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Venezuela's Poverty Crisis Is Turning Salt Flats Into Crucial Income
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October 10, 2022
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1:25Now PlayingThe salt harvesters of Margarita island wake up hours before sunrise, pushing wheelbarrows and carrying rakes to the salt ponds of Pampatar, which shine a psychedelic pink in the glow of the early morning. To the tourists, the water appears surreal and other-worldly, but to the locals it means there’s money to be made.
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In the glow of early morning, the Caribbean Sea shimmers a psychedelic pink in the pools that form along the eastern edge of Venezuela’s Margarita Island. To outsiders, the water appears surreal, other-worldly. To impoverished locals, it means there’s money to be made.
The pools cover salt flats that took shape centuries ago, and the pinker the water, the higher the density of salt coating the sea floor.
So they arrive early, pushing makeshift wheelbarrows and lugging rakes and shovels and begin plying a grueling craft with a method so low-tech that it would have been familiar to their ancestors.
They wade into the pools barefoot, feel gingerly around with their toes for the jagged edges of salt-crystal formations, rake the granules up, shovel them into the wheelbarrows and push them up onto shore, where they stack them into neat, pink mounds that dot the shore for as far as the eye can see. They bake the salt in the sun for a week or so till it turns white and then sell it to fishermen and cheesemakers and wholesalers.
The going price: about $0.02 per pound.
#Venezuela #MargaritaIsland #Explained
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