A mirror to calibrate the senses

Voyage to the amazing salt flats of Uyuni

Dr. Ivar Mendez, For The Starphoenix

Published: Saturday, August 31, 2013

was born in Bolivia and has established The Ivar Mendez International Foundation (IMIF), a charitable organization dedicated to improving the lives of children in the poorest regions of the Bolivian Andes (imif.ca). Mendez travels to Bolivia two or three times a year to oversee IMIF projects.

He visits remote communities such as the Chipayas and his trip to the salt flats of Uyuni was in conjunction with a visit to poor aboriginal communities on the shores of the salt flats.

Mendez is the Fred Wigmore professor of surgery and unified chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Saskatchewan and the Saskatoon Health Region.

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The rain is brief and barely a couple of centimetres of water accumulates on the surface of the ground, but the effect is utterly magic.

Suddenly, the boundary between earth and sky disappears, changing dramatically our perception of the landscape. The Toyota SUV in which we travel appears to float on a sea of cumulus clouds as if gliding over the surreal vastness of a gigantic mirror - the salt flats of Uyuni.

Ten billion tons of salt are confined to an area of 10,582 square kilometres at 3,656 metres above sea level in southeastern Bolivia, creating the largest salt flats on the planet. Calculations using a global positioning system (GPS) have shown that variations in the ground surface are less than one metre, making the surface of Uyuni the flattest region on Earth.

This surface is so uniform the salt flats are used to calibrate the altimeters of satellites orbiting the globe. The calibrations performed on the surface of the salt flats are five times more accurate than satellite calibrations that were, until recently, made using the oceans as reference. Although the annual precipitation in this region is minuscule, in the rainy season, from January to March, the salt flats are flooded by a few centimetres of water, converting it into the largest mirror on Earth, easily distinguishable from space.

We head to the interior of the salt flats where a hotel made entirely of blocks of salt has been erected. The horizon is a straight white line scratching the cobaltblue sky of the Bolivian plateau.

The hotel looks like an enlarging dot trapped between the salt and the sky as if suspended between reality and the imagination. Its blocks have a café au lait tone due to alternating layers of clay and salt.

The crust of the salt flats has 11 layers of salt with a thickness of about 10 metres. Below this superficial layer, there is a lake of brine with depths that reach 120 metres.

It contains the largest untapped reserves of lithium in the world. Lithium is in increasing demand globally as it is a key component of the manufacturing of batteries that power smartphones and electric cars. It is estimated the salt flats contain 100 million metric tons of lithium. Bolivia's prosperity in the future may depend on the salt flats of Uyuni and its reserves of lithium.

A native legend tells about the origin of the salt flats. In ancient times, when the mountains knew how to walk and fall in love, the stunning volcano Tunupa, who was a lovely maiden, fell in love with the mountain Kusku. Unfortunately, Kusku abandoned the pregnant Tunupa. She became very sad and while nursing her newborn her tears mixed with her breast milk and spilled on earth, forming the salt flats of Uyuni. Geologically, the salt is the product of the transformation, 40.000 years ago, of prehistoric lakes in the region.


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