Nature Blows My Mind! Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni Creates World's Largest Mirror
Nature Blows My Mind! Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni Creates World's Largest Mirror
Chris Tackett
Science / Natural Sciences
September 27, 2012
This remote location in Southwest Bolivia was on my list for our Nature Blows My Mind series because I love this juxtaposition of barrenness and otherworldliness. When I first saw photos of Bolivia's stunning salt lake, the Salar de Uyuni, I marveled at a landscape that was both remarkably simple, but also stunningly beautiful. While it is normally an arid, barren surface of salt, creating one of the least inhabitable areas of the world, during the rainy season, Salar de Uyuni becomes one of the world's largest mirrors.
We're used to thinking of actual otherworldly locations, such as Mars or our moon, as having these dry, lifeless surfaces, which, like the Salar de Uyuni in its dry state, are interesting in their own right, but when this ancient lake bed is covered with a few centimeters of water, it becomes what is surely one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
No longer are our eyes drawn into the cracks of the salty earth or focusing on the far away horizon. When the clouds and the reflection are right, the Salar de Uyuni provides us a mental escape from this Earth, in its place providing us a glimpse at scenes that may have previously only resided in our dreams or imagination. We think of this as otherworldly, because until you learn of its realness, we just aren't likely to think of places like this existing in this world. The endless sky, enveloping everything around us, creating a seamless sea of clouds, is more like what we may picture when we think of Heaven or remember a peaceful dream.
More:
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/nature-blows-my-mind-bolivias-salar-de-uyuni-creates-worlds-largest-mirror.html
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A happy R&K
