Salt of the Earth

Bolivia is one of the world's most biodiverse countries, and this week fifteen of us from my language school took a five-day field trip to investigate that fact. Via bus train and Landcruiser we visited the cities of Oruro and Uyuni and the vast expanse of uninhabited nature thereabouts.

I tried to pet such rare animals as flamingos, emus, and vacuñas. We swam

in natural hot springs and tiptoed up to lakes of borax, sulfur, and algae, variously colored green, red, and blue. We cruised across desserts for hours without any sign of life, we (on second thought probably just I) hugged cactuses on an deserted island, we climbed huge piles of salt in the world's largest salt flats, and we gazed at stars nearly too numerous to believe that God has really named them all like He claims in Isaiah.

Unfortunately, English became the default language of the trip, but I tried to use as much Spanish as I could, with such essential phrases as "Donde esta el baño?" Which was answered with a point toward a rock, or directions to a port-a-pot costing almost 5 Bolivianos. And similarly, in a tiny, extremely remote city, that hasn't had water in over a month and only has electricity by generators, yet we still found a way to get fairly lost on our run, I got to practice the everyday question, "Donde esta el hotel de sal?"

Even surpassing my favorite natural wonder, the volcano/geyser field full of bubbling lava, the best part of the trip for me was spending time with my compañeros. Whether smushed in the back of a vehicle for hours on end, scaling ginormous rocks in flip-flops, staging hilarious photo-ops, or sharing a beautiful Communion service on a table and chairs made completely of salt, the people were God's greatest creation on this adventure into some of His best. God has so blessed me with relationships here, I could never have asked for such good company.