Uyuni: Sea of salt

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Final day of our four-day tour of southwestern Bolivia, and we finally made it to the Salar d´Uynui, a vast salt flat covering around 12,000 square km, a bit smaller than Northern Ireland, part of a prehistoric salt lake which once covered most of this region, and containing around 10 billion tons of salt plus other minerals, the extraction of which being how the locals make their living. During the rainy season, it becomes a true lake - just about - with waters around 25 cm high! For more information fact-fans, see here.
We were there in the dry season however... We drove out into this vast white expanse just before dawn, waiting for the Sun to rise. The salt is hard to the touch and bright to the eye, and out in the middle of the Salar can be seen endless hexagonal patterns. As usual on this trip, it was cold and dry, even after the Sun was high in the sky.
We went on the ´Island of the Fish´(Isla de los Pescadores), which is the largest island in the Salar, covered with hardy cacti around 800 years old. The geology of the island was pretty striking... as usual I suspect it was coral, but any experts out there please fill me in! We then went on on to see natural holes in the salt through which water filled with hard salt crystals could be seen, the so-called ´mountains of salt´ (that´s what it said on the leaflet!) which turned out to be little piles made by the campesinos doing the salt extraction... There is also supposed to be a meteor crater somewhere on the Salar, but we didn´t get to see it, and Felix our driver feigned ignorance as usual. The Salar is perfectly flat, so he could safely give Marta our cook her first ever driving lesson!
We then stopped in at a genuine salt hotel (and bought our first Twix in a good many days, much appreciated!) before ending up at Cachani, a village basically based on salt extraction, with lots of whacky salt-based produce for sale to tourists (you may surmise that by now we were getting a little fed up of salt!). Seats made of salt - on which we ate our final lunch from our cook - turn out not to be very comfortable!
We made it to Uyuni, which was thankfully lacking in salt, but generally dry and cold, sadly parting company from our guide, cook and Charles and Rhianna.
As towns go it was a little lacking - you could only call it a one-horse town if that horse urgently needed to see a vet - but it does have the train cemetery just outside it, rusting steam locomotives dumped in place, and a really good American-run pizza restaurant, where we had some really good grub that night with fellow travellers before they headed on to various points of the compass. Us? We were staying put, in an attempt to make it over to Chile... Easier said than done!

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Photos

Salt church
in Puerto Chibica

Final night of tour
in Puerto Chibica

On the salar
awaiting dawn

Bolivian flag fluttering
in the chill morning breeze

Esther´s on the bottle
(as usual)

Inside an ex-coral reef
That´s what it looks like anyway!

Salt crystal
from the ´eyes´ in the salt