Day 194 - Salt Flats, Bolivia

TRAIN CEMETERY AND UYUNI SALT FLATS (14/07/09)

Before heading to the famous Salt Flats we made a quick stop at Uyuni´s Train Cemetery where, rusting away, lie at least a couple of dozen old locomotives. Mostly of British construction they represent a long past time when Bolivia was an important mineral mining nation and many trains a day would pass through Uyuni headed to destinations all over South America.

Not having the same paranoia about health and safety as we do at home the Bolivian authorities are more than happy to let visitors climb all over the rusting metal - if you hurt yourself it´s your own fault.

Some of the old steam trains were huge and must have been very grand and powerful in their time.

Adam, the child that he is, was keen to climb in and on as many of the trains as possible.

The strong winds blowing off the desert made this more scary than it looks.

What could be a scene from almost any arid region of the world - except that the bricks of the building are all made from salt.

A mound of salt at a small salt processing plant at the edge of the salt flats. Very little of the salt is processed and taken away, although this will probably soon change. An estimated 50% of all the World´s lithium is thought to be contained in Uyuni´s Salt Lake and now this element is increasingly in demand for the manufacture of high efficiency batteries.

You do not have to drive far before you are surrounded by a sea of white stretching as far as the eye can see in all directions.

One of the famous qualities of the salt lake is it´s potential for creating illusions in photographs. I don´t suppose you can call Adam under the thumb, but maybe trodden under foot.

Adam often dreams about food this large relative to his body.

Liz could actually probably eat a packet of M&M´s larger than herself.

Adam and his bargain price Bolivian guitar. The sound is good but the construction is so cheap that even if he was this small it probably wouldn´t take his weight.

After all the fake pictures it seems strange to see us standing on something real - mounds of salt.

Floppy decided to come and join Liz and enjoy some of the fresh, salty air.

One of the guides lent us this toy Grizzly Bear to terrify Liz with.

The small amount of rain that falls each year onto the salt plains quickly evaporates but as it does it cracks the crust creating these strange pentagonal and hexagonal patterns.

Right in the middle of the salt lake is Fish Island, so called because apparently it is fish shaped when viewed from above. Before the enormous salt water lake evaporated about 40,000 years ago it was a large coral reef - now all the rock forming the ´island´ is made up of fossilised coral.

Now instead of tropical fish and coral Fish Island is home to the one of largest species of cactus in the world growing to as much as 12 metres (about 36 feet) in height.

The cactii really are enormous! What is even more impressive is that they only grow about 1cm (half an inch) per year meaning that this example could be around 1000 years old!

Posing for comedy photos with cactii can be dangerous - always remember when pretending to hug a cactus not to actually do it.

Liz getting it right, convincing but no holes in her arm.

Part of the reason that they can live so long is that almost nothing can eat them through their fierce, spiny defences.

Literally in the middle of nowhere.

Getting the right angle.

The salt lake is incredible, stretching for miles is just plain white salt but it has an amazing, mysterious beauty.

Bricks made of salt ready to construct another salt hotel on the outskirts of the salt flats to cater for the increasing number of tourists visiting each year.

Our own Salt Hotel. Chairs, tables, walls, floors and beds are all made of salt. Needless to say the chairs are extremely uncomfortable, luckily the salt beds have non-salt matresses.