The Spectacular Sea of Salt: Salar de Uyuni

By Queuebot in Travel on Aug 29, 2009 at 9:15 pm

The largest and highest salt flats in the world, Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, has to be seen to be believed. Quite an unearthly experience, your attention is first drawn to the mysterious mounds of sand that dot the landscape. But that’s not all. Salar de Uyuni even has rock trees and a locomotive graveyard to boot.

You may not have heard of Uyuni, but our astronauts have. It is used as a target for calibrating and testing remotes sensing systems on satellites in orbit. Why? It is big – very big – and has an incredibly smooth surface which is highly reflective when it is covered in water, making it perfect for that task.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.

Tags: Bolivia, Salt flats, Uyuni

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wit of a twit
Aug 29th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Uyuni+salt +flats+in+Bolivia&sll=-20.459022,-66.814899&sspn=0.05211,0.056562&ie=U TF8&ll=-20.003032,-66.987762&spn=0.803946,0.904999&t=h&z=10&iwloc=D

check it out on googlemaps
Adi
Aug 31st, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Cool. Those pics in the article are stunning. It looks like snow, like Antarctica. That hotel would be interesting to see too, although the mattress would probably be uncomfortable seeing as it’s made of salt.
Phil Rice
Oct 1st, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I didnt know that about the calibrating satellites , interesting. I have been told that it is one of the few places in the world where you can see the curvature of the earths surface – which you can do. Incredible place

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