There are many unusual hotels around the world. In Greenland, there is a hotel made out of ice, open between December and April every year. In Turkey, there is a cave hotel with a television, furniture, and a bathroom in each room. And in Bolivia, there is the Salt Palace Hotel.
Thousands of years ago, the area around the Salt Palace Hotel was a large lake. But over time, all the water disappeared. Today, the area has only two small lakes and two salt eserts.
Uyuni salt desert The larger of the two deserts, the Uyuni, is 12,000 square kilometres. During the day, the desert is bright white because of the salt. There are no roads across the Uyuni desert, so local people must show guests the way to the hotel.
In the early 1990s, a man named Juan Quesada built the hotel. He cut big blocks of salt from the desert and used the blocks to build it. Everything in the hotel is made out of salt: the walls, the roof, the tables, the chairs, the beds, and the hotel's bar.
The sun heats the walls and roof during the day. At night the desert is very cold, but the rooms stay warm. The hotel has twelve rooms. A single room costs $40 a night, and a double room costs $60.
A sign on the hotel's wall tells guests, " Please don't lick the walls.