salar
de
uyuni
107 STARK & WILDBOLIVIA
Little disturbs the monochrome of the world’s
largest salt flat, which sits high in the Andes at
11,985 feet (3,653 m). When it does, the beauty of
the dazzling, horizon-filling white is only thrown
into sharper relief: mineral lakes of emerald and
vermilion, the pyramidal peaks of vast volcanoes,
and, every November, the pink of the thousands of
flamingos that come to Salar de Uyuni to breed.
As remarkable as the region’s beauty is its flat-
ness—a variation in height of just four feet (1.2 m)
across some 4,500 square miles (12,000 sq km).DON’T MISS
Gaze down at the sea of white from the Isla de los Pesca-
dos, or Isla Incawasi, one of the Salar’s “islands,” most of
which are composed of a fossilized, coral-like substance.
Many are covered in slow-growing cacti that can be as
much as 1,000 years old.The Salar de Uyuni salt flat (left) evolved from a prehistoric
lake and sits high in the Andes (above).