Salar de Uyuni Lake in southwest Bolivia covers a space of over 10,000 square kilometers and is the largest salt flat in the world. It is perched close to the crest of the Andes, over 3,500 meters high. At the Salar de Uyuni, what you see is a stretch of white, with remote purple hills (which are actually active volcanoes!) dotting the horizon. It is, by far, one of most exotic, even surreal, destinations in Bolivia. A view of this scene is very much like something from a dream.
Now, the fact that this vast tract is made up of salt (and not ice, snow or water) is fascinating. Salar de Uyuni originally was a huge saltwater lake or probably an inland sea, but mysteriously, the water vanished and only the salt remained. The result? Aside from the Uyuni Salt flats, there is also the Coipasa Salt Flat (which is smaller), as well as Lake Poopo and Lake Titicaca.
That is, around 10 billion tons of salt, twenty-five times more than the amount of salt in Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats...