Isla Incahuasi

In the middle of the Salar de Uyuni, where a white crust of salt stretches flat to every horizon, a rocky hill rises like an island from a frozen sea, its slopes bristling with giant columnar cacti. Isla Incahuasi, "the house of the Inca" in Quechua, is no longer surrounded by water, but its shape and its isolation make the old name feel entirely accurate.

The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat on Earth, about 10,582 square kilometres in area and lying at around 3,656 metres above sea level in the Bolivian Altiplano. Its surface is so level that elevation varies by less than a metre across the whole expanse. Tens of thousands of years ago, the basin held a vast prehistoric lake, Lake Minchin, followed by later lakes such as Tauca; as they dried out, they left behind the thick crust of salt over a body of brine. Incahuasi is the summit of an ancient volcano that stood above those waters. On its rocks are fragile, coral-like formations and deposits containing fossils and algae, traces of the time when the hill was literally an island.

The island covers some 25 hectares and is crossed by a footpath that climbs among hundreds of cacti of the species Echinopsis atacamensis (also listed as Trichocereus pasacana), some of which grow to more than 10 metres tall. From the top, the view takes in the glaring white plain stretching to the mountains on the horizon, under the cobalt sky of the high plateau. Incahuasi is often confused with the neighbouring Isla del Pescado, another former island about 22 km to the north-west. It belongs to the municipality of Tahua in the Daniel Campos Province of Potosí Department.

Getting there

Isla Incahuasi lies in the centre of the Salar de Uyuni, roughly 100 km west of the town of Uyuni, the usual starting point for crossings of the salt flat; the departmental capital Potosí is about 210 km away. The nearest airport is Joya Andina International Airport (UYU) at Uyuni, about 83 km away in a straight line. The island is reached overland across the salt crust.