Week one (and change) in Bolivia is complete! I had exactly 7 days after arriving to make it to Sucre before I was scheduled to start Spanish classes. I had one goal for week one, and that was to make it to Uyuni and take a tour of the salt flats there before catching a bus back to Sucre.
Sounded like a chill first week. The only thing was, I knew I could theoretically get to Uyuni, but hadn’t figured out much of the logistics around transportation until after I arrived in Bolivia. My first day in Santa Cruz I realized that it was going to be a much longer week than I had initially given it credit for. To get to Uyuni, I needed to take a ten hour overnight bus from Santa Cruz to Sucre. Then I needed to take another eight hour overnight bus to Uyuni. Then I needed to take a third bus back to Sucre before my Spanish classes started at 8:30 am Monday morning.
The only way for me to pull this off without back-to-back night buses was to take the bus Tuesday night to Sucre, take the bus Thursday night to Uyuni, do my tour Friday morning – Sunday evening and hop right back on the bus Sunday night which would put me back in Sucre around 7 am.
Safe to say, my chill first week ended up being a tad more exhausting than I thought it would be. Add on top of that beating jet lag. Then add on top of that acclimating to altitudes of 9k feet in Sucre, and 13k-16k feet throughout my tour in Uyuni (the highest I’ve ever been before this trip is 12.5k feet. And we were still looking up at volcanoes easily 1-2k feet higher!). Sleep was minimal and energy levels were low most days, but wow, was it all worth it to see Salar de Uyuni.
LOCATIONS
- Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia (Mar 23 – Mar 25)
- Sucre, Bolivia (Mar 26 – Mar 27)
- Uyuni, Bolivia (Mar 28 – Mar 30)
- Sucre, Bolivia (Mar 31 – Apr 2)
ACTIVITIES
Salar de Uyuni (Uyuni Salt Flats)
(this week’s cover photo)
Salt. So much salt. In fact, Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world. 15 meters of pure salt for 4000 square miles. You can see it from space. When it rains, it becomes the largest shallow body of water in the world as well as the largest natural mirror in the world. Depth perception is confusing. The water and the horizon blur in a way I have never seen before.
This is where me and my group of four others spent the first day of our three day tour. Days two and three were spent driving through the surrounding high alpine landscape nearly all the way to Chile and back, stopping at volcanoes, lagoons and other viewpoints along the way. The rich Bolivian wildlife included loads of llamas, vicuñas, flamingos, and my favorite, viscachas (picture included).
I could say more here, but this was one of those experiences that doesn’t come across nearly as powerfully in words than it does in photos. Even through photos it’s difficult to describe the expansiveness of what we saw. So I’ll keep my description brief and get to the good stuff.
Never in my life have I seen anything like what I saw in my three days around Uyuni. The diversity of landscapes that we covered felt like someone extracted parts of New Zealand, Arizona, Bryce National Park, a miniature Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone, and put them all on Mars.
I’m working on a longer write up that includes all the details, and I should have that ready to share next week. But for now, that’s enough words, here’s some visual illustrations for you to enjoy. I’ve never had such a difficult time narrowing down photos for a newsletter and it’s impossible to showcase the whole range of landscapes in here. If you want to the full selection (you want the full selection), you can find them here.
Sucre Spanish School
They don’t call it a Spanish immersion program for nothing. I don’t think I’ve ever understood the saying “drinking through a fire hose” as much as I have the last few days in Sucre. My brain has been on overdrive trying to learn and apply as much as I can.
Each day has been four hours of private class with a 15 minute break halfway through. After class, I go back to my host family’s house to eat lunch, where each day I try to pick out more and more of what people are talking about across the table. I try to fit a few of my own broken statements in and share a bit about myself. Sometimes I’m successful, but most of the time I end up pausing halfway through a sentence for an awkward amount of time struggling to remember the right word to use. We laugh through not being able to understand each other. The rest of the day I do my homework, try to go out in public to practice at least a few new statements or questions, and rest because my brain is tired.
Starting from essentially a ten word Spanish vocabulary consisting of “Hola”, “¿cómo se dice?”, “¿cómo te llamas?”, “¿cómo estas?”, and “me gusta”, it’s been a steep learning curve. It’s difficult. It’s slow. It’s frustrating wanting to communicate but not being able to, even while practicing day after day. Learning something one day and completely forgetting it the next.
It’s also been a fun challenge. As frustrated as I get, I really am recognizing more and more words every day. The 2% I understood at the table on day one has already grown to maybe 20%. My pauses are becoming ever so slightly shorter. I can ask basic questions in public and more often than not understand the bare minimum of what I need to understand to get around.
I’m excited to keep progressing in the coming weeks, and I’m hoping to take another week or two of classes later on in my trip. We’ll see how we get on.
Side Note on Bolivia
Boivia is a place that I’ve heard less than ten people in my life mention ever having visited. I’d seen maybe three pieces of media on it before I started researching for this trip.
Even though I haven’t even been here two weeks yet, I can confidently say that Bolivia is the most underrated country I have ever been to. And I still have two weeks to go up North which I expect to reinforce that statement.
If you’ve ever thought about doing a Spanish immersion, or just visiting Bolivia, now is a very compelling time to come. The official exchange rate between USD and bolivianos (BOB) is 1 USD : 7 BOB. However, there’s an unofficial exchange rate (Blue Dollar Rate), which means that cash exchange houses are willing to pay more for USD than the official rate. I’ve been able to exchange cash at rates between 1 USD : 11-12 BOB. (Note that this is all constantly fluctuating, but the trend has been upward in recent months)
At that rate, meals are anywhere between 2-5 USD. A cup of coffee is less than 2. And a week of 20 hours of private Spanish lessons plus a host family with breakfast and lunch included comes out to roughly 150 USD a week. Yes, you read that correctly. 150 USD for an entire week.
