KEY POINTS:
On the edge of the world's biggest salt desert, villagers optimistically scrawl "salt for sale" signs on their mud brick homes. In backyards, mountains of the stuff are heaped like year-round snow drifts.
But mining salt is no longer the only way to survive in this cold, arid
corner of southwest Bolivia. The Salar de Uyuni is becoming a must-see for adventurous visitors to South America, changing at least some fortunes in the poor village of Colchani.
"There's nothing here apart from salt ... Tourists used to arrive and they wouldn't buy anything, so we thought, 'How can we improve things?"' said Fermin Villca, who now sells ashtrays and llama figurines carved from salt stone.
Stretched between distant Andean peaks like a shimmering white carpet, the Salar de Uyuni is home to pink flamingos, 1000-year-old cacti, rare hummingbirds and hotels built entirely from blocks of salt.
Earlier this year, leading travel publisher Rough Guides listed the salar as one of its top 25 wonders of the world, alongside far better known attractions such as the Taj Mahal, Grand Canyon and Great Wall of China.
And word is spreading. At least 60,000 tourists visited the roughly 11,000sq km salt flat last year, and local officials say their numbers are steadily rising.
Apart from freezing night temperatures and fierce desert sun, visitors have to brave a gruelling journey on unpaved roads to reach the salar, which lies about 300km south of the capital La Paz.
Some 40,000 years ago, it was part of a lake that covered a large swath of the Andean highlands. The moon-like landscapes of the salt desert are part of what was left when it dried up.
In the nearby town of Uyuni, residents and local officials have ambitious plans for its future as a hub for tourism, which has fast overtaken llama herding and quinua farming as the impoverished region's main economic activity.
But with frequent power cuts, a lack of drinking water and only basic hotels, they admit they have a long way to go.
"There's no centre to deal with the garbage. The wind blows and all the garbage ends up back in town," said Martin Calvimontes, from the non-governmental organisation Inagro.
For tourists who want to stay on the salar itself, there are several hotels made from salt bricks - beds, chairs and cocktail bars included.
"People want to test it's really made of salt by licking the walls," said Raul Garcia, a workman building a new salt hotel, as he crammed coca leaves into his mouth. "They're very impressed when they see that it's all made from salt."
The view from the hotel's windows is flat whiteness, fringed by the peaks of mountains on the horizon beneath a bright blue sky. The silence of the salar is broken only by the occasional tour group speeding by in a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
"The salar has the ability to captivate people with its silence and tranquillity," said Uyuni tourism director Ovidio Copa, sitting before the towering cacti of one of the salt flat's islands. "Its intrinsic beauty is the attraction."
- REUTERS
Ancient lake bed
* The salt desert Salar de Uyuni was part of a lake that covered a large swath of the Andean highlands about 40,000 years ago.
* It lies about 300km south of the Bolivian capital La Paz, near the Chilean border.
* The salar is estimated to contain 10 billion tonnes of salt, of which less than 25,000 tonnes is extracted annually
* The salar is home to pink flamingos, 1000-year-old cacti, rare hummingbirds and hotels built entirely from blocks of salt, which are helping to make it a popular tourist attraction.