Atacama Salt Flat

The Salar de Atacama is one of the largest salt flats in the world, covering 3,000 square kilometres at an altitude of approximately 2,500 metres. Set within the Atacama Desert, the driest on the planet, the air here is extremely dry, making it perfectly clear — the view extends to the far side of the salar, 70 kilometres away. A sense of vertigo takes hold as you step onto it. Everything seems so vast, the surrounding mountains so powerful, that the purity of the air makes it impossible to tell whether they are near or far. These mountains feed the salar with water and salts: through underground channels, water trickles down from the cordillera, carrying volcanic salts into the depths of the dried-up lake. The water surfaces across this vast expanse, reflecting the mountains and sky, dotted pink by colonies of flamingos.