A small portion of the sky is glowing velvet and orange. The stars have faded, but the majority of the sky is still black. My eyes are heavy and my feet are numb.
'Stay awake', I say to myself. There's no way I'm missing the sunrise over the Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flats.Paul, a fellow jeep traveler is bouncing in his seat and tapping his shoe. Melanie, Paul's Puerto Rican girlfriend, cracks her knuckles. The Guide gets back in the Jeep.
We reach the outskirts of the flats and the driver pushes the car to 120km per hour. There are no more obstacles or bumpy roads on this desolate plain of salt. We reach the other jeeps in our group.
The warmth hits us between the eyes. A sweet sense of satisfaction swoops over us. The hexagonal borders of the snowy salt flats glow in the morning sun, as though being artificially lit from below. The sky beams purple, orange and yellow. The angle of the morning sun makes our shadows project across the flats for at least 100m behind us. After 3 long days and 2 freezing nights, our shadows had now literally and figuratively completely covered this part of the world.
Amazing photo! I hope to get to South America next year and the salt flats are at the top of my list!
ReplyDeleteThey should be! They're absolutely stunning. But make sure you bring clothes and plenty of them. It got to about minus 27 degrees Celsius when we were there!
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