Luke ain't got nothin' on this

Prologue

How many times have we wished that we could just disappear to live in the sky? How long have we stopped outside, taken a moment to look up at the sky, and taken a moment to daydream about what it would be like to walk through the clouds? By 'we' I mean us traveling folk, because I've never met a wanderluster who isn't totally and completely sucked in by such a grandiose thing as the sky. There ain't a one of us who hasn't had a tear imposed upon us, at one point or another in our lives, because of the sky. There is just something about the astronomical that tugs at us. The gateway to the cosmos is the sky, so why wouldn't we feel this affinity towards it? We feel it as a restlessness, as an urge to travel, as wanderlust. And it's true, I believe, of all us travelers, despite whether you physically follow that tug from the sky or not it's still in your heart. The sky and beyond always seems to draw us closer to it. It can be a weak draw, then maybe a little stronger, and, finally, with some things, an utterly and undeniably call that must be answered. A weak draw may be lying on the grass in San Antonio on a nice sunny day, staring up at the clouds as they float on by lazily. A stronger draw may be when you pick up a girl you've never met before on a cold night, drive out to a cotton field, and make a blanket burrito while watching a blood moon rise. This type of draw is when you go to Colorado for the first time when you're fourteen, stand in the snow under the stars, and realize this is the first time you've ever actually seen the stars. Or that fateful shooting star tracing by you and a friend at a perfect moment (Crazy Frogg ;)). Those are decent draws into the sky, stars and blood moons and other things of this such. But then there is more. Then there is a draw so strong you can't help but be lifted off your feet and into the air because you've completely forgotten gravity exist. These draws are on a level of God or higher. These are no mere shooting stars, no perfect sunset or sunrise on a frosty morning, no. This type of draw is as high above the stars as the stars are above the clouds, the ultimate. These are when you're working your first season on an Alaskan fishing boat, you groggily climb up on deck to use the 'toilet' in the middle of the night, and in your half slumber happen to glance up... And you completely unexpectedly see the Northern Lights dancing high above you. You're awestruck. Flabberghasted. It's that sort of draw. It's when you see something so incredible it brings tears to your eyes. It's that type of sky. It's the Salar de Uyuni. The Salt Flats of Bolivia. The type of sky that puts your heart in your throat and takes hold of you with a titanous grip. A sky that inspires wonder in every aspect of your being and captures you, at least momentarily, in entirety. Those are the type of draws where gravity must fight to keep you on Earth because you're fighting to leave it, and those are the types of draws we all search for.

"I'm restless. Things are pulling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again." - Anais Nin

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When at first I saw it, even from a distance, I felt my heart skip a beat (or 8). Literally felt like my heart took a pause in my chest until my brain could decipher what my eyes were telling it. 

Eyes: Dude, brain, tell heart he's gotta see this

Brain: HEY HEART, eyes says you gotta see this, just hold on a moment k heart?

Heart: Why does eyes get to see all the cool stuff?

Brain: Quiet heart, what is it eyes? 

Eyes: Well you know all those pictures we saw of the Salt Flats? The ones that heart liked?

Brain: The Salar de Uyuni, yeah, what about it?

Eyes: THEY WERE REAL

Brain: No way that it's THAT good

Eyes: It's better, can I... can I cry...?

(Nose): *Sniffle* 

Brain: Don't be a child eyes, you haven't even seen 'em for real yet. And nose, that was low drama at best. HEY HEART,  YOU CAN START AGAIN NOW, eyes says the Salar is all real. Go ahead and start feeling it.

Heart: YAAAAAAAAAHHHOOOOOOO!!

My eyes, and I'm sure everyone elses eyes, were only for the Salar in the distance. The poor llamas we were driving past must've felt really unappreciated because no one was paying them any attention. There was larger game afoot. It seemed like I held my breath from the moment I saw these dreamt of Bolivian Salt Flats in the distance, but that would've been a world record because it took us about 20 minutes to finally get to the start of them. Even so, I don't remember breathing or trying to look away from 'em from the moment they were in my sight to the moment they were in front of me. 

Driving up to them was like looking out into infinity. It was like a dream. I didn't know what to expect as I tentatively dipped my bare feet into the clear shallow water. I definitely didn't expect the salt to feel soft and sandlike underneath, but it did. Like a perfect beach (though in some parts the salt became more solid). Walking ankle deep in that water was what it feels like when a long awaited dream comes true. In no way was it dissappointing. It was just one of these incredible things the world saw fit to think up and make all by itself. 

 My first look at the Salar 

Soft Salt

It was incredible and we spent a good deal of time playing in the sky before we were off to go see a different part of the Salar. 

There is only one building allowed in the Salar, and the view from around it stretches on forever. I mean you can see so far over the salt flats you almost even feel like you're seeing the curviture of the Earth on the horizen. 

Sight

Inside the one building

Everything is made of salt

Seriously, everything is made of salt. It's crazy. Crazy cool. And you truly feel

like you could walk off in a direction and never get anywhere. So we spent a bit of time here exploring the place and eating lunch. Me and Zoe both were doing a good job of getting really sunburnt because the Salar is still around 13,000 feet up and these Chilean girls with us were being hilarious too. Then we all loaded up in the 4x4 for one more go at the skyfloor. 

Before, when we'd first seen it, it'd been a bunch of giant puddles (for lack of a better words). I hadn't realized, until we set off to see the skyfloor again, that I'd been holding a little tiny bit of my heart back this whole time just expecting to be absolutely floored (or skyed depending on where you're standing). But when the guide said we were going back to look at the sky floor again I knew they'd been saving something and I allowed myself to feel truly exhilarated. 

Now this really really looks like you're driving up into infinity. What I thought had been capturing before I now considered childs play. My eyes were pulsing ecstasy as we entered something I could only describe as sacred. This truly was where heaven meets Earth. This is where heaven meets Earth. That's exactly what I thought as I took my first real steps into the sky...

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Nothing else I could've said would

have done this place any justice. That being said, leaving a place like that isn't just sad. It'll break your heart. It'll break you heart right in two because you're coming down from the clouds. Coming back from the sky, wishing you could lose yourself there and not be found. Going back to the real world is tragic, in a sense, but you'll embrace it with a new sense of wonder when you leave. Because you now know that it's possible to walk in the sky. 

Be happy,

Beacon

P.S. This is me writing this very blog with Zoe drawing the day after we got back

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