Chipaya

The Uru-Chipaya live in a small area of saline flats between the Coipasa and Uyuni salt pans, and they are among the oldest continuously identifiable peoples of the altiplano: their language, Uchumataqu or Chipaya, belongs to a family unrelated to Aymara or Quechua and is spoken by only a few thousand people, and their traditions describe them as predating both. The environment is unforgiving, saline and almost without rainfall, and the community has farmed quinoa by flooding fields with river water to wash out salt, a technique developed over centuries. Round adobe houses with conical thatched roofs, the putucus, are the traditional dwelling. Visits should be arranged with the community rather than improvised; this is a small place, not an attraction.

What you actually see

• Putucu houses - round adobe dwellings with conical roofs.
• Salt-washing agriculture - fields flooded to leach salt before planting.
• The Chipaya language - a tongue unrelated to its neighbours.
• Saline altiplano - the crusted plain the village sits in.

When to go

May to September for the tracks; the wet season floods the approaches. It is cold at any time and severely so at night. Community festivals fall at various points in the year.

Honest expectations

This is a small community's home and visits should be arranged in advance through community authorities, not simply driven to. There is no tourism infrastructure. Photography of people and houses requires permission. The tracks in are rough and a guide with local knowledge is needed.

Nearby

Salar de Coipasa lies south; Oruro is northeast.