Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia - The World's Largest Mirror

Amazing mirror effect of Salar de Uyuni

Mirror plays a very important role in every one's life. Because everyone needs it for see their beautiful faces. You must have seen many beautiful mirrors in your life. But have you even seen a world's largest beautiful natural mirror. Yes, it is true, there a place in Bolivia which has world's largest mirror. And the name of this place is Salar de Uyuni. Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat at 10,582 square kilometers. It is in the Daniel Campos Province in Potosí in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes and is at an elevation of 3,656 meters above sea level. It is also known as Salar de Tunupa. It is so spectacular that it is a dream-like sight of nature, which is said to be 'heaven on earth'. On this place, wherever you see, you will see mirrors everywhere around you. There is such a kind of mystery behind it. When an old lake dried up here, it turned into the largest salt field in the world. It was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes. It is covered by a few meters of salt crust, which has an extraordinary flatness with the average elevation variations within one meter over the entire area of the Salar. Whenever people walks on its reflective surface, it seems like they are actually walking on the sky. Then it seems to be a natural looking amazing phenomenon. The process of sunrising and sunsetting on its surface is seems like as if you are in heaven. The crust of this surface is a source of salt and covers a pool of brine (It is a high-concentration solution of salt in water), which is exceptionally rich in lithium. It contains 50 to 70% of the world's known lithium reserves. This amazing place attracts tourists from all over the world. As it is far from the cities, a number of hotels have been built in the area. Due to lack of conventional construction materials, many of them are almost entirely (walls, roof, furniture) built with salt blocks cut from the Salar. There are many salt hotels including Palacio de Sal, Sal Luna Salada, and Hotel de Sal Cristal Samaña.

Cemetery of trains near the town of Uyuni

There is one of the major tourist attraction is an antique train cemetery. It is 3 kilometers outside Uyuni and is connected to it by the old train tracks. The rail lines were built by British engineers arriving near the end of the 19th century and formed a sizeable community in Uyuni. The trains were mostly used by the mining companies. But the many trains were abandoned, producing the train cemetery. This place is very popular among tourists and also makes a photography haven for tourists. The rainy season at the Salar is from December to April while the dry season is from May to November. The rainy season lets you view the Salar’s breathtaking mirror effect, where the waters below represent the skies above so it becomes impossible to tell where the sky ends and the land begins.