Can I have My Cake And Eat It Too?

Numero Uno

The Bonneville Salt Flats are a 159 square mile (412 km²) salt flat in
northwestern Utah. The depth of the salt has been recorded at 6 feet
( 1.8 m) in many areas. A remnant of the ancient Lake Bonneville of
glacial times, the salt flats are now public land managed by the Bureau
of Land Management. It is the largest of many salt flats located west
of the Great Salt Lake.

Each rainfall erases tire marks and flattens the densely-packed salt
pan that is inhospitable to plants. The area is extremely flat and nearly
aligned perfectly with the shape of Earth, allowing visitors to see the
curvature of the planet by producing an optical illusion that makes many
of the mountains within the vicinity appear to be floating in the air since
their bases are on the other side of the curve and thus out-of-sight.

Numero Dos

Salar de Uyuni (or: Salar de Tunupa) is with its 10,582 km².
(4,085 square miles) the world's largest salt flat. It is located in
the west Departmento of Potosí and of south of Oruro in southwest
Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes, 3650 meters high. The major
minerals found in the salar are halite and gypsum.

Some 40,000 years ago, the area was part of Lake Minchin, a giant
prehistoric lake. When the lake dried, it left behind two modern lakes,
Poopó and Uru Uru, and two major salt deserts, Salar de Coipasa and
the larger Uyuni. Uyuni is roughly 25 times the size of the better-known
Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States.

Salar de Uyuni is estimated to contain 10 billion tons of salt of which
less than 25,000 tons is extracted annually. All miners working in
the Salar belong to Colchani's cooperative. They work from dawn to
dusk and most of them do not take a lunch break in order to take
advantage of time, getting energy by chewing coca leaves.

Every November, Salar de Uyuni is also the breeding grounds for
three species of South American flamingos — Chilean, James's and
Andean. It is also a significant tourist destination; highlights include
a salt hotel and several so-called islands.