with Chile and Brazil and to my own comparison made with scenery I had seen in Peru. No competition, all agreed. The Altiplano , the highest plateau in the Andes, was flood and drought prone, difficult to exist in. Repellent of all those who could not adapt to its moods and rapidly changing conditions but like anything inaccessible, it was compelling and eternally bewitching.

The bus provided a camera roll of scenes of Aymara tending their animals and their land. They reminded me of the images of the remote homesteads, standing in a natural wilderness, Bruce Chatwin had included in his account of his travels to Patagonia. I was filled with absolute contentment. I thought years ago of sitting at my desk, almost leaving, almost doing what Chatwin had done, and after all these years, here I was, riding here, in a ramshackle bus across this land; not where Chatwin had been but where I am sure he would have loved