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Is this heaven?

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I wonder what the sky thinks of its reflection. (The Image Bank/Getty Images)

No, it’s a salt flat in Bolivia. It’s rainy season, so the endless expanse of barren ground has filled in like a puddle on a sidewalk. The water’s shallow — about 6 inches deep. So when you walk across it, you look like you’re pulling that trick Jesus pulled. To make matters even more heavenly, the sky and its puffy white clouds are mirrored rather perfectly in the water. It’s hard to tell which is salt-flat-puddle and which is sunny sky. And whether you’re walking on air.

Sound like a dream? Well, it’s not. It’s the Salar de Uyuni salt flat in Bolivia, the largest salt desert in the world. If you visit the flat during the wet season, between November and March, it’s likely this is what you’ll find.

That’s not to say that Salar de Uyuni is remarkable only when wet. During the dry season, the 40,000-square-mile flat, which stretches between the Andean mountains, is nothing but dehydrated earth as far as the eye can see. Its white, cracked surface looks like a puzzle that features no particular image. Adventure travelers are attracted to the flat for the obvious reasons — it’s strange, eerily quiet and endless.

Lucky for them, there’s a salt hotel for accommodations. In the spirit of an ice hotel, this building was constructed entirely of salt blocks mined from the flat. In fact, even the roof, beds, chairs and tables are made of salt, according to the AP. During the day, the sun heats up the salt bricks, so that at night, when the temperatures dip below freezing, the rooms are nice and toasty.

Are you ready to go to Bolivia?

Here are a couple more pictures, so you can get the full effect …

The salt flat during the wet season. (Thomas Schmitt/Getty Images)

The salt flat during the dry season. (Doug Allan/Getty Images)

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