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Palace of Salt, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

Salar de Uyuni (in Spanish) is the world's largest salt flat and also the largest natural mirror, which occupies 10,582 km². It is located near Uyuni town, 3650 meters above the sea level, on the place of dried up salt lake. Located at the edge of Salar de Uyuni the Palace of Salt (Palacio de Sal – in Spanish) is a hotel fully made of salt. The salt was used as a building material both for the hotel building and for some furniture items. But surely the building couldn't stand without cement which was mixed with salt and water to stick together all the salt blocks.

The Palace of Salt was opened in 2007 and is the second hotel in Bolivia entirely made of salt. It is located 25 km away from the town of Uyuni and 350 km south of Bolivia's capital La Paz. The first salt hotel was built in 1993-1995, but in several years it was closed due to serious sanitary problems. The Palace of Salt consists of 16 rooms. Each of them has a bathroom, central heating and electricity. The hotel also had a sauna, but it has been closed since 2011.

From the first day of its existence it managed to gain the peoples' attraction and became a very popular tourist destination because of its unique architectural concept and neighborhood with Salar de Uyuni.

By Lilit Khalatyan, www.building.am

Photos: www.inhabitat.com