Salt factory and photo stops

From the cemetery, we went to Colchani, a village where most of the residents earn a living from harvesting and refining salt, and from selling salt and other souvenirs to tourists.  The estimated annual output of salt from Colchani is nearly 20,000 tons.  All of it is for the domestic market, 18,000 tons for human consumption, and the rest for livestock.  Families refine salt at the back of their homes.  We had a look around one of these small factories.  It's a fascinating process.  We bought some flavoured salts (with chilli and garlic) for the truck.

We then drove on to the Salar de Uyuni itself.  

An evocative and eerie sight, the world's largest salt flat is 12,106 square kilometres and sits at an altitude of 3653 metres.  When the surface is dry, the salar is a white expanse of nothingness - just blue sky, white ground, and you.  When there's some water, the surface perfectly reflects the clouds and the blue altiplano sky, and the horizon disappears.

Our next stop was to see some bubbling pools where the sulphur breaks through.

We then drove on to the Dakar Rally monument.  Made completely out of salt, the statue marks the fact that the Dakar Rally was held here in South America four times between 2016 and 2020.Read more