Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia: The Story Behind the Photos

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We spent four days on a tour of the amazing and often surreal countryside of southwestern Bolivia. We saw flamingos surrounded by snowy mountains:


vast deserts:


Burbling geysers:


And a train cemetery:


I was in some sort of physical discomfort when each of these pictures was taken. After the first day, the areas we were in were so remote that there was no running water, nor were there outhouses or wells at the places we stopped during the days. I didn’t take this into account when I was savoring my coffee and orange juice at breakfast the second day. Thus, during our bumpy ride over dirt roads the second morning, my awe of the scenery was often punctuated by an acute awareness of the state of my bladder. Our rest stops provided little relief, as my shy bladder did not suddenly become more outgoing in the middle of the desert while I pretended that a foot-high rock was providing me with discrete cover.

The second night of the trip I developed a stomach infection that lasted for the rest of the trip and beyond. The aforementioned lack of sanitation facilities probably had something to do with my condition. To get a sense of what I felt going on in my intestines, refer to the above picture of the geyser. I spent the rest of the trip napping in the car, periodically murmuring that the scenery was “bea-OW-tiful”, as a sharp stomach cramp would interrupt my commentary.

Reflection
I give you the gory details of being sick while traveling not in the hopes of eliciting pity or sympathy- I practically overdosed on self-pity. Rather, I wanted to share something the pictures don’t express about our experiences. I don’t want people to look at the pictures of the tour and think that we floated through this magical place. For me, the physical discomfort was just as much a part of the experience as the stunning scenery.

In short email exchanges, I often don’t express the physical discomforts and frustrations I go through when traveling. Moreover, I don’t believe that I have to express them to most people. Email exchanges that end with, “sounds like you’re having a great time” aren’t deceitful. I would feel like I was being dishonest, though, if I were to show these pictures to close friends and family and not try to convey the complete experience. Well, not the complete experience of being sick…

I’m still figuring out how to express that I generally am “having a great time”, even though there are plenty of instances of frustration and pain.

Question
What are some of the wonderful things you’ve experienced while in physical discomfort? With whom did you share the fact that you were uncomfortable?