Monday, April 6, 2009

Salar de Uyuni: The Salar

Thirty thousand years ago this was just another salt sea. Now, it is this alien scene of hexagonal-patterned white stretching beyond sight.

We hit the Salar before dawn and stopped to watch the sun strike patterns of light over the lips of the hexagons and bend our shadows into unrecognizable shapes. The uniformity of color and the size of the Salar warps perspective. What is far away and what is close is easily confused. As the sun rises higher in the sky, mirages create reflections of the mountains surrounding the Salar, making the landscape even more unreal.

Salar de Uyuni in the distance at dusk.

From san pedro, uyuni
Hexagonal salt patterns that spread in all directions

From san pedro, uyuni

Silhouettes at dawn

From San Pedro, Uyuni

Sun warping our shadows over the salt fields

From San Pedro, Uyuni


We stop to climb Isla del Pescado, a mound of fossilized algae and coral sprouting from the colorless ground, a relic from the sea that has now evaporated. Proud, stately cacti, up to thousands of years old, sprout from the dried reef. Standing on the island and looking out at the Salar, it is easy to let the mind play tricks on you and convince you that there is a sea, of water instead of salt, that is surrounding you in all directions.

View of the Salar stretching out from fish island.

From san pedro, uyuni

Sitting, watching the nothingness for awhile.

From San Pedro, Uyuni

View of the Salar from inside one of the petrified coral arcs on the island.

From San Pedro, Uyuni

Fun with perspective!!

From San Pedro, Uyuni


From San Pedro, Uyuni


We drive on the Salar for hours before reaching the outskirts. At the border where the salt underfoot switches to sand, there are hundreds of mounds of salt piled high for drying. The water drains from the piles and creates clear reflections of itself on the Salar. The salt miners that live in towns on the cusp of the Salar are harvesting the dry salt piles and taking them in for processing. It looks like hard, hot work. Especially since we find out later that one kilo of the salt brings in less than 20 Bolivian centavos (which is a little less than 3 US cents a kilo). As we drive towards Uyuni, we can see the ever increasing touch of tourism to the area, as salt hotels (hotels built entirely from salt...kind of like igloos) sprout from the edges of the Salar. We finish in Uyuni late afternoon, in the not-so-alien world of bus tickets, hotels, and dusty streets.

Salt miners piling up salt for drying.

From san pedro, uyuni

Relativity anyone? Graffiti on the sides of trains at the train graveyard in Uyuni.

From san pedro, uyuni

3 comments:

  1. The Salar is certainly not very hospital to either animals or plants. However the strange, cold, bleak landscape does seem to encourage surrealism. I wonder where the llama captured in your photo came from?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for providing insight into the Salar, as Andrew and I only brushed it, and saw all of the Land Cruisers laiden with dust-caked gringos zoom through as we hung out with Bolivian cat pee and grass tufts rising out of Mars rock.

    Besos y pesos!

    ReplyDelete
  3. your pics look from something out of a pbs nature. very cool! I love it!

    ReplyDelete