Colchani
A small village on the eastern edge of the salt flat where salt is still harvested by hand, with salt-sculpture museums, salt-brick buildings, and the starting point for many salt flat day tours.
Colchani lies about 22 km north of Uyuni town and is the main gateway to the salt flat. Its villagers have made their living from mining and processing salt for generations. In the village you can visit small salt-processing workshops, where workers dry, crush, iodize, and hand-pack salt dug from the lake surface. You will also see houses built from salt bricks and a small salt-sculpture museum. At the village entrance, a row of stalls sells alpaca-wool textiles, salt-sculpture souvenirs, and assorted tourist items, often at slightly lower prices than in Uyuni town. Just beyond the village are the salt-harvesting areas at the edge of the flat, with rows of conical salt mounds (ojos de sal, or 'salt eyes', and salt heaps). This is where most people take their first photos. Most day tours stop here for 30 to 45 minutes. Workshops or the museum may charge a small admission fee of 5 to 10 Bolivianos. Toilets in the village are not free, so carry small change.
Opening hours
Daytime; workshop tours approx. 09:00–17:00
Nearby sights
- Ojos del Salar
- Salt Hotels & Dakar Monument
- Uyuni Town
- Train Cemetery (Uyuni Railway Scrap Yard)
- Pulacayo
- Isla Incahuasi
- Salar de Uyuni (Mirror of the Sky)
- Tunupa Volcano & Coqueza