Trips to Bolivia

TRIPS TO BOLIVIA: SALAR OF UYUNI

Geographic location: It is located to the southwest of Bolivia.

Surface: 12,000 km2s

Altitude: 3.700m

With an extension equivalent to the size of Belgium, the Salar de Uyuni is greater to salar of the world. It is conformed by 11 layers approximately, with thicknesses that vary between the 2 and 10 meters; the scab that is in the surface has a thickness of 10 meters and esteem that the amount of salt that contains is of 64 billions of tons.

Additionally, the Salar is constituted in one of the majors lithium reserves and counts with important amounts of potassium, boron and magnesium.

Enormous totally flat and white plain, this infinite extension is the rest of a sea that filled all the plateau until the Titicaca Lake, and that during many million years disappeared. Today, the Lake Titicaca, the Poopó Lake, and the Salares de Coipasa and of Uyuni is the rest of that sea.

In order to arrive at the Salar, the route more using is the one than part of the City of Uyuni, located in center of the department of Potosí, and it goes towards the Salar in northeast direction until arriving at Colchani, population dedicated to the artisan operation of the salt. In the way, is the Fished Island, greatest of a set that presents/displays an isolated ecosystem: it is an Oasis in the Salar. The island is populated by a great number of cactus with heights superiors the eight meters.

In the Salar it is enjoyed a landscape similar to the one of the polar regions, on which they are based blue and the target with reflections that generate hill images inverted in the horizon. This place is one of the most spectacular sites for the lovers of the photography.