I happened to catch part of a TV programme last night called Only Connect. BBC3 I think. It's a quiz show with two teams and the idea is to connect things, mostly words. Towards the end they have a part of the show where they take vowels out of words, and you have to work out the words as they should be. They help by bunching them together, so at least you have an idea which ball park you're likely to be in.
So when Great South American Rivers came up as a topic, I settled confidently back, certain of a 100% score, being, as it were, on home territory. Now I know it's meant to be a challenging programme, rather than just plumping for questions which will fox only dimwits who don't watch quizzes anyway.
I got two out of four. The rivers were Orinoco RNC, Colorado (CLRD), Maule (ML)and Aconcagua (CNCG)
What?? Great rivers?? You're 'avin' a laugh aren'tcha? Three of those "great rivers" are in Chile. As everyone knows, Chile is confined by the Andes on one side and the Pacific on the other. Long and thin. About a wide as a piece of string. All the rivers flow westward to the sea - so they're about as great as the piece of string is wide. The only thing great about them is that they rise in the Andes. That's like saying the Teign and the Dart are great rivers because they rise on Dartmoor.
A whole continent full of rivers - great rivers - and we get three Chilean becks.
In Argentina, most Welshmen would easily identify the CHBT in Patagonia (they don't bother with vowels much anyway). The PRN, PRGY, RGY are probably a bit too easy.
In Bolivia the BN's a bit more challenging, as is the PLCMY (world's longest tributary of a tributary).
Peru's CYL and MRNN take a bit of thinking about; MGDLN in Colombia is easy. Guyana "land of rivers" should surely have merited a mention for one of SSQB, BRBC or DMRR - all easy.
Now I can see why they eschewed MZN - a bit too obvious - but if they think Maule's reasonable, they why not slip in SLMS (which is what the Brazilians call the upper MZN). Brazil's brimming over - XNG, MDR, SFRNCSC, and if you want a really difficult one, the 4-syllable PQ would be the one to catch them out. Not a great river, but a lot greater than those Chilean melt-water run-offs.
And the CSQR in Venezuela, whilst not actually a river - more of a natural channel linking the basins of the Orinoco and the Negro - could hold its place as an interesting watercourse. If you don't mind the mosquitos and sand flies.
I could go on - or even suggest that the producers of Only Connect come to me if they need inspiration with a Latin American flavour. Mammals of the Mato Grosso? Suburbs of Rio?
On second thoughts, don't get me started.
Showing posts with label Bolivia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bolivia. Show all posts
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Monday, 7 September 2009
Bolivia (Uyuni-Laguna Verde continued) Aug08
Two hours' drive southwest of Uyuni en route to Laguna Verde, you leave the main road. From now on we're in low range four-wheel drive. Frozen streams, rock formations that look like ruined red sandstone castles or abandoned medieval Tuscan villages along a distant escarpment; sulphurous mud-pools bubbling - activity influenced by the morning sun, claims Rodrigo.
We stop for breakfast at Mallku, at a small hotel, with stoves fashioned from oil-drums burning gnarled roots - from where? We haven't seen a tree for three hours.
Hotel is rather a grand word for it. It's a cave with a shack built at the entrance, a few rooms with foot-thick duvets, and an empty sun-lounge. Both sun and lounge are not the right words, since by empty I don't mean of people (although they're absent too); there's nothing at all in this part of the hotel, just windows.
The only guests, Swiss I think, but speaking good Spanish, are enjoying their rolls (toasted on the oil drum) and hot Milo (powdered chocolate substitute). They're wearing thick sweaters, overcoats, woollen hats, scarves and gloves. Eating breakfast.
At well over 4000m above sea level, we pass a lake whose name I have noted down as Laguna ...? (you try making intelligible notes at 20mph on a road that seems to be a mixture of sand and talcum powder). The shores are piled high with heaps of snow, or salt. It turns out to be borax. I also make a note to look up borax - what is it used for?
http://www.ballymoney.gov.uk/Household_cleaning_factsheet.pdf
Beyond is Laguna Colorada - colorado/colorada means red in Spanish. Rodrigo tells me there are pink algae in the lake (which the flamingoes feed on, and this makes them pink too...but I'm not convinced). Certainly the lake looks pinkish, but it's greatly accentuated by the reflection from colour of the hills behind. It seems more likely that wind erosion is the culprit. The lake's very shallow, judging by the flocks of flamingoes hundred of metres from the shore. They may be standing in pink sediments.
