There’s money under that salt … Lake Uyuni in Bolivia’s Altiplano is the world’s largest dry salt lake – over 4000 square miles – that’s more than twice the size of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. We got to explore very little of the expanse but it is easily possible to ride out far enough to lose sight of the hills and only see the curvature of the earth. Remember to bring a compass if you try this.

We stayed at the Hotel Palacio de Sal where the hotel and most of the furniture, including the beds, are made of salt quarried from the surface of the lake; each room like an igloo of salt complete with your own stalactites.

The lake is level to within one meter across the entire surface and, because it is such a large target and almost never masked by clouds, is used as an altitude reference for earth observation satellites. Under about 20 feet of salt at the surface, there is a lake of brine that contains 50-70% of the world’s supply of lithium. In the new battery economy this could transform Bolivia from its position as the poorest South American country*

* Poorest ranked by GDP(PPP) per head – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_American_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita