When the sun brings its rays to rest on this incredible expanse of salt –seven hours from the capital city of La Paz-- its luminous energy rebounds off millions of grains of salt, dazzling us with its beauty. If you think you have seen everything, here you will discover that everything is nothing and that nothing is everything. That nothing has yet assumed a final shape. You will find that there is a world to be discovered at 4 000 meters above sea level. That life without a pinch of salt is tasteless.

The Uyuni Salt Flats are a landscape from another planet, a planet of sensations that stretches through Bolivian territory. In order to reach this corner of the galaxy, one must board the 3:00 p.m. train from La Paz to Oruro for a six and a half hour journey. Along the way, the brightly shining sun picks out small lagoons dotting the landscape, where a group of flamingoes prance.

A feeling of magic spreads through the dining car as I sip a cup of coca tea and chat with travelers from all over the world, as colossal mountains looking like huge snow-cones pass before my eyes. I chide myself at this irreverent thought. Hello and good-bye, sacred mountains; there are still people who worship you.

The tour to the salt flats starts at 9:00 a.m. After a sound night’s sleep in my comfortable room at the Jardines de Uyuni Hotel, located in the town of the same name, I board a bus with an incorporated "terrace," from which to take unbeatable photos of the white dotted landscape. A few short minutes into our journey, we reach the Colchani community, 22 kilometers from Uyuni. We meet Claudina Chambi, one of the hundred members of the cooperative, baptized with the same name as the community. As she seals the borders of a bag of salt with fire, she explains that every day she and her family bag nearly 4,000 kilos of this vital seasoning. Glancing up suddenly, her dark eyes reflect the fire as she exclaims: "In the past, this work was enough to pay all of our bills; today it barely serves to feed us." The remark is greeted with silence. Turning to a young traveler, Eric Comata, she adds: "I work all day long and earn only 12 bolivianos" (almost a dollar and a half).

More silence greets her. Would you like a chocolate? Thank you. No, thank you for having been so sincere with us. Listen: things change and one day, when I come back I’ll find that all of this salt is finally yours, as it once belonged to the sea. Was it the sea? The fact is that during prehistoric times, the Uyuni Salt Flats were part of a minor sea (known as Lake Minchín). When it dried up, the land became a cracked, but beautiful, crystal plain where one can see the earth’s shape on the horizon. This is one of the few places, together with the Great Wall of China, that astronauts are said to be able to make out from the moon. Located in southeastern Bolivia, the glow of the salt flats rises to extraterrestrial heights.

The route also takes us to the Palacio de Sal, or Salt Palace, an establishment built of this cooking ingredient, which consists of a hotel, spa and golf course. Inside, we spy furniture (tables, chairs and beds), together with some sculptures used to adorn the salty area. If a sign reading "Home, Sweet Home" were to hang on the door, we would think we were in a house. But no, this is not only a unique lodging for those who want to sleep there and get a kick out of its strangeness, but a place for receiving lithium therapy in salt beds, which is said to be effective in combating stress.

Nearly is the handicraft shop, Artesanía Palacio Salar, where one can buy small salt sculptures fashioned by craftsmen Rodencia and Damián Chambi. This couple, who look like they have been carved out of earth-colored granite, have been greeting travelers and telling them the local legends for the past three years. They are particularly proud of the fact that Damián and three others were able to build the Salt Palace in six months. Otherwise, where would the hundreds of tourists who want to stay in the Uyuni Salt Flats sleep?

By this time, our stomachs remind us that it is time to have a bite, another part of our adventure. Juan Quesada, one of our hosts, has prepared a picnic –if one could call a meal in the middle of the salt flats at no more than 5°C by that term. Unlike our supper of llama stew (blessed salt, you that give everything flavor), a tasty piece of chicken and cooked potatoes, washed down with a local beer, taste heavenly.

Bundled up to my eyes in an alpaca garment, it was pleasant to lie back and gaze up at the blue sky. The imposing presence of Mt. Tunupa, the click of the cameras, the murmur of my travelling companions and the wind rippling my clothing brought me back to the present: but what wouldn’t I have given to remain on that planet of emotions, in that corner of the Andes where there are also islands to be found, like the Incahuasi, or Fish Island, which is the most impressive of all because of its eccentric vegetation. There, one can find cactuses rising 10 meters up in the air and an Andean ostrich or two running around over the wild terrain. An amusing viscacha comes out to investigate, turns a summersault and runs to hide among the rocks.

The time has come to say good-bye. The train back leaves the Uyuni station at 12:05 a.m. and arrives in La Paz six and a half hours later. "The trip is very pleasant for those who are able to sleep on the train," comments Catherine Valle, Tourist Consultant at Bolivia’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment, in the early morning hours. I answer that those who can’t sleep can spend the night reading, but how does one get away from the snorers, those who turn the railroad car into a sawmill? Thoughts come at moments of sleepless illumination, quickly to be forgotten. This is one of them: Divide the train into Snorers and Non-snorers. If that can be done with Smokers and Non-Smokers, why not with the undesirable midnight bears?

But that is not all. The Bolivian landscape suddenly reveals prolific contrasts. From a position near the sky, we descend to 1 000 meters above sea level until we arrive at the start of the yungas, the area of warm valleys. La Paz is the entryway to this tropical region. The bus trip takes approximately three hours. An impeccable hardtop road winds through sharp multihued mountains to a series of precipices where we can barely see down to the bottom.

Before starting the descent into the Amazon valleys, there is a summit in the cordillera where mountain bicycling can be practiced. It is the turn of the brave and our Ecuadorian companions, Andrea Bernal and Marcos Villamar, decide to ride down. You should see them, with steady nerves but euphoric, as if they want to work off their full charge of adrenalin. He looks as though he were travelling into his childhood and she, as if she were chasing a dream. The clouds, the thin air, speed at its highest, sharp curves, faces filled with emotion. "The wind becomes a part of your body. It is a feeling of complete freedom," says Andrea, who –with our other travel companions-- is now enjoying a catamaran trip across Lake Titicaca, located at 3 810 meters above sea level and extending 8 300 square kilometers.

This comfortable Transturin vessel takes us to the Island of the Sun, an enigmatic piece of the earth sitting in the middle of South America’s largest lake. There, one can see small structures that date back to pre-Hispanic times, a bio-vegetable garden in the open air containing medicinal plants from all over the world, and an underground museum explaining the origin of the Tahuantinsuyo Empire. A sampling of different kinds of potatoes reminds me that they have been a staple of my diet over my almost twenty day trip through different parts of the Andean countries. My dearest potatoes, that’s the way I want to find you on all of my trips.

In only a few short hours we’ll be leaving Bolivia. The catamaran will let me off in Copacabana, where I will explore the eclectic architecture of its most important church and see at first hand the textile skills of its inhabitants. From there I will cross the border into Puno, into Peru.

Meanwhile, I remain on the Island of the Sun, participating in a session led by the chamán, or witch doctor, Samuel Mamami (55). He is asking his gods for the rest of our trip to be free from mishaps and gives the fire in offering a mixture of llama fat, sugar pills, myrrh and coca leaves. He calls out in Aymara and silence reigns. In the background the blue of the lake stands out. The mountains, Lake Titicaca and the Pachamama, or Mother Earth, all receive his blessing. The silence stretches on. The spirit appears to take heart. A smile emerges, one that I would like to last for centuries, such as that the Uyuni Salt Flats bears so well.