Salar Uyuni – is a mighty impressive Salt Pan at high altitude in Bolivia.

There is a standard trip on the Salar Uyuni that takes around 3-4 days, taking in a ton of amazing sights you won’t see anywhere else.

The Wild Junket travel blog recently featured an interesting post about the Salar Uyuni.

Anyway, an abosrbing part of the trip is how locals produce salt.  This is not an especially difficult or fascinating process, but I found how the locals make a living from the salt pan an important lesson of being an entrepreneur.

Check out the photo of this man below.  He makes his living out of digging salt out of the Salar Uyuni salt pan.

Or so I thought.

He has a fantastic grasp of mathematics and business sense.

Why do I think that?

Well, salt has a market price of $USD1 per 50 kilogram bag (or over 100 pounds) - which would be enough to give your entire family hypertension.

However, this salt maker charges $USD1 per tourist to show them how salt is made, and how he doesn’t manage to blow up his gas bottle, himself, and everyone else when he tries to seal a bag of salt with heat.

Considering there are usually 6 tourists per group, and scores of tourists passing through per day, he would make magnitudes more money from showing tourists how to make salt, then from actually producing it and selling it alone.

I figured I could apply his maths to somehow to get rich and create some dodgy pyramid scheme, so I could become a Professional Backpacker!

He has a pretty sustinable business plan – somehow, I don’t think he’s going to run out of salt at the Salar Uyuni any time soon…

Other things to do in Bolivia after seeing the Salar Uyuni Salt Pan – check out the Day Of The Dead and cycle down The World’s Most Dangerous Road.

The World’s Most Dangerous Road – is in Bolivia.

This photo was taken cycling down ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Road‘, from La Paz to Coroico in Bolivia in 2007.

This ‘Road of Death’ claimed an average of 20 vehicles each year until a new highway opened in 2007 (the below photograph is an obvious example) - in fact, the locals were so pissed off with the old road, that they used the new road even during the construction period!

Just remember, this is a two lane highway – but it’s barely wide enough for one car width in some places!

The drop over the edge is ‘only’ 600 metres.  Only tourists are silly enough to use this road now via mountain bike trips.  In fact, about 10 people have lost their lives mountain biking down this magnificent part of Bolivia.

The trip is about 70 kilomtres and starts at 4000 metres above sea level (sometimes in the snow), and finishes at 1500 metres above sea level – in tropical forest. It takes about 6 to 7 hours cycling downhill.  The hardest part is a 3 kilometre uphill pedal at 3500 metres – which almost burst my lungs.

Some masochistic people have cycled up The World’s Most Dangerous Road – and this takes about 12 hours.

The photos below explain everything!

Believe me, it’s worth risking your life to ride this fantastic track!  I was on a high for days after cycling down The World’s Most Dangerous Road – in fact, I wanted to go again!

Other things to do in Bolivia besides cycling down The World’s Most Dangerous Road – check out the party during the Day Of The Dead.

You can also check out Survival Driving: Staying Alive on the World’s Most Dangerous Roads.

Day Of The Dead.

This day occurs on the second of November each year, and I was lucky to witness one in La Paz, in Bolivia’s capital, back in 2007.  In fact, I accidentally stumbled into that year’s Day Of The Dead, as I was walking around the steep streets of the highest capital city in the world, and I was wondering why the La Paz cemetery was full of people.

I asked one of the locals in Spanish, and he said to me ‘es El Dia de Los Muertos’.  It was the Day Of The Dead.

Since my Spanish wasn’t that good at that point in time, I thought he meant ‘Everyone dies today’.  As far as I knew, I didn’t think the Apocalypse was occurring.  Then I realised there was loads of flower stalls and people buying flowers and other momentos and trinkets, and it clicked he had meant it was the annual festival of All Souls Day, or the Day Of The Dead.

When some dies in Latin America, they are usually buried in the traditional Western way, or placed in a crypt.  Within 10 years, the body is then retreived and cremated.  Once this happens, the family purchases or rents a ’space’ with a glass window where the ashes are kept.  Relatives can then place flowers and other momentos behind the glass frame for eternity.

You can learn more at Wikipedia about the Day Of The Dead.

Check out this photo I took from the La Paz cemetery showing these ’spaces’.  It’s like a high rise apartment block for cremated people.

The whole place was packed with people for the entire day.  Relatives had set up barbeques next to their loved ones’ crypts, headstones or ’spaces’, and the whole family sat around and had lunch with their ancestors.  Those who had a musical inclination had brought in their guitars to sing the favourite songs of their deceased relatives.

However, there was nothing morbid about these acts.  The Day Of The Dead was more like a big party in a cemetery, rather than anything sad.  It was a celebration of a person’s life, all done respectfully.

In western culture, death sometimes is viewed as a taboo subject.  No one seems to be that comfortable talking about it, even though death is pretty much the only guarantee related to life.

But it’s not a taboo subject in other parts of the world.  In fact, quite the opposite.  Death is openly celebrated.

When I walked through the La Paz cemetery, I thought to myself – this is a fantastic way to celebrate someone’s life!

Other things to do in South America – have ‘Coffee With Legs‘, or eat half a cow.

If you’re anywhere in South America on November 2, check out the local cemetery and see how people celebrate the Day Of The Dead.  It’s worth the experience!