<p>Salar de Uyuni - The Indescribable</p>

So now one of the great highlights of this trip was coming up, a day trip to the largest salt flats in the world, which covers an area of 10,500km2 and is easily visible from space. The camera batteries were charged and the essential rubber dinosaur purchased. We were ready to go.

We were picked up right on time by our guide Alvaro with the Land Cruiser. Alvaro is 24 years old, comes from Tupiza, is studying engineering and has taken a year off from university to earn money. In addition, four very cool people from Paraguay joined us, who were traveling with their own vehicle and with whom we were going to have a lot of fun.

As about 100 (!) providers offer tours to the Salar, whose quality apparently varies (even including drunk drivers...), the selection required a lot of research in advance. It was worth it, we had an unforgettable day, learned a lot of interesting things about the Salar (Alvaro has a huge knowledge) but also about life and the political situation in Bolivia. I was able to improve my Spanish for 9 hours and we had a good soundtrack in the car.

The first stop was a visit to the train cemetery just outside Uyuni, where old steam locomotives of British and French origin are slowly rusting away. The place actually has a lot of morbid charm and offers great photo opportunities. As we learned from Alvaro and unfortunately could also see, some individuals apparently find it necessary to deface the wrecks with graffiti, and there are even supposed to be tourists (!) among these idiots.

Next, we went to the small village of Colchani on the edge of the salt flats, which exclusively relies on salt mining and processing, and more recently, of course, on tourism.

Then we drove through the Salar. A bizarre landscape that is hard to describe. Something between a barren ice landscape and a foreign planet. Apparently, filmmakers and musicians were also inspired, as scenes from a Star Wars episode were shot here and Coldplay produced a music video.

In the middle of the salt desert, there are endless opportunities to play with perspective in photography. This is where the dinosaur came into play and the Paraguayans also had fun with it. But it wasn't just nonsense, so we continued to the next stop, the "island" Isla Incahuasi, a hill covered with cacti in the middle of the white nothingness and also simply breathtaking.

Finally, we drove to a part of the salt flats that is covered with water, which naturally creates the most beautiful reflections. There, we experienced the sunset. I can say without any exaggeration that since my time in Australia 92/93, I have never seen anything even remotely as beautiful. The pictures speak for themselves. The perfect day!