Salar de Uyuni

Welcome to day 3 in Bolivia. We'd stayed in a hotel made of salt the night before, but I was still left wondering where'd they get the salt from. I'd noticed small amounts of salt in the area, but I thought to myself surely they didn't distill the salt from the earth. In awe of all that we had seen in the last two days I'd completely forgot that the answer to my question about the origin of the salt would be given today as we'd be traveling across the largest salt flat in the world, Salar de Uyuni.

We drove across this landscape for about ten minutes before we reached the salt flats.
This was the first time that we were driving on water. I thought we'd drive in some ways until the water became too deep and then we'd drive out and around the edge, but no, we drove across the whole salt flat with very shallow water beneath our tires.
It was fun to see the affects our vehicle had on the water.
The island in the background of this picture was supposed to be featured in the tour. It apparently houses some rare birds. The driver gave us the option of going there, but told us that three different tour groups had become stuck going there in the last few days, on account of recent rains that significantly raised the level of the lake. So we opted out.
The trail we left behind. At times it felt like we were in a boat.


Another tour group going the other way.







There has to be some markers. To make sure you're still on the right path. Out there a single post and tire could be seen from a long distance away.



Where does the ground end and the sky begin?



Most of the pictures featured here were taken through the window of our jeep. We stopped a couple times in places where the depth of the water was less than the depth of the soles of our shoes. There were also some dry areas as evidenced below.
It looks like a beach at times, but it was still rather chilly, as you can infer from Sita's clothes.






In some of the dry spots the salt was broken up into little granules.




An interesting honeycomb pattern.

This is one of the areas where the water was less than the depth of the soles of my shoes. In fact I mostly came in contact with the salt granules that extended higher than the water level, but there was indeed water here as well.
"Hurry up". Once again our traveling companions (who seemed to have a low tolerance for the cold, or an odd-affinity for the vehicle over the nature) were already waiting for us in the jeep.
A salt hotel built in the middle of the salt flats where I believe other tour groups spent the night.