ARGENTINA. Salar de Pocitos. Small mining settlement on the railway line. 1996. The train journey from Salta in Argentina to Socoma in Chile is a voyage through the barren but beautiful Alto Plano desert that straddles the north-west of Argentina and central Chile. The rail line was built to transport sulphur, salt and sandstone from mining operations on the Alto Piano. Although many of the mines are now disused, the railway provides a link between Argentina and Chile in this remote region and is now seeing something of a tourist, 'boom' as trekkers and travellers come to the area for some of the most outstanding and rugged landscape to be found in South America.