Salar de Uyuni Train Cemetery

Just outside Uyuni town, dozens of century-old steam engines sit rusting in the desert wind at 12,000 feet elevation. These British and German locomotives hauled silver and other minerals during Bolivia’s mining heyday, abandoned when the industry collapsed in the 1940s. The skeletal metal frames create an apocalyptic landscape against the endless altiplano, with the Andes rising in the distance.

The cemetery sits 3 kilometers southwest of Uyuni town center on a rough dirt track accessible to any vehicle. Most visitors combine this with tours of the salt flats, but it’s worth seeing on its own. The thin air hits hard — take it slow if you’re coming from sea level. Best light for photography is golden hour, when the metal glows against the stark landscape.

Abandoned steam trains in the Bolivian desert