The point where we turn around (although the track carries on into Chile) is Laguna Verde and the volcanoes of Licáncabur and Juriques. It's just after lunchtime; by the time we've had our packed lunch most of the lake has changed from a dull jade green to brilliant turquoise; you can watch it happening, spreading west across the surface like ice melting. Rodrigo says it's to do with the wind, and it usually happens earlier in the day.
We're the only ones here, but an hour later on the return leg, it's evident that there are a dozen or so other 4WD groups - mostly backpackers having fun in hot springs. I guess they'd preferred this to waiting for the lake to do its party piece.
Rodrigo's very sniffy about these other Uyuni-based tour operators. They're cheap, since most of the visitors are young backpackers; they don't maintain their vehicles properly, they cut corners, they're cowboys.
We pass several, one crawling along belching black exhaust fumes. You can imagine the expression on Rodrigo's face. Two hours' further on, we have no choice but to stop. Rodrigo reluctantly lends one of his two spare wheels to a 4WD full of Australian, Canadian and French. One of them pleads with us for a lift, since we're likely to arrive in Uyuni two hours ahead of them, and he's got a bus to catch. We agree, but then he starts arguing with his Bolivian driver. Even though he's now getting a free lift in a reliable car, he wants his money back.
After about 5 minutes of wrangling, and no agreement, we leave him with his group. Was I that unreasonable when I was 25?
We stop for breakfast at Mallku, at a small hotel, with stoves fashioned from oil-drums burning gnarled roots - from where? We haven't seen a tree for three hours.
Hotel is rather a grand word for it. It's a cave with a shack built at the entrance, a few rooms with foot-thick duvets, and an empty sun-lounge. Both sun and lounge are not the right words, since by empty I don't mean of people (although they're absent too); there's nothing at all in this part of the hotel, just windows.
The only guests, Swiss I think, but speaking good Spanish, are enjoying their rolls (toasted on the oil drum) and hot Milo (powdered chocolate substitute). They're wearing thick sweaters, overcoats, woollen hats, scarves and gloves. Eating breakfast.
At well over 4000m above sea level, we pass a lake whose name I have noted down as Laguna ...? (you try making intelligible notes at 20mph on a road that seems to be a mixture of sand and talcum powder). The shores are piled high with heaps of snow, or salt. It turns out to be borax. I also make a note to look up borax - what is it used for?
http://www.ballymoney.gov.uk/Household_cleaning_factsheet.pdf
Beyond is Laguna Colorada - colorado/colorada means red in Spanish. Rodrigo tells me there are pink algae in the lake (which the flamingoes feed on, and this makes them pink too...but I'm not convinced). Certainly the lake looks pinkish, but it's greatly accentuated by the reflection from colour of the hills behind. It seems more likely that wind erosion is the culprit. The lake's very shallow, judging by the flocks of flamingoes hundred of metres from the shore. They may be standing in pink sediments.
The point where we turn around (although the track carries on into Chile) is Laguna Verde and the volcanoes of Licáncabur and Juriques. It's just after lunchtime; by the time we've had our packed lunch most of the lake has changed from a dull jade green to brilliant turquoise; you can watch it happening, spreading west across the surface like ice melting. Rodrigo says it's to do with the wind, and it usually happens earlier in the day.
We're the only ones here, but an hour later on the return leg, it's evident that there are a dozen or so other 4WD groups - mostly backpackers having fun in hot springs. I guess they'd preferred this to waiting for the lake to do its party piece.
Rodrigo's very sniffy about these other Uyuni-based tour operators. They're cheap, since most of the visitors are young backpackers; they don't maintain their vehicles properly, they cut corners, they're cowboys.
