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Runner's High (get it?)

July 9, 2019 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
I went for a run on the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia this morning at an elevation of 12,000 feet. Yesterday I settled for a walk since we were staying what is believed to be the highest hotel in the world, Hotel Tayka del Desierto, located at a whopping 15,000 feet near the Chilean Border. The hotel offers free Oxygen, which somewhat relieved my altitude headache. Last night however we stayed at the Tayka Salt Hotel, which as the name implies, is made of salt blocks. I mean to lick on the walls to make sure, but I forgot. The altitude effects are less strong here, plus I've had an extra day to acclimate. There's no way I could do this if it were my first day, or even probably 2nd or 3rd day, at high elevations. As it was, the run left me pretty winded without ever sustaining a sub-8-minute pace.

I headed out initially into town and was promptly confronted by an angry dog, which lay rather placidly watching my with disinterest until I stepped too close an he erupted in a fierce volley of barking. I turn back toward the stream I had just crossed and proceed to stumble, lose my balance, and fall in the shallow water scraping my knee and arm the process. I knew I was bleeding but I also didn't want to pass up this amazing opportunity for the highest altitude run of my life--on an surreal Marscape no less--so I figured, what the heck, the infect from the dirty water can wait another 45 minutes till I get back before it starts to set in. For the record, I doubt that this is sound medical advice. The scar on my right arm from when I feel and lightly scraped myself on a run in Mongolia 12 years ago and didn't treat it and got it infected and had to seek out Soviet-era medicine in rural clinics in the Gobi desert might provide a bit of evidence to the contrary. Evidence which I willfully ignored, today, though not without a tinge of trepidation.

Thanks to the angry dog, I decided that heading into town wasn't worth it and I'd head straight for the gleaming white dried-up lakebed at the edge of town. I passed a group of llamas grazing on the last section of grass, some of them whom looked up but none of whom spat in my face (unlike my furry friend back in Chile), and headed out into the endless expanse of salt stretching as far as the eye could see. I set my sights on a small building 400m or so into the dry lake which I assume was either an outhouse or had something to do with processing salt they collected for sale.

The salt flat once I reached it was gorgeous. I'd visited a salt flat once before, when I was traveling by myself in southern Africa and slept outside on the Madgkadigkadi Salt Pans in Botswana, but I never run on one. The surface looks snow or very pristine sand, and it was the consistency of ice without the slipperiness. It crunches a bit beneath your feet, but the footing is solid and altogether ideal for running. If you fall, however, it's rather lumpy and sharp in places, so you're better off tripping in a creek back in town and getting your falling out of the way early. There's nothing higher than a salt shaker to trip over however. No plants, no animals, no people. No rocks, no buildings. In the worlds of Buzz Aldrin upon stepping forth on the moon, "Magnificant Desolation." And for once, I was alone in it! How amazing to not have any van or tour group to mar the view, not even the call of the seagull to spoil the silence. I stopped halfway through the run to take a panoramic photo and simply take in the beauty. The sun was relentless in the cloudless sky but not too hot since it was the middle of winter in the Southern Hemisphere and not yet 9am. I turned and headed for some distance cliffs, trying to see how much I could pick up the pace without getting dizzy or passing out. Fortunately, I never managed to keep up a fast pace for more than 2 or 3 minutes without stopping to take a photo or getting distracted, so I didn't end up discovering the hard way the importance of oxygen to the brain at high altitudes. I got back a little later than I'd planned but still with enough time to wash and bandage my leg before going forth on the day's adventure.

Update a week later: 'tis only a flesh wound!