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A LT I P L ANOW H E R E B O L I V I A M E E T S T H E S K Y

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y G E O R G E S T E I N M E T Z

THE CLOUDSCRAPING PLATEAU OF THE ANDES IS AN OTHERWORLDLY REALM WHERE FLAMINGOS GLIDE ABOVE A LAGOON HEATED BY

UNDERGROUND SPRINGS AND COLORED CARNELIAN BY ALGAE ABOVE; WHERE WIND ERODES ROCK INTO A MODERNIST SCULPTURE PERCHED

ON A NARROW BASE LEFT; AND VEHICLES SEEM TO FLOAT ON A SHIMMERING SALT FLAT FLOODED BY AUTUMN RAINS OVERLEAF.

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MOONLIGHT ILLUMINATES INCAHUASI ISLAND, AN OUTCROPPING OF CACTI AND ANCIENT CORAL IN THE UYUNI SALT FLAT. A MASSIVE LAKE AS MUCH AS 450 FEET DEEP COVERED THIS AREA 16,000 YEARS AGO. WHEN IT DRIED UP, IT LEFT BEHIND A 4,085SQUAREMILE BASIN OF SALT, THE WORLDS LARGEST SUCH DEPOSIT.

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Bolivians are brown-skinned and most are poor,while a smattering o people at the top o the

social heap are well-off and white. But racialdistinctions are never so simple. Te more po-tent divide is the one between the hal o thepopulation that speaks only Spanish and theremainder, the indigenous inhabitants o theAltiplano, who speak one o Bolivias three otherofficial languagesAymara, Quechua, and Gua-ranior any one o a ew dozen others (somenearly extinct) and who may or may not alsospeak Spanish.

Bolivia today is undergoing proound change,and those bringing it about are the very peoplewhom various orms o despotism have kept in

a state o paralyzed submission or centuries.Marching or their rights, challenging authority,

exploding with rage ofen enough, the descen-dants o the First Peoples are trying to make anew world or themselvesone in which theywill occupy the center. Te year 2005 saw theirgreatest triumph: Voting as a block, they electedEvo Morales, an Aymara rom the Altiplano, tothe presidency. What comes next is anybo dysguess, but it will almost certainly not be a returnto submission.

O Phrase Here This is the web component of this

story. It can vary in length if necessary. More can be

found at ngm.com.

Tis is the text for the author and photographer

contributors notes. Hopefully three lines should be

enough to say something nice about each.

he Altiplano, or High Plain, o South America is a place o superlatives:

It holds the worlds highest navigable lake, iticaca, and the largest salt

deposit, Salar de Uyuni. It is the second largest mountain plateau in the

world, afer that o ibeta landscape o ice and fire, wind and salt that stretches rom

the northern tip o Chile and Argentina to the harsh flatlands o Peru. Higher than

many peaks in the Rockies, the Altiplano ormed when an earth-shaking collision

T

Borne high on the great rocky spine

of the Andes, the South American

tableland known as the altiplano

stretches north to south for 500

miles through western Bolivia.

Plants, animals, and people endure

harsh living conditions at more than

12,000 feet above sea level.

Altiplano has endowed Bolivia with extraordi-nary mineral riches. Silver ore extracted roma single hill, the legendary Potos, financed theSpanish crown or nearly 300 years and, someeconomists argue, created the wealth withoutwhich the European Renaissance couldnt havehappened. In the early 20th century, tin romtwo newer mines provided the raw material or

much o the worlds canning industry, makingit possible to keep young men in the trenches oWorld War I or years on end.

Te Altiplano is still a source o wealth. A-ter nearly a decade o building up the necessaryinrastructure, Apex Silver Mines, a U.S. cor-poration, is preparing to raze yet another hill,San Cristbal, which appears to consist almostentirely o silver, zinc, and lead. Meanwhile acorporation based in India is setting up shop toextract iron ore rom El Mutn, a hill overlook-ing Brazil.

Yet in the midst o all these richeswhichalso flow rom plentiul deposits o oil and natu-

ral gas in Bolivias lowlandsthe countrys percapita income remains less than $1,500 a year.Immense wealth and immense poverty havechallengedand deeatedeven B olivias ewenlightened rulers, as well a s persistent effortsby international goodwill organizations. Fewcountries can match Bolivias disheartening his-tory o dictatorships, coups, and purely venalrule. One ormer president, Luis Garca Meza, isstill in jail or drug trafficking, and five consecu-tive presidents between 2003 and 2006 did notserve ull terms o office.

A casual observer would say that nearly all

between the Pacific Ocean floor and the SouthAmerican mainland heaved up two Ande-an ridges lanking a mostly lat, high basin.On the southern rim o the Altiplano, whereChile, Argentina, and Bolivia meet, lava bur-bles in tall, jagged volcanoes; at their eet, on theshores o the vast lake that once filled the basin,baby mud volcanoes erupt and hiss through the

rozen soil. Perhaps nowhere on Earth does alandscape remind us so vividly that there was atime beore human time. Racing in a 4x4 acrossthe Uyunithat blinding mirror o salttimedrops away, and when a glittering moon risesdirectly across rom the setting sun on thiswhite plain, eternity seems very near.

Few trees survive in the wind-sheared ex-panses, and ew crops can be coaxed out othe ground. But this echoing landscape is in-habitedby chinchillas and delicately hooed

vicu as, alpac as, and llama s, by inquis itiveoxes and, improbably, by large populations oflamingos, which find the marshy edges o the

Salar salt lake a delightul place to breed. Hu-mans live here too, in the millions, most in thewide expanse between Uyuni and iticacaanarea known in the time o the Inca empire as theQuyasuyu, the Eastern Quarter. Afer indepen-dence rom the Spanish empire, the Altiplanobecame part o the country that in 1825 waschristened Bolivia.

he intense geologic activity beneath the

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NEAR THE TOP OF POMERAPE VOLCANO, AT AN ALTITUDE OF ALMOST 20,000 FEET, THE RELENTLESS SUN DOESNT JUST MELT SNOWIT VAPORIZES IT INTO SPIKY FORMATIONS CALLED PENITENTES. AS THE GLOBAL CLIMATE WARMS, SNOW LINES CREEP EVER HIGHER UP THE SIDES OF SUCH PEAKS ALONG THE BOLIVIACHILE BORDER.

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REFLECTING THE COLOR OF THE SKY, SCALDING MUD POTS SPATTER, HISS, AND BELCH OUT STEAM THAT STINKS OF SULFUR AT SOL DE MAANA, OR MORNING SUN. THIS PRIMORDIAL LANDSCAPE LIES SOME 15 MILES SOUTH OF LAGUNA COLORADA, THE GEOTHERMALLY HEATED RED LAGOON WHERE FLAMINGOS THRIVE.

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THE PAISLEY SWIRLS OF A WILD GRASS CALLED PAJA BRAVA PATTERN THE ALTIPLANO BENEATH RARE THUNDERCLOUDS. FEW OTHER PLANTS CAN SURVIVE THE EXTREMES OF THIS LOFTY WINDSWEPT DESERT, WHERE A WARM DAY MIGHT REACH 50F AND THE AVERAGE RAINFALL BARELY AMOUNTS TO 12 INCHES A YEAR.

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TO FIND NEW GRAZING, VICUAS DASH ACROSS A CORNER OF THE UYUNI SALT FLAT. JUST THREE FEET TALL, THESE TINY RELATIVES OF LLAMAS AND CAMELS PRODUCE WOOL SO SOFT AND LIGHT IT WAS RESERVED FOR INCA ROYALTY. HUNTED ALMOST TO EXTINCTION, THEYRE NOW PROTECTED AND MAKING A COMEBACK.

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THE SHADOW OF MT. SAJAMAAT 21,463 FEET, THE COUNTRYS HIGHEST PEAKJUTS OVER THE RUGGED COAST THAT ONCE BELONGED TO BOLIVIA. THE LATE 19THCENTURY WAR OF THE PACIFIC ENDED WITH CHILE IN POSSESSION OF THE COAST, BOLIVIA LANDLOCKED, AND RELATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES EMBITTERED.

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DOMESTICATED LLAMAS, RELEASED FROM THEIR PEN IN EARLY MORNING, SPREAD ACROSS A SPRINGFED PASTURE AT THE EDGE OF THE UYUNI SALT FLAT. SUCH CREATURES HAVE PROVIDED COMMUNITIES IN THE ALTIPLANO WITH FOOD, WOOL, AND STURDY BACKS TO BEAR BURDENS SINCE BEFORE THE TIME OF THE INCA.

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