When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their historic walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969, one of the first things they saw when looking earthward was an immense, mirror-like sheet in southwest Bolivia’s Altiplano. The glittering, treeless void, known as the Salar de Uyuni, is the remains of a vast inland sea. Home of the world’s largest salt desert, it is the breeding ground of three species of flamingo and hosts many other bird species, including the Andean goose (Chloephaga melanoptera) and the horned coot (Fulica cornuta). Except for tourists who came to see the birds and the surreal landscape of the remote cactus-studded plateau, few people outside Bolivia knew much about Salar de Uyuni back then; and few do now... [Log in to read more]
