With a diameter of no less than 150 km, this salt lake is the largest in the world. It contains no less than 10 million tons of salt! If you're wondering how much that is roughly, think about this. Imagine a car. This one is now made entirely of salt. There is enough salt in this place to provide every person on earth with a car made of salt. Just to give you an idea of ​​how much salt there is exactly here…

Although the road surface looks slippery, it certainly isn't. It's similar to a gravel road, which I didn't quite expect. The road surface is actually nothing more than a layer of salt with salt water underneath. And in some parts the layer of salt is very thin in my opinion, I can hear the water passing under the crust. I only think of one thing: don't stop and keep cycling!

After a month of driving fairly high over (and through) mountains, I think it's high time for a change of view. Today I am going to drive into the Yungas Mountains. And while looking for a way to descend I came across the most amazing descent ever via Google Maps! 52 hairpin bends are waiting for me and not a single oncoming vehicle in sight.

After the descent I continue my journey through several small villages and everyone advises me to turn around. They tell me that it is not feasible for a cyclist to continue on the road, but I firmly decide to continue.

The next day I go through the Alto Plano and I have to come up with my own route here. Because if I look at my GPS map, there should be a fantastic view over the ice caps on the mountains. A detour well worth it!

And despite the salt flats in the beginning which certainly weren't ideal, I'm now on one of the best roads I've ridden. As icing on the cake, this road is also a descent. A perfect road, to bed, with fantastic views left and right of me! An ultimate moment of happiness.

Finding a place to sleep is difficult because the ground is almost never flat. But I managed to get a small spot. During my evening a local family came over to say hello and gave me a fantastic bag of fruit! That is fuel that I can use again for a while.

The morning has come again and I am on my way again. A long road with many hairpin bends down is waiting patiently for me. During my next overnight stay I speak to a gentleman from the hotel who has some great words to say about the mountain range. “You can do everything here, walk, cycle. We have even been chosen as Butterfly Paradise, that was 20 years ago. And we've been featured in the Lonley Planet and Editor's Choice for over 30 years.” A fantastic man who has only one flaw about cyclists. “they only stay one night, then they leave in the morning.” And that's exactly what I did the next day when the sun showed itself steadily on the horizon.