After leaving La Paz I headed south across Bolivia. All of Eastern Bolivia sits on a high plain at about 10,000-12,000 feet. There aren’t honestly that many mountains and it’s pretty flat, just super high up. There wasn’t much to see along the way other than some small towns, and I got away just in time because a couple days later they blocked the road between north and south Bolivia. My next stop was the Uyuni salt flats. It is a remnant of a massive ancient lake that used to sit there but is now dried up and all that’s left is a thick layer of salt. They told me it’s up to 30 feet thick in some places. The sheer expanse of it can’t be understood until you get to it. I expected a normal size lake of salt that you could drive across in 20 minutes. In reality, it takes about 3 hours to drive across it at 60 mph. Just a massive expanse of white salt as far as you can see in every direction. It’s a little eery when you get out into the middle of it because it’s so empty. There are a few monuments and buildings made out of salt scattered across