The salt hotel

Would you like to stay in a hotel made out of salt? Watch this video to find out more about this unusual hotel in Bolivia.

Instructions

Do the preparation task first. Then watch the video and do the exercise. Remember you can read the transcript at any time.

Dario Lora, manager of Luna Salada Salt Hotel: The hotel is unique. It is made of salt, it is like a museum. You can sleep in a bed made of salt bricks, you have the desk made of salt bricks, you have the floor made of salt, everything made of salt! It’s the biggest salt flat in the whole world having a stretch of twelve thousand kilometres. Here’s where everything begins. The people from Colchani strike the salt bricks. You can see here, lines ... these small lines represent the rainy season and the sediments in the salt.

We select this location in the hill so we have a really nice landscape of the salt flat. You can see all the salt flat from the Luna Salada Hotel. Here in the restaurant everything is made of salt. Here we have a table made entirely of salt. These chairs are made inside the salt flat. The local people here in Colchani they are specialists in making handicrafts, everything made of salt.

Here in the hotel we are in a high altitude. We have more than three thousand metres. So one of the challenges is cooking the food at this altitude because the cooking takes more more time for the pressure than we have in the altitude. So one of the popular dishes that we have in Bolivia is quinoa.

[Dario Lora speaks to the chef in Spanish – At altitude around 18 to 20 minutes and 8 to 10 minutes at sea level.]

All the salt that we use in the dishes came from the salt flat. It’s a better flavour to have this salt, it’s stronger, the taste, and it's more pure.

One of the biggest challenges we have is the rainy season is because the weather destroys all the salt bricks. That’s the reason that all the time we are changing all the salt bricks around the hotel. Another problem that we have in the hotel is the corrosion in the wires. Sometimes we have to change all the wires because it is very corrosive the salt. All the wires are made of copper and we have to put a plastic tube to protect all the wires. In some cases we have to change the plugs because the salt destroys all the plugs from inside.

I am excited to be part of the hotel. There is only in Bolivia this kind of hotels. It's like a piece of art.

Task 1

Check your understanding: multiple choice

Exercise

Discussion

Would you like to visit a hotel made out of salt? Have you ever stayed in an unusual hotel?

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Worksheet350.6 KB

Language level

B2 - Upper intermediate

C1 - Advanced

C2 - Proficiency

Topics

travel and transport

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I would like to visit this hotel only for the experience, sound interesting, but it could be weird because i think the salt can have the same effect of the sand, and when i visit the sands places y have a lot of allergies. I didn´t visit an unusual hotels before.

I have heard "salt hotel" for the first time. I really would like to stay there. It would be an exceptional experience for me. I have never stayed in an unusual hotel. Shame on me.

When I was a child my parents went to the Salt Cathedral in Colombia and the photos were amazing!!!!!!!!!!

My answers are the followings: Yes, I'd like to visit there because it would be a great experience to stay at such a unique hotel. Yes, I have. Actually, it was not a hotel though. I stayed at a small cabin made of ice bricks in my town about 30 years ago. Back then we had much snow, but unfortunately there have been almost no snow for the past ten years mainly because of global warming. I miss the unusual place.

I woud love to stay at the salt hotel in Salar Iuni. It's on my wish list. I never stayed in a different hotel.

yes, I `d love to. NO but I would like to

Would you like to visit a hotel made of salt? I would like to, because it would be a different experience from which I would learn many things. Have you ever stayed in an unusual hotel? i haven't stayed in an unusual hotel, yet

Yes, I want to visit that hotel. No, I `m stay in normal hotel, maybe I don`t have enough money for unusual hotel :)

Yes. I would. Yes. I had.

It is wonderful to know that there is such a hotel in the world. I would like to visit the hotel and admire the scenery of the salt lake. However, I am concerned about the altitude sickness. I have been to Lasa, Tibet. High altitude can cause sickness because of the shortage of oxygen in the air that we breathe at the place. I wonder if there are sufficient medical facilities in the hotel in case of the altitude sickness. In Lasa, hospital and even coaches for the tourists are equipped with oxygen cylinders for the use of the tourists in case of need. Though I did not have altitude sickness in Lasa except for experiencing severe pain at the back of my head in one or two occasions, I still regard safety as the utmost important issue when we travel to places of high altitude.