Three Days of Randomness on the Salt Flats

   The main reason we came to Bolivia was to see the salt flats.  All I knew is that there was salt and (being a good chemist) that the salt flats had the world´s largest amount of lithium.  So what are salt flats really like?  Well, it was miles of hard, white salt in one-foot hexagonal patterns on the ground.  For scale, the salt flats are approximately 200,000,000 times the size of our Boston apartment.  However, unlike our Boston apartment, the hostel we stayed at on the salt flats was actually made of salt! Salt beds, salt walls, salt floor, salt dining room tables, and (ironically) extremely bland, unsalty food.  Of course, you do not go to the salt flats and just drive around on this dried up sea floor of white salt for 3 days. You explore the surrounding areas, and, in fact, there were a cornucopia of weird things to see surrounding the salt flats including:

1. A grouping of rocks that stood straight up from the group in peculiar shapes that reminded one of a Salvador Dali painting.

2. Flamingos standing in lagoons that varied in color from green to red to blue.

3. Snow-covered mountains.
4. Ever-changing barren landscapes of rocks with purple hues.
5. Wind storms that propelled salt at painful speeds. 
6. Islands in the sea of salt covered in flowering cacti.
7. Mirages so real that I truly empathized with Wiley Coyote of Luney Toons fame all those times he tried to drink sand because he thought it was water.
8. Pits with boiling mud.
9. An active volcano steaming in the distance.

10. Steam vents shooting from the ground 13000 feet above sea level.

11. Hot springs.

Needless to say, with all of these surreal sights, every time we stopped on the salt flats felt a bit random because what we were seeing was so out of place.  However, stopping anywhere was a delight because we had the misfortune to be riding in 4x4 jeeps that were better known as the Jeeps of Death by Michelle and I...