Tourism – Wandering the Stars

Half of the fun of traveling to new places is trying new or unfamiliar foods. As a vegetarian, I haven’t been able to try too many typical Bolivian dishes, but here’s a list of what I have tried:

Cuñape – a type of bread made from yuca (cassava) flour and cheese. For such a simple food, it is ridiculously yummy and makes for the perfect snack. Or meal, because it’s hard to limit yourself to just one.

Empanadas – most people are familiar with empanadas, but there are so many filling options that we don’t typically see in the US. These empanadas are pretty simple – one is filled with cheese, the other is filled with cheese, tomato, and basil.

Salteña – a salteña is like an empanada, but the filling is like a stew. You definitely need a spoon and a lot of napkins to eat one of these! Typical fillings are beef, chicken, or ham and cheese. The vegetarian one (pictured below) is filled with a sort of veggie stew containing broccoli, onions, and carrots. Some places also offer a mushroom version, but I haven’t had a chance to try it.

Chuño – a chuño is a freeze dried potato. There are two types – black potatoes and white potatoes. These potatoes are typically made by the Quechua and Aymara, but they pre-date the Inca civilization. The potatoes are freeze dried through a natural process. In June and July, the potatoes are laid out in a single layer and left to dehydrate in the sun and then freeze overnight. The process typically takes 5 days, but these potatoes can last up to 10 years with proper storage. They’re a critical staple for farmers, as they provide a reliable food source during unfavorable farming seasons.

These potatoes are usually steamed or boiled to rehydrate them. I’ve tried the black potatoes and didn’t much care for them. They weren’t bad per se, but they have a very earthy taste that I didn’t quite like. I think these are probably an acquired taste.

Chuno

Torta de Choclo – this is a cake made with corn, but it’s nothing like cornbread. It’s quite creamy, has a somewhat buttery flavor, and has just the right amount of sweetness. It’s almost like a cake made out of creamed corn, minus the corn kernels. One thing I really like about Bolivian pastries is that they are not overly sweet!

Torta de Choclo

Queso Humacha – humacha cheese is a traditional dish of La Paz, and is typically eaten during Semana Santa (the week leading up to Easter). It’s normally prepared as a stew, but I had a sandwich version that was really good. It contains corn, cheese, and beans (don’t know what they’re called, but they looked like larger, flatter lima beans) mixed in a spicy yellow sauce. Definitely recommend trying this if you have the chance.

Torta de Cinco Leches – this cake is very similar to Tres Leches cake, except it is made with 5 different types of milk instead of 3. Very very very good cake. Sometimes tres leches cake takes on a soggy or oversaturated texture. I was a bit hesitant to try this cake, thinking it would suffer a similar fate, but I needn’t have worried. It was moist, light, and had a subtle, milky flavor. The multiple types of milk were not overpowering or too sweet.

Coca Candy – Last, but not least, is candy made from coca leaves. Considering how much coca leaves are used medicinally in Bolivia, I was not surprised to learn that it comes in a candy form. It tastes a bit like a mild, slightly sweet licorice and is supposed to be good for headaches and stomach ailments. (The flavor is good, but hard to describe, because it doesn’t taste quite like anything else I’ve had.) It also makes your tongue and mouth a little bit numb. Be warned – you cannot bring this candy back to the US. While there are no illegal substances in the candy, drug sniffing dogs have been trained to find it so that customs can confiscate it. Bottom line: this is a food that can only be enjoyed in Bolivia.

Even though I am here for school purposes, my practicum program gives us time to explore La Paz and Bolivia. I spent this past weekend in Uyuni, Bolovia, home to the world’s largest (and highest) salt flat!

I know, I know…visiting a salt flat sounds boring and/or lame, but it was actually quite beautiful. My tour started with a drive past fields of red quinoa plants. According to Bolivians, the best quinoa in the world comes from these fields, as the minerals in the soil create a very nutritious and uniquely tasty grain.

Next stop was the train cemetery in Colchani. The train tracks that run through here are the original tracks that carried silver and other minerals from Potosí to the coast for sale and distribution. Since Bolivia no longer has a sea port, these tracks now lead to Chile.

I have no idea why a place where trains go to die is a tourist attraction, but it was kind of cool to explore train cars up close. Lots of tourists climb the cars. I might be current on my tetanus shot, but I wasn’t willing to push my luck.

After visiting the train cemetery, we visited the small town of Colchani. There is a small museum here that is supposed to be about the salt mining and manufacturing process, but it mainly focused on llamas. I can’t say I learned anything at this museum, but it did have some very entertaining miniatures.

Colchani also has a row of stalls selling various handicrafts and items made from salt. It took every single bit of self control I had not to buy one of these stuffed llamas/alpacas. IT’S SO FLUFFY I COULD DIE!

After leaving Colchani, we headed straight for the salt flats. I’ll let Wikipedia provide us all with some basic info: “the Salar de Uyuni is the world’s largest salt flat at 10,582 square kilometers (4,086 sq mi). It is at an elevation of 3,656 meters (11,995 ft) above sea level. The Salar was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes. It is covered by a few meters of salt crust, which has an extraordinary flatness with the average elevation variations within one meter over the entire area of the Salar. The crust serves as a source of salt and covers a pool of brine, which is exceptionally rich in lithium. It contains 50% to 70% of the world’s known lithium reserves, which is in the process of being extracted. The large area, clear skies, and exceptional flatness of the surface make the Salar an ideal object for calibrating the altimeters of Earth observation satellites.”

It is currently the rainy season in Bolivia, so the Salar is covered in rainwater. When I visited, the water was 4-6 inches high in some places.

In other places, the salt is wet, but not saturated. In these areas, you can see the many colors that lie under the salt crust.

And because science is cool, here are photos demonstrating how the water effects the shape of the salt crystals. The photo on the left shows the salt crystals from the drier parts of the Salar. The photo on the right shows the salt crystals from the parts of the Salar that are underwater. Travel tip – if you visit the Salar, I would not recommend walking across it without shoes. These crystals (particularly those that are underwater) are quite sharp.

Salt crystals from the drier part of the Salar

Salt crystals from the portion of the Salar that is underwater

The Tunupa volcano provides enough heat to create bubbling pools throughout the Salar. These pools are similar to the geothermal pools you’d see at Yellowstone or in Iceland, except the bubbling water is very cold!

The combination of water and calm winds creates a mirror effect. Unfortunately, the winds were pretty strong the day I visited, so I couldn’t get good pictures of the reflection of the sky upon the water. But that didn’t stop my tour group from taking all sorts of silly pictures to capture what we could of this mirror effect.