Our adventure to South America included three countries, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, and nine flights covering some 20,000 miles. After a brief stay in Lima, we visited the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia. On a cloudy morning, you’re in a blue and white world. Aside from being unable to tell where the sky ends and the salt flat begins, when the sun is out, it’s intense because you’re at 12,000 feet, then you add the sun’s reflection off the salt, and where there is water, you’ve got that added reflection. At 4,086 square miles (about the size of the Big Island in Hawaii), this salt flat is the world’s largest, and contains 10 billion tons of salt! We were blown away by the vastness of the flat. In the wet season, which is when we were there, you get the mirror effect from a two-inch layer of water on top of the salt.

After visiting the Atacama Desert, our last stop was Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, which is famous for its monolithic carved statues called Moai. There are nearly 1,000 on the island, almost half of which are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry. Seeing them up close and personal was quite surreal. We couldn’t believe we were actually there.

Photos and story by Ron and Dianne Farb
South American Adventure with the Climb for Cancer Foundation