Salar de Uyuni: easy Spanish reading about Bolivia's salt flat (A1)
An A1 Spanish reading about the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia: the water mirror, Incahuasi island and the salt hotels, with el/la and un/una in every paragraph.
El Salar de Uyuni: un mar de sal en Bolivia
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The Salar de Uyuni in southern Bolivia is the largest salt flat in the world, more than three thousand metres above sea level. Between December and March a shallow layer of water turns it into an enormous mirror. A small island called Incahuasi sits in the middle, where the largest cacti are more than ten metres tall, and some hotels near the flat are built from blocks of salt.
El salar está muy alto, a más de tres mil metros. El aire es seco y por la noche hace mucho frío. De día el sol es muy fuerte: la sal blanca refleja la luz, y unas gafas de sol ayudan mucho.
La sal seca forma unas figuras con muchos lados. Las figuras parecen unos azulejos gigantes, y los azulejos llegan hasta el horizonte.
Entre diciembre y marzo llueve más en el altiplano. Una capa de agua cubre la sal. El agua está fría y no es profunda, pero el efecto es espectacular: el salar es un espejo enorme. El cielo está arriba y también está abajo. Las nubes están en el suelo.
En el centro del salar está una isla pequeña. La isla se llama Incahuasi. Es una palabra quechua: "inka" es inca y "wasi" es casa. En la isla crecen unos cactus enormes. Los cactus más grandes miden más de diez metros.
Cerca del salar, unos hoteles son de sal. En los hoteles, las paredes son de bloques de sal. Las mesas y las camas también son de sal, y el suelo es de sal suelta, como una playa blanca.
Cerca del pueblo de Uyuni están unos trenes muy viejos. Los trenes no funcionan y el metal está oxidado, pero las locomotoras todavía están allí.
¿Y tú? ¿Conoces un lugar tan blanco y tan plano? ¿Prefieres el salar seco o el salar con agua? ¿Qué llevas para un día de mucho sol?
About this article
What you'll learn
Definite and indefinite articles: un/una/unos/unas on first mention and el/la/los/las afterwards, the feminine noun el agua, the invariable plural los cactus, and ser + de for materials.
The Salar de Uyuni in southern Bolivia is the largest salt flat in the world, more than three thousand metres above sea level. Between December and March a shallow layer of water turns it into an enormous mirror. A small island called Incahuasi sits in the middle, where the largest cacti are more than ten metres tall, and some hotels near the flat are built from blocks of salt.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
el salar más grande del mundo
newthe largest salt flat in the world
Spanish builds a superlative with the definite article plus más plus the adjective. The article agrees with the noun, so it is el salar más grande. What follows normally starts with de: del mundo, del país.
The frame works for any record: la montaña más alta del país, el río más largo de América.
a más de tres mil metros
newat more than three thousand metres
A más de before a number means "at over" or "at more than". The a marks a point on a scale: height, distance, temperature. The opposite is a menos de.
Reuse it for heights, distances and prices: a más de cien kilómetros, a menos de dos metros.
se llama Incahuasi
newis called Incahuasi
Llamarse is reflexive and works for things as well as people: an island, a street or a mountain se llama something. Literally it is "calls itself".
It is the normal way to ask for and give the name of a place: ¿Cómo se llama este pueblo?
todavía están allí
newthey are still there
Todavía means "still". With a present-tense verb it says the situation continues. In the negative, todavía no means "not yet". A common synonym is aún.
It is a very frequent narrative word: Todavía llueve, Todavía no llega.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
el salar
el salar
salt flat
A salar is a salt flat: the flat white floor left behind where a salty lake has dried out. The word is built on sal, "salt".
It turns up in place names across the Andes: Salar de Uyuni, Salar de Coipasa.
el altiplano
el altiplano
high plateau
Altiplano is built from alti- (from alto, high) plus plano (flat): a high plain. It is the usual name for the high Andean plateau where Uyuni sits.
It is basic South American geography vocabulary, and it explains the cold nights in the text.
crecen (crecer)
crecen
they grow (to grow)
Crecer means to grow. Crecen is third person plural because the subject unos cactus is plural. Notice the word order: the verb comes before its subject in this sentence.
Crecer works for plants, children and cities alike: El niño crece, La ciudad crece.
el espejo
un espejo enorme
mirror
Espejo means mirror. In the text the flooded salt flat becomes un espejo enorme because the thin sheet of water reflects the sky.
You need it at home and in nature writing: el espejo del baño, el lago es un espejo.
el suelo
el suelo
ground; floor
Suelo covers both the ground outdoors and the floor of a room. The text uses it both ways: the clouds are en el suelo, and the salt hotel has a floor of loose salt.
One Spanish word covers two English ones. Across much of Spanish America el piso is also used for the floor of a room.
los azulejos
los azulejos
glazed ceramic tiles
An azulejo is a ceramic tile for walls and floors. In the text the dry salt forms flat shapes with raised edges that look like giant tiles. The word came into Spanish from Arabic.
Tiles are a visible part of Spanish and Portuguese architecture, so the word appears often in descriptions of towns.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
un/una for something new, el/la for something known
una isla pequeña
una isla first, la isla straight after
The first time a thing is mentioned, Spanish normally uses the indefinite article: una isla pequeña. In the next sentence that same thing is already known, so it takes the definite article: La isla se llama Incahuasi. The text repeats the pair: unos cactus enormes then Los cactus más grandes, unos trenes muy viejos then Los trenes no funcionan. One-of-a-kind things take el from the start, and so do place names built on a common noun: el sol, el cielo, el Salar de Uyuni. Most other proper names go with no article: Bolivia, Uyuni.
This first-mention versus later-mention contrast is the main reason a narrative switches between un and el.
el agua, though agua is feminine
El agua está fría
the water is cold
Agua is a feminine noun, but in the singular it takes el because the word begins with a stressed a. The adjective stays feminine: el agua fría, no es profunda. The plural goes back to las aguas. El aula and el hacha behave the same way.
Without the rule learners produce la agua fría or el agua frío, and both are wrong.
los cactus: the article carries the number
Los cactus más grandes
the biggest cacti
Cactus is the same in the singular and the plural: el cactus, los cactus. Only the article and the adjective show the number. Many nouns ending in -s behave this way when the last syllable is unstressed: el lunes / los lunes, la crisis / las crisis. Nouns stressed on that final syllable do change: el país / los países, el mes / los meses.
Here the article is the only sign of the plural, so it cannot be dropped.
unos / unas means some, not all
unos hoteles son de sal
some hotels are made of salt
Unos and unas are the plural of un and una, and they mean "some" or "a few". Unos hoteles son de sal says that some of the hotels there are built of salt. The next sentence refers back to those same hotels, so it says En los hoteles.
Writing los hoteles son de sal would claim that every hotel there is made of salt.
ser + de for what something is made of
de bloques de sal
made of salt blocks
To say what something is made of, Spanish uses ser + de + material: las paredes son de bloques de sal, el suelo es de sal suelta. The material normally comes with no article: una mesa de madera, un vaso de plástico.
It is the shortest way to describe an object, and no verb like hacer is needed.
medir becomes miden: e changes to i
miden más de diez metros
they are more than ten metres tall
Medir changes the stem e to i: mido, mides, mide, miden. The nosotros and vosotros forms keep the e, because there the stress falls on the ending: medimos, medís. That is why the text has miden and not meden. Here medir means "to be a certain size".
The same pattern runs through pedir (pido), repetir (repito) and servir (sirvo).
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