We pass several, one crawling along belching black exhaust fumes. You can imagine the expression on Rodrigo's face. Two hours' further on, we have no choice but to stop. Rodrigo reluctantly lends one of his two spare wheels to a 4WD full of Australian, Canadian and French. One of them pleads with us for a lift, since we're likely to arrive in Uyuni two hours ahead of them, and he's got a bus to catch. We agree, but then he starts arguing with his Bolivian driver. Even though he's now getting a free lift in a reliable car, he wants his money back.
After about 5 minutes of wrangling, and no agreement, we leave him with his group. Was I that unreasonable when I was 25?
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Bolivia (La Paz-Uyuni) Aug08
It's exactly a year since I was in Bolivia. I did a big circle - flying into La Paz, then driving in a 4WD with Rodrigo Garron, our man on the ground.
We went south across the altiplano to Oruro (good paved road all the way) and on by an increasingly poor dirt track to the huge salt flats (salar) at Uyuni. The whole-day journey is over terrain which varies little from an altitude of 4000 metres
We stayed in one of the three hotels there which are built almost entirely of salt blocks, on a low bluff overlooking the salt flat. Flat is the word. Almost incandescently white until the sun sets, and stretching 70 miles to the western cordillera of the Andes, the crust is thick enough to support a vehicle's weight.
If you plonked the salar down in the middle of the English Channel, you'd be able to drive all the way from Portsmouth to Cherbourg
It gets bitterly cold at night. Fortunately, the hotel Luna Salada has central heating, and each bed has duvets which are a foot thick. I'm not exaggerating.
Over the last year, the UK press and media have begun to notice that the concentrated brine beneath the salt crust Salar de Uyuni holds some 50% of the world's resources of lithium.
Lithium is what they use for lightweight, high-power batteries, which we are told will be running the green cars of the future.
The Bolivian government (and in particular the populist president Evo Morales) are very keen that the Bolivian people, rather than foreign corporations and a handful of already-rich Bolivians, should benefit from the exploitation of this resource.
There's already a scramble among other nations to befriend the Bolivians. Japan, France, Brazil and Venezuela have all thrown their hats (or their entrepreneurs' hats) into the ring.
I noticed a few days ago that a Brazilian engineering group had been granted the concession to build a new road in Bolivia's Amazon lowlands. Maybe they're taking the roundabout route to having their feet under the table next time... To exploit Uyuni, Morales will need a new railway or highway - it's a hard place to get to.
As is Bolivia - landlocked, no direct access to the sea, and not always on the best of terms with its neighbours. Its isolation is one of the reasons it's still such a haunting place to visit.
We went south across the altiplano to Oruro (good paved road all the way) and on by an increasingly poor dirt track to the huge salt flats (salar) at Uyuni. The whole-day journey is over terrain which varies little from an altitude of 4000 metres
We stayed in one of the three hotels there which are built almost entirely of salt blocks, on a low bluff overlooking the salt flat. Flat is the word. Almost incandescently white until the sun sets, and stretching 70 miles to the western cordillera of the Andes, the crust is thick enough to support a vehicle's weight.
If you plonked the salar down in the middle of the English Channel, you'd be able to drive all the way from Portsmouth to Cherbourg
It gets bitterly cold at night. Fortunately, the hotel Luna Salada has central heating, and each bed has duvets which are a foot thick. I'm not exaggerating.
Over the last year, the UK press and media have begun to notice that the concentrated brine beneath the salt crust Salar de Uyuni holds some 50% of the world's resources of lithium.
Lithium is what they use for lightweight, high-power batteries, which we are told will be running the green cars of the future.
The Bolivian government (and in particular the populist president Evo Morales) are very keen that the Bolivian people, rather than foreign corporations and a handful of already-rich Bolivians, should benefit from the exploitation of this resource.
There's already a scramble among other nations to befriend the Bolivians. Japan, France, Brazil and Venezuela have all thrown their hats (or their entrepreneurs' hats) into the ring.
I noticed a few days ago that a Brazilian engineering group had been granted the concession to build a new road in Bolivia's Amazon lowlands. Maybe they're taking the roundabout route to having their feet under the table next time... To exploit Uyuni, Morales will need a new railway or highway - it's a hard place to get to.
As is Bolivia - landlocked, no direct access to the sea, and not always on the best of terms with its neighbours. Its isolation is one of the reasons it's still such a haunting place to visit.
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