[meteorite-list] Butch and Sundance Ride Again

From: dean bessey <deanbessey_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:44:11 2004
Message-ID: <LAW2-F34Hv6Bwy5OXYi000060e2_at_hotmail.com>

>Blaine Reed and I are leaving very shortly for a couple of weeks in SW
> >Bolivia, specifically, the Salar de Uyuni, an oxygen-deprived salt pan
>averaging 4,000m/13,000' altitude that's the size of Delaware. There's >no
>roads, no food, no water, no fuel. list
>
I was there about 3 or 4 years ago. See this photo of me:
http://www.meteoriteshop.com/aa-dean5.jpg
I cant remember about water, fuel and food but we never had trouble getting
beer. In the middle of it all there is a hotel made out of the salt (With a
killer bar that serves, all sorts of good stuff).
I was there during an El Nino year when there was water on a lot of the salt
plain. Much of the salt flat was covered with 2 to 3 inches of water. There
are islands filled with cactuses that look like they are sticking out of the
snow. The islands reflected off the water in the very hot 30 degree heat
without a cloud in the sky so that you had a perfectly symetrical island
with the top and bottom exactly the same - a vertical mirror image of each
side of the island. In the distance the water and sky blended together so
that the horizen looked to be where the water started. The perfectly
reflected islands in the distance then looked to be suspended in the sky.
This illusion supposedly only happens during El Nino years and the Lonely
Planet description of the event just dont do it justice.
Have a good time. There is a high (And very cold sub zero temperature even
at noon) desert pass to chile that should be good for meteorite hunting if
the volcanoes havent been to active over the past 40,000 years.
As far as butch cassidy and the sundance kid goes? The town is listed in
several travel guides as "A very depressing place to die" - but the locals
there never herd of them.
Cheers
DEAN


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Received on Fri 01 Jun 2001 06:23:43 PM PDT