The Salar de Uyuni is a huge desert of salt that, with its 10,582 km², is among the largest deserts in the world, and by far the largest salty expanse on the planet. It is located in the departments of Potosí and Oruro, near the city of Uyuni, in the southern Andean highlands of Bolivia, at an altitude of 3,650 meters.
It is estimated that the Salar de Uyuni contains 10 billion tons of salt of which less than 25,000 tons are extracted annually. It consists of approximately 11 layers with thicknesses ranging between 2 and 10 meters, the surface layer has a thickness of 10 meters. It represents a third of the planet's lithium reserves and contains important amounts of potassium, boroe magnesium.
About 40,000 years ago it was part of Lake Minchin, a gigantic prehistoric lake. When the lake dried up the two present-day lakes Poopó and Uru Uru and the two salty deserts Salar de Coipasa and the gigantic Salar de Uyuni formed.
According to the Inca legends in the desert there are the Ojos de Salar (eyes of the desert of salt) that swallowed the caravans. These are holes in the salty surface from which the underlying water comes out, which in certain light conditions are almost invisible, thus becoming dangerous.
Salar De Uyuni
Address: Potosi, Oruro
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