Uyuni itself wasn’t the reason I traveled to southwestern Bolivia. The town is mostly a jumping-off point for the enormous salt flat and desert landscapes surrounding it, but because so many travelers pass through, there were plenty of places to eat, sleep, and arrange tours.
What I had really come to see was Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. Nothing prepared me for how enormous it felt once I was actually out there. The white surface seemed to continue forever, broken only by distant mountains, strange mirages, islands covered with giant cactus, and the occasional 4×4 crossing the horizon.
Uyuni
Uyuni wasn’t especially interesting to me as a destination by itself, but it had everything I needed before heading into the desert.
When I passed through town, it also looked like nearly every schoolchild in Uyuni had gathered along one of the streets.
Speakers had been set up and it looked like they were preparing for either a parade, ceremony, or some other community event, but unfortunately, I had to take before finding out what it actually was.
Salar de Uyuni
Salar de Uyuni was formed from ancient lakes that once covered this part of Bolivia. What remains is an enormous flat surface covered by a crust of salt.
Standing in the middle of it was disorienting because there were so few normal objects around to provide scale. The white ground and distant horizon made mountains look closer or farther away than they really were.
Some of the strangest effects were the mirages. From far away, parts of the mountains appeared to float above the surface like islands hovering in the air.
As we drove closer, the illusion gradually disappeared and the mountains returned to their normal shape.
Mining Salt
The salt flat wasn’t just scenery. People were actively working on it.
Workers shoveled salt into piles so moisture could drain and the material could dry before being collected. If I stomped through the upper crust with my heel, the salt underneath was noticeably wet.
The piles helped dry it before workers loaded the salt into trucks and transported it for processing.
At the small facility I visited, the salt was dried, iodized, and packed into bags. The operation looked incredibly manual compared with the industrial-scale production I might have expected from such an enormous resource.
A Hotel Made of Salt
Salt from the region has also been used as a construction material.
I visited a hotel where much of the building was made from blocks of salt. Walls, floors, furniture, and even decorative objects used the same material covering the landscape outside.
After spending hours driving across an endless field of salt, apparently the logical next step was sleeping inside it.
Crossing the Salt Flat by 4×4
My tour continued across the salt flat in a 4×4. There aren’t exactly roads in the normal sense once you’re out there, so the driver simply crossed the open surface toward distant landmarks.
The lack of trees, buildings, or road markings made the landscape feel much more remote than the actual distance from Uyuni might suggest.
Incahuasi Island
One of the strangest stops was Incahuasi, a rocky island rising from the middle of the salt flat.
After hours surrounded by perfectly flat white terrain, suddenly having a rocky hill covered in cactus appear in front of us seemed almost unnatural.
I was told stories connecting the island with Inca travelers and people hiding from the Spanish conquest. I wasn’t able to verify the more dramatic version I heard about everyone taking refuge there and later being captured, so I wouldn’t treat that part as established history.
Giant Cactus in the Middle of the Salt
The island was dry and covered with huge cactus, giving it the appearance of a desert island surrounded by a white ocean.
I was told at the time that some of the cactus could be distinguished as male or female by their appearance. Whether the individual plants in my photos could actually be identified that way, I can’t say with confidence.
An Unexpected Nighttime Detour
Outside the salt flats, in another part of southern Bolivia, I ended up on one of the strangest tours of my entire trip. It happened at night, and I wasn’t completely sure what I had agreed to see until we arrived at a group of unusual hollow formations rising from the desert.
My guide told me the area had once been underwater and described the structures as coral formations. I later learned that the Uyuni region was once covered by enormous prehistoric lakes, although I haven’t been able to determine with certainty exactly how these particular formations originated. Whatever their geological history, they were unlike anything else I had seen in Bolivia.
One of the structures had a small opening, and my guide told me to look inside. When I did, I discovered that the hollow formation contained human remains. As we continued through the area, I realized that many of the surrounding formations had been used as tombs.
The Tombs
Some of the tombs appeared to contain a single individual, while others held the remains of more than one person. My guide told me that the burials dated to a period after Tiwanaku but before the Inca and that the openings had originally been sealed with clay before erosion eventually exposed them. I was also told that the site had been looted after its rediscovery, with people breaking into tombs looking for valuables. I haven’t been able to independently verify all of those details, so I can only repeat them as the explanation I was given during my visit.
The Skeleton That Caught My Attention
One burial especially caught my attention. The skeleton appeared to be sitting with its back against the wall, its knees drawn tightly toward its chest and an arm positioned around its legs. At the time, I couldn’t understand how a body could have ended up in such an organized position, and the sight stayed with me long after I left Bolivia.
I later learned that this type of flexed or crouched burial was practiced by pre-Columbian peoples in the Andes. Rather than laying the deceased flat as is common in modern Western burials, the body could be arranged with the knees drawn toward the chest, sometimes described as a fetal position. The deceased might then be wrapped in textiles or bound to hold the body in that compact posture before being placed inside a tomb or burial chamber.
That also explains why a skeleton can still appear to be sitting centuries later. The body was deliberately placed that way rather than simply dropped into the chamber. As the wrappings and soft tissue decomposed, the confined space and original positioning could leave much of the skeleton arranged approximately as it had been buried. What had initially looked to me like someone who had died sitting inside the chamber was therefore much more likely the remains of an intentional crouched burial.
Seeing human remains still resting in a position chosen for them centuries ago made the site both unsettling and fascinating. Of all the unexpected things I encountered while traveling through southern Bolivia, these tombs were among the most memorable.
My Time Around Salar de Uyuni
I had originally come to Uyuni to see the famous salt flat, and that alone would have made the trip worthwhile.
I drove across a white landscape that seemed to continue forever, watched mountains turn into floating mirages, saw people mining salt by hand, walked through a hotel made from the same material beneath my feet, and climbed an island covered in enormous cactus.
Then somehow the trip ended with me wandering around a desert at night looking into ancient tombs full of skeletons.
Southwestern Bolivia was much stranger than I expected.
That’s probably why I remember it so well.
Explore More of Bolivia
Copacabana & Titicaca • La Paz • Salar De Uyuni • the Bolivian Deserts • Tiwanaku
