Chile 🇨🇱, salt lagoons in the Atacama Desert

Salar de Atacama is one of the largest salt marshes in the world. It is located at an altitude of 2300m. There used to be an ocean floor here. The mountains formed around raised part of the ocean, resulting in a huge lake. Under the scorching rays of the sun, it dried up - so a giant salt marsh appeared. The salt layer can reach one and a half kilometers!

Water accumulates under the salt crust. It seeps through a complex system of channels from the Andean Cordillera. Sometimes faults form in the salt marsh, through which the purest blue lakes appear on the surface.

The lake in which everyone swims is called Laguna Piedra, but tourists call it Caxap - in honor of the neighboring reservoir.

The concentration of salt in the water here is higher than in the Dead Sea - the water pushes to the surface, not allowing you to dive. Drowning in this lake will not work, but splashing your eyes with salt water is easy.