The Salt Flat Made of Tears
In Bolivia lies the largest salt flat on Earth, so flat that after rain it becomes a mirror of the sky. Legend says it's the tears and milk of a grieving mountain.
What was reported
The Salar de Uyuni covers more than 10,000 square kilometres of the Bolivian Altiplano, a blinding white plain of salt. When a thin layer of rain covers it, it becomes the largest mirror in the world, and people seem to walk across the sky.
Aymara legend says the mountains around it were once giants. When the mountain Tunupa was abandoned by her husband, she wept as she nursed her child, and her tears and milk spilled out across the land and became the salt.
Explanations offered
The salt flat is what remains of ancient lakes that dried up. It's so flat that satellites use it to calibrate their instruments, and beneath the crust lies one of the world's largest reserves of lithium.
- When
- Told for generations
- Where
- Salar de Uyuni, Potosí, Bolivia
- Witnesses
- Aymara legend
- Status
- Legend
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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