In the Southern area of Salar de Uyuni you find the village of Rio Grande. This town is historically connected to the mining of borax, but today a new upcoming activity is becoming more and more important: the extraction of lithium.
Just a few kilometers from town a still relatively small mine is extracting the mineral, which is so precious for today battery technology.
Experts say the Salar holds 50% of the world lithium resources. So if the demand of lithium rises (especially with the development of the electric car market in China) this place could become a huge mine, possibly extending to other parts of the salar
Photo taken at: Río Grande, Potosi, Bolivia