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On the second morning of our trip from Uyuni, we awoke with sore backs and cold toes after having spent the night in a salt hotel. The place was built entirely from the stuff: salt tables, salt floors, salt walls. Instead of sleeping, I spent the night licking my bed. But we loaded our tired bodies dutifully into the jeep and, within no time, had reached the desert of Chiguana. Shrubs, sand and the occasional llama were our only companions as we cut southwest through one of Bolivia’s most underdeveloped corners.

Even though we were in a desert, there was plenty to see. We stopped at a group of irregularly shaped, volcanic rocks, and in the distance could admire their creator: the semi-active, still-smoking Ollague Volcano. The most famous rock formation is the Arbol de Piedra, a 26-foot stone in the approximate shape of a tree. Its trunk is long and narrow, and the day the entire thing topples over surely can’t be long off.

As we continued our drive, the peaks of the Andes were ever present, constantly shifting to reveal new facets, and I spent a long portion of the journey staring wordlessly out the window. After emerging from the desert, we reached a few small lagoons, and were greeted by the pungent stench of sulfur. Many of the mountains in this region are tinted yellow with the mineral, which inevitably runs off into the water. Laguna Cañapa, Laguna Honda (Deep Lagoon), and the appropriately named Laguna Hedionda (Stinky Lagoon) each offered a different kind of beauty, though the smell of rotten eggs detracted a bit from the experience.

Although less spectacular than the Salar, this region still impressed with its size and solitude. Besides the other tourist-bearing jeeps, we were completely alone. Regardless of how much Bolivia develops and grows, it’s tough to imagine anyone ever settling this area.

-Salt Hotel Booking

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The Salar de Uyuni is the most bizarre landscape I’ve ever stepped foot on, wresting the title away from South Dakota’s Badlands, which I visited when I was nine. (That’s a long run, Badlands, nothing to hang your head about!) Absolutely level as far as the eye can see, the salt flat becomes one of the world’s largest mirrors when covered with water, and serves as an important orientation point from space. But we were visiting during winter, when the ground is cracked and dry.

The good people of Uyuni might be wanting for creature comforts like high-speed internet and a well-stocked shopping mall, but if there’s one thing they’ll never be lacking, it’s salt. The amount mined from the Salar, the world’s largest salt flat, is replenished annually, and the area is expanding by a couple meters every year. At the edge of the flats, we watched workers shovel pyramid-shaped piles of salt, which would later be trucked into town for processing. At its deepest point in the center, the layer of salt reaches eight meters in depth.

Salt isn’t the only mineral available in the flats: over 50% of the world’s lithium reserves can be found in the Salar de Uyuni. This valuable resource is highly prized by the automotive industry, for use in the batteries of hybrid-electric cars. But so far, Bolivia hasn’t laid out the welcome mats for foreign companies eager to begin extraction. The country is stinging from a history of exploitation; its natural wealth has padded the coffers of many people, very few of whom have been Bolivian. A skepticism of doe-eyed strangers claiming the best of intentions is only natural.

I could have spent all day in the flats, but we were compelled to leave before dark. Our jeep splashed through a bit of water before coming to rest on the western banks of the Salar, where we were treated to one of the most incredible sunsets I’ve seen in years. Watching the sun disappear behind the mountains, with the sparkling flats stretching out interminably, I found myself a little depressed that the most unusual part of our tour was already over on the first day. But I didn’t know how much beauty and adventure were awaiting us on the rest of the trip…

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-Bolivia Guide Books