Huge salt desert that is also the largest salt expanse on the planet. Located at an altitude of 3,650 meters, it is estimated that this desert contains as many as 10 billion tons of salt: of these, about 25,000 are extracted every year. Here too, there is no shortage of legends: it is said that there are salt eyes that once swallowed the caravans.
The Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia) is the world’s largest salt expanse, a huge salt desert approximately the size of Abruzzo: in its 10,582 km² it contains about 10 billion tons of salt, and represents a third of the planet’s lithium reserves, and creates the world’s largest mirror and one of the most beautiful places in the world because of its unique landscape.
It seems to be made up of 11 layers, with the surface layer 10 meters thick, which creates an expanse of white salt so glittering as to make a Cartier showcase envious!
According to an Aymara legend, the protagonists of the formation of the desert were the giants Kusina, Kusku and Tunupa, which are actually the surrounding mountains. Tunupa and Kusku were married, but the latter betrayed his wife with Kusina: Tunupa cried so much that he filled the whole expanse with his salty tears, giving rise to the salt desert.
A slight variation of the legend says that Tunupa’s tears gushed after being abandoned by her husband Kusku with her newborn son; during each breastfeeding, Tunupa despaired in tears that, mixed with her mother’s milk, formed the Salar.
But to find out the real motivation, you have to go back about 40,000 years. The plateau on which the desert is located had no outlet, so all the water from the surrounding mountains flowed here, creating Lake Minchin, a huge prehistoric lake. Because of the high salinity, all the water affected by the strong rays of the Andes sun evaporated, making this massive salt crust remain.
In the deepest and central part, the lake reaches a depth of 120 meters.