Throw in a friendly culture that feels significantly more immersive than touristy, rich history, and astounding nature ranging from 16k-18k ft mountains, to salt flats, to the Amazon, I’d say it’s hard to find a reason not to visit Bolivia. Here’s some more Uyuni pictures to convince you.
REFLECTIONS
Grace, Patience, and Persistence
My Spanish immersion has taught me Spanish, yes, but it’s also reminded me of the value of grace, patience, and persistence.
Grace and Patience
Most of my speaking practice my first week of class has gone something like this.
I attempt a statement
“Otre vez?” (again?) Veronica repeats back my phrase with emphasis on the place I was incorrect
I try again
“Otre vez?” (again?)
I finally get it right, then proceed to make the same mistake 10 minutes later
At lunch with my host family, I often ask for questions to be repeated two to three times, sometimes only to end up apologizing for not understanding.
In these settings, I could be met with frustration. I could be met with condescension. I am already met with similar feelings internally. Instead, every time, I have been met with patience and grace accompanied by gentle correction when possible. My teacher and host family understand that I am building from nothing, and I’m only just starting to lay the first bricks. They don’t expect me to communicate clearly right now, they just want to help me take steps in the right direction to learn and improve.
I’m grateful for their posture. It has created an environment where I’m more willing to attempt to speak. I’m okay making mistakes. All of us recognize that my mistakes are not intentional, they’re simply ignorance. They’re a part of the process. Over time, the more I practice and the more correction I receive, the mistakes will naturally become fewer and further between.
It’s made me reflect on the times at home when I’ve been frustrated with communication. Sometimes it’s frustration around someone not grasping an idea I am presenting. Others, it’s frustration around not being able to understand a non-native English speaker, or them not understanding me. Learning Spanish has reminded me that communication is difficult enough in your native language, and infinitely more so in a language that is not your own. Mistakes and miscommunications are inevitable, and there’s no sense holding a posture of superiority or condescension to anyone else.
I say this specifically in the context of language and communication, however, it applies to a much broader scope as well. Anytime we are in a place of greater “expertise” than someone else, whether it be in work, sport, or personal relationships, we hold a position of power and influence over them. It is up to us to steward that position well*.
*All this is not to say there is no place for discipline and correction, but that’s taking a turn into a much more nuanced topic which isn’t my goal here.
Persistence
Day one was overwhelming. Day two was overwhelming. Day three was still overwhelming. Days four and five, you get the picture. Every day I’ve thought to myself, “there’s no way I’m ever going to figure this out”. At times I’ve questioned why I’m learning Spanish when the idealistic dream of quasi-fluency seems so far out of reach.
For most of us, the vast majority of the first 18-22 years of our lives are spent learning. After that point, learning becomes much less frequently structured. Broadly speaking, we go into a job, stick with hobbies that we’ve enjoyed for some time, and most of the learning that we do from that point on is in areas that we already have some level of confidence in. You might not feel like you know what you’re doing when you step into your first job, but chances are you have a solid base level of knowledge that you can figure out how to apply to new situations. You might be beginning a routine of going to the gym, but you’ve played sports in the past.
This is neither good nor bad, it’s simply a reality. But what it can mean is that as we get older, we lose touch with the feelings that come with starting something entirely new from nothing.
I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be completely horrible at something. Instead of remembering that this is a natural and necessary part of learning any skill, I want to run from the discomfort and difficulty back to the comfort of the spaces I know well.
Our repeated responses to these situations over time influence our character and our outlook on the world. We begin to frame obstacles as either opportunities or impossibilities. It’s easy to see the implications of this in hard skills (either I keep struggling with Spanish until I improve, or I give up and go back to only speaking English), but I think it’s easy to overlook the implications in soft skills.
- I can view relational conflict as something I need to run from. Or, I can see it as an opportunity I can step into that moves toward connection.
- I can interpret dull conversations with new people to mean I am a dull conversationalist and it’s not worth it to talk to new people. Or, I can treat every conversation as an exercise in attempting to connect, realizing that it is okay when I don’t connect with someone.
- I can automatically dismiss someone’s experience because I do not understand it and would not have responded the same way. Or, I can attempt to empathize.
Practicing persistence in hard skills and soft skills are not independent of one another. They use many of the same muscles, and persevering in any area will contribute to all others. Right now I’m practicing my own perseverance with Spanish. My invitation to you is to find your own challenging space that is meaningful to you to intentionally practice persistence in. And don’t forget to give yourself patience and grace in the process, it’s always a bumpy ride.
NEXT UP
I’ve been able to take it much easier this week in Sucre (well, physically at least. Mentally, not so much). Outside of my Spanish classes in the mornings I’ve tried some good restaurants, sat in several amazing cafes, walked around the city, and slept a lot. It’s been the chill week I needed to rebound from my long first week.
I’ve got one more week of Spanish classes here in Sucre, during which I plan to spend exploring the city a bit more intentionally. On Friday night, I’ll head to La Paz for some dedicated outdoors time.
As always, if you know anyone that you think would be interested in anything I’m writing about, I’d ask that you consider sharing this with them.
Thanks for being here. Talk to you next week.
– Trevor
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