The day began with some last minute shopping before heading out to the train graveyard. Peter, being a mechanical engineer, was the only one interested in the trains, so it wasn't long before we all piled back into our Toyota Landcruiser and headed for the Salar. 
The Salar de Uyuni is one of the strangest landscapes I have ever seen: miles and miles of flat whiteness, punctuated by the occasional coral island, covered in giant cacti.
The next stop was Bolivia's salt processing town. This small town of 80 families produces salt for the whole country. We were shown the production process where the damp salt is dried on a huge pan over a woodfired kiln. After 30 minutes the dry salt is heaped in a pile to cool-off before being ground with iodine, ready for production. The final stage is then to bag it, sealing each bag with a flaming LPG bottle. Mini bags are produced for the tourist market and sold for 1 Boliviano, around NZ$0.20. Lots of 50 x 1kg bags are sold into the national market for 15 Bolivianos (US$2). This family-run operation can produce 5000kg of salt per day, with a staff of 8. All the salt production businesses are run at a family level and it is all shoveled by hand. The salt is not exported internationally as all of Bolivia's neighbors have their own salt production areas.
From there we took a step back in the process and visited the salt mounds. This is where the salt is scraped from the Salar and formed into pyramids to begin the drying process. A week later it is shoveled onto trucks and sent to be processed. The ground was surprisingly wet and wherever it was dug into the moisture below would seep up. This part of the salt flat is only around 50m deep, shallow compared to the middle where it reaches 150m in thickness.
From here we truly entered the Salar, setting out into the vast expanse of whiteness. Before long we had another short stop, at Los Ojos del Salar - the eyes of the salt flat. These bubbling springs are a reminder that the surrounding volcanoes are not completely dormant. Locals believe that they have curative powers and come from La Paz to soak arthritic knees and ankles in the cold spring water. Cynthia was tempted to try the healing powers on her still-swollen ankle, but decided the water was a little too cold!
The next stop was the most amusing of the day: the Salar photo stop. We drove to our own section of the Salar and began to play with creating images normally only possible with the aid of Photoshop. Because of the monotony of the Salar there is no depth perception. We thought something must have gone wrong with our trusty vehicle as our guide/driver, Vladimir, had donned his mechanics overalls, but it turned out he was just preparing to be our photographer. Out came a serving spoon, a pot and an apple. We held people in the palms of our hands, ran away from giants stomping on us, were eaten from serving spoons, sat on apples and rode in shoes. Our workout for the day was holding strange poses for what felt like an eternity. Just when we thought we were done Vladimir turned into a film director with a tube of Pringles, two apples and two iPhone. With music courtesy of Cynthia's phone we crawled out of the Pringles tube and danced across the 'set'. Fortunately we had a large expanse of Salar to ourselves. Watching it afterwards was hilarious. Once we had stopped laughing long enough to talk we packed up and headed for lunch then to Inti Huasi Island.
Inti Huasi Island is covered in giant coral as it was once on the bottom of the sea. Growing on the coral are over 6000 cacti, some up to 6m tall. These grow at a rate of 1cm per year, so some of them are pretty old. All the rubbish bins and signs on the island are made of this slow growing cactus wood. Fortunately souvenirs of the same material are no longer available for sale. We climbed up and over the island before going through a coral archway and down through a cave. It really was a stunning and weird place.
After a brief stop to see how the salt bricks are cut from the Salar we made the final push for the hotel. The bumpy, uneven, windy roads were a bit of a shock after the smooth, even terrain of the salt flats. Questions for the driver were deferred in order to provide maximum concentration for the quite interesting 4 wheel driving task at hand. An hour later we arrived at our Salt Hotel. The bed bases, the walls, the tables and the chairs are all made entirely of salt. It is quite a neat place, and relatively warm compared to outside, especially as there is a howling gale outside, dropping the temperature well below zero.
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