A boy and his backpack. A tale of journey and adventure.
September 17, 2008
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The Uyuni Salt Flats
Our second night in Bolivia we stayed in a hotel made of salt. When I say made of salt, I mean completely made of salt. Aside from toilets, showers and doors, everything is made of salt. Including the tables, chairs, bed frames, walls, floors, etc…. The first picture I have attached hopefully shows you what I am trying to describe. EVERYTHING. Everything is constructed from salt rock, and the floors are covered in a more finite grain of salt that is sorta like walking on the beach.
The next morning, we traveled across the vast expanse that is the Salar de Uyuni. The salt flats of Uyuni are the world’s largest salt flat. Quick history lesson… Once upon a time, ocean waters traveled this far inland. Over thousands of years, mountains, that later became the Andes, trapped large amounts of water in Bolivia. Over time, the water evaporated and left nothing behind except for large amounts of salt. Now, this is not table salt. It is as hard as rock. Bolivia mines the salt flats for… well….. salt!
Once you have driven out into the middle of the flats, it is a sight to behold. Every direction, as far as the eye can see, is pure white. It almost looks like you are standing on snow. At one point we drove out to a mountain in the middle of the flats that had an amazing view giving a great perspective of just how large the Uyuni salt flats really are. The mountain was also covered in some of the largest cactus I have ever seen. All of the photos you see below are “AS IS”. No photoshop, digital enhancement, etc…. The cactus really are that big, the salt really is that white, and Sharla really did carry the “six-inch man” on her hand. (That actually took quite a bit of time to set up! Hope you like it!) And for those of you that are creatively challenged, we are spelling out UYUNI in that one picture. You can see in a few of the pictures the mounds of salt, that are being made ready to ship to the factory to be made into salt for our dinners. Our driver treated us to a surprise meal out in the middle of nowhere. Just us, a blanket, some chicken, and a lot of salt.
