Great Pyramids
01 June 2008 | Bonaire
No, we are not in Egypt. This is a photo of a salt pyramid taken on the south end of Bonaire. The islands oldest industry, salt farming, once employed slave labor. Salt being crucial to many chemical processes is produced here in huge salt ponds. Seawater is driven by the trade winds through narrow channels or pumped using windmills into shallow lakebeds. There the sun evaporates the water leaving a supersaturated solution or heavy brine. This is then dried further until only the salt remains. Salt crystals are scooped up with heavy machinery and loaded into a hopper where it is cleaned of impurities and then piled into these huge piles for storage awaiting cargo ships that take the salt to America. They produce 400, 000 metric tons of salt per year. This salt primarily goes to the Unites states for use in residential water softeners. We stopped near the pyramids to take pictures and could see salt crystals the size of large grapefruits in the piles.