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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
Salar de Uyuni is with its 10,582 km², the world's largest salt flat. It is located in the west Departmento of Potosí and of south of Oruro in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes, 3650 meters high. The major minerals found in the salar are halite and gypsum.
Some 40,000 years ago, the area was part of Lake Minchin, a giant prehistoric lake. When the lake dried, it left behind two modern lakes, Poopó and Uru Uru, and two major salt deserts, Salar de Coipasa and the larger Uyuni. Uyuni is roughly 25 times the size of the better-known Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States.
Salar de Uyuni is estimated to contain 10 billion tons of salt of which less than 25,000 tons is extracted annually. All miners working in the Salar belong to Colchani's cooperative. They work from dawn to dusk and most of them do not take a lunch break in order to take advantage of time, getting energy by chewing coca leaves. Every November, Salar de Uyuni is also the breeding grounds for three species of South American flamingos — Chilean, James's and Andean. It is also a significant tourist destination; highlights include a salt hotel and several so-called islands.
This particular photo was shot in january, which is in the rainy season when the Salar floods, making a perfect mirror image of the sky and the mountains, so that you can barely differenciate where the sky ends and the salar begins: They seem one and the same.
Cons & Pros of traveling in dry / wet season:
Wet pros: It's not as cold, the mirror in the salar is beautiful
Wet cons: You can't travel nearly as far into the salar as it can be very dangerous, you can hit some really cloudy days
Dry pros: The salar is blindingy white and incredibly stunning and picture perfect, the sky is clear
Dry cons: Very very cold sometimes at this altitude, especially by night. |
shirgold, Tayon, linask, cyrrhus has marked this note useful
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