Over the hol­i­days I was lucky enough to make a return trip to Bolivia, and over the next couple of days I’ll be post­ing some photos I took there.

The first set is from the south­ern part of the coun­try, where I vis­ited sev­eral places that might, were it not for the nig­gling ques­tion of their actual exis­tence, make it onto Joel’s col­lec­tion of Monday morn­ing imag­i­nary places. These included:

+ A train ceme­tery where the rust­ing ghosts of mining indus­tries past take their last rest, includ­ing one robbed by Butch Cas­sidy and the Sun­dance Kid.

+ The Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flats, where campesinos dig salt by hand while tourists like me whiz by in Land Cruis­ers at sixty miles an hour.

+ Inc­ahuasi, a coral island in the middle of the salt flats with metic­u­lous bath­rooms and huge cacti more than 500 years old.

+ Laguna Colarada, a lake that takes its name from an algae that turns the water red when the wind blows. It offers chilly sanc­tu­ary to three species of flamingo and at least one small fox.

+ Vol­canic rock for­ma­tions with caption-​ready names like “The Rock Tree” and “The Lost City.”

+ An eerie play­ground of geot­her­mic activ­ity with scald­ing paint­pots and hiss­ing geysers.

To see more, click the photos below the fold, or click here for a full-​screen slideshow.