MUNGO EATS Latin America

We saw the salt flats today.

Did you think that was the end???  I didn’t.  The salt flats were REALLY COOL!!!  I SHRANK!!!!  Goob, my stuffed person grew!!!  See? Dad also shrank.

Sara did.  Wanna see her? Pretty tiny, huh?  This is mom when she shrank. The vehicles that took us out were cool.  You know, I think this place would be a good place for a Toyota commercial.  -buy your new Toyota Land Cruiser now!-  I mean really!  Salt encrusted cars that still run perfectly?  Which one, that or this?

These old trucks are for transporting the salt.  Oh, speaking of salt, look what the water did to it. 

If you remember, in Guatemala we saw a place called Tikal?  It was an old ruin that was full of pyramids.  This is what the salt pyramids reminded us of.  Look, the salt water was so salty, look what would happen in about a minute.

Hmmm, do you see a horizon?  I don’t. See at the middle, there’s a titch of a line?  That’s the horizon.  This is how reflective the flooded salt flats are.  The mountains reflect!!

On the way to the flats, we stopped at a Train Cemetery.  It was full of Thomas the Train Engines, or Locomotives.   Now we stop, rest, wash off and yawn.  Look-King Mungo rested too, after a long hard day of sleeping.

The end.

Today we visited the Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat.  We had originally thought that we would drive our own van across the flats, but our timing is a bit off.  Since it is the rainy season, there is water on the salt flats and there is only a small portion of the flats that you can visit safely.  We therefore decided to spare our vehicle any rust possibilities and take a tour to the flats.  There are many tour companies offering tours to the flats, and we just went with the first guy that offered us a good sounding tour.  There are literally dozens of Toyota Landcruisers running around this town, ready to take any willing tourists out to the Salar. 

Before going to the salar, we visited the train graveyard.  The graveyard started with 2 trains that collided in 1860, and as time went on, this is where old trains went to die.  The trains are all old steam engines.  Sean and Sara had a fun time climbing around the old trains.

Then it was off to the Salar.  It was a very strange thing to see.  The water on the salt flats reflected everything like a giant mirror.  The reflection made it almost impossible to see the horizon in certain places.

Earth and sky just became one.  In other places, the reflections created floating mountains.

We drove across the water, to the Salt Hotel, whose walls are made entirely of large blocks of salt. 

There are a few new salt hotels being built on the edge of the salar, but the original was built 20 years ago, and is still present, located near the centre of the salar.  You can stay there overnight if you wish, for about $20.  We just had lunch outside the hotel, sitting on  large blocks of salt and eating at a salt table. 

After we had a great lunch of llama chops, pasta and bean and carrot salad, we had to take a few crazy pictures, playing with perspective. 

The salt is “mined”, which really amounts to people making large piles of salt, which are then scooped up into large trucks and transported to get cleaned and packaged.

Finally, the tour was over and it was time to head back to town, so we could wash the salt off our legs.

Pretty cool stuff.  Tomorrow, we continue south, making our way toward the Chilean border.