Should Have Stocked Up

UYUNI, Bolivia -- We`re in a frontier town, plain and simple. 150 years ago, the Presidente founded it for military purposes as an outpost replete with broad promenades, a clock tower, and dust everywhere. With one hundred miles until anywhere, it`s got some natural fortification: It skirts the world`s biggest salt plane. Over a ragged earthen road, we went into less than a mile into what may as well be the surface of the moon. You could feel the white glare, similar to snow burn, rippling off a white sodium surface that stretched for miles as far as I could see. No buildings, no vehicles, no vegetation, nothing . . . just this girl mining a fortune. Then came a saltball fight and salt angels. The usual.