Salar de Uyuni

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The world´s largest salt flats lie on top of an enormous lake 12 meters at its deepest. The salt here it toxic, and needs to be refined (iodine added) before you eat it. The flats are just outside the town of Uyuni, and for 120 bolivianos you can join a one day tour. I recommend Cristal tours, who were very professional and who supplied an awesome lunch of fried llama meat, salads, pasta and amazing oranges. The first stop on the tour is the Salt Hotel, a no longer operating hotel built entirely of Salt. The roof is made of grass, but the beds, walls, toilet, etc are all salt. It shut down for hygenic reasons, I wonder why…
The second stop is the oddly named ísland of the fisherman, where for 10 bolivianos you can climb atop the cactus covered island and see salt for miles and miles. This landscape is like no other, I loved the stark emptiness and harsh conditions. During the day the temperature maxed at 24 with a cool wind, and at night drops to 20 below. Brrrrrr. After the salt flats we stopped at a train graveyard, a haunting reminder of a wealthy past. I got some great footage out on the flats, all of which I will eventually compile once home in Canada. I leave Uyuni tonight for Potosi, the famous mines which fuelled the Spanish Empire and provided silver for the world.

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Photos

a train graveyard
a sad reality in bolivia, once a land of great wealth, now a struggling economy.