Salinas Grandes and Cuesta de Lipán
Cuesta de Lipán
From Purmamarca, I took a short excursion to visit the Salinas Grandes. To get there, I crossed the Cuesta de Lipán, a road that climbs towards the high mountains of the Cordillera and goes through a pass at an altitude of 4,170 metres.
All along the route, the scenery is superb and at certain viewpoints, you can see the road zigzagging through the mountains.
Salinas Grandes
The Salinas Grandes are very pretty, but also very touristy. I really enjoyed my visit, even though I would have liked to get out and explore the salar as I can in most other salars in Argentina, Chile and Bolivia.
The salt on the surface is still harvested by small companies, but the community is firmly opposed to the big lithium mining companies. Chatting with a guide, I learn that lithium is found deep underground and that to recover this mineral, you have to pass through the water table and most likely contaminate it. The pure water found deep underground is used by many communities and for agriculture, and is therefore vital to their survival. In another sector of the Salinas, there is already at least one company mining lithium.
On the one hand, chatting with a guide was very interesting, and seeing how salt is mined is instructive. On the other hand, there is no freedom of movement on the salar. Everything is controlled and large parts of the salar are exploited by small companies. After the freedom to move around and sleep wherever you want on a salar such as the grandiose Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, the options are very limited at the Salinas Grandes. Everything must be done with a guide, and when I visited, the pretty lagoon, which can normally be visited, was not accessible at this time of year.
