photo #6657614

With an area of over 6,200 square miles (10,000 square km), Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni is the world’s largest playa, or salt flat. The area gets fewer than five days of rain per year, but Sam Kaplan, brother-in-law of Helena Bates (Cloud Appreciation Society Member 61,655), and his partner Jess Dealey were lucky enough to visit the playa just after a rainfall. This is when the flats can be covered in rainwater just an inch or so deep. Too shallow to develop waves, the water acts as a giant mirror on the sky. It reflected the Cumulus congestus and Cumulonimbus capillatus incus clouds so perfectly that Sam and Jess appeared to be standing among them. ‘The clouds themselves almost look like distant mountains,’ remarked Helena, ‘until you realise the actual mountains on the horizon are dwarfed in comparison.’