From Abroad

Bolivia: A Dreamers’ Gift

Gwangju News

Written by Park Tae-sang and Kaitlyn Wachter

Five years ago, I met two French brothers while traveling across the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. One night, I wandered in the desert, far from the group. The brothers found me watching the sky and taking pictures of the galaxy. We admired the beautiful night sky together and talked about where in the rest of the world we could so clearly see the vastness of space with the naked eye. They recommended Bolivia. The pair had been traveling the world for two years at that point and said there was no place better in the world than Uyuni, Bolivia, to see the Milky Way. I had dreamed of traveling to Bolivia since then.

Cementerio de Trenes, Uyuni, Bolivia: Abandoned trains, once used to haul minerals across the deserts of Chile and Bolivia, stand alone with no purpose other than to cast a strange mechanical beauty over an otherwise barren area.
Rock formations give way to snow-capped peaks on a twisting road though the deserts of southern Bolivia.
Escape the storm: The rainy season in Bolivia is from December to March. On several of our January evenings, as the warmth of daytime ebbed away, powerful storms rolled in.
Endless sky: We woke at 4:00 a.m. to catch a glimpse of the Milky Way on the border with Chile. Shooting stars passed ceaselessly overhead, and the depth of the universe left us feeling both small and infinite.
Morning in La Paz: A woman watches daybreak upon the capital city of Bolivia.
High on the Andes’ Altiplano Plateau at more than 3,500 meters above sea level, the city of La Paz is a dizzying feast of color and texture.
Face the sun: Our fellow tourists align themselves with the horizon as the sun rises.
Mother Earth: The structure of La Paz echoes the peaks and crags of the surrounding terrain.

Unfortunately, I had to put off my plan until the distant future because I started the most important thing in my life five years ago: the music and culture space, Dreamers. Unbeknownst to me, one Dreamers member and dear friend of mine remembered this story from when I had told it to him a few years ago. He secretly organized a surprise gift for me last spring along with other Dreamers friends. And they made my dream a reality. It made me cry. They had bought me tickets to South America and prepared some travel money for me. That is how I was able to travel and take these photos of Bolivia. Thank you so much, dear Dreamers!


Photographs by Park Tae-sang

The Author
Park Tae-sang is a freelance photographer and community organizer in Gwangju. He started Dreamers, a music and culture space at Daein Art Market in 2015. Dreamers’ goal is to build a harmonious and unbiased world.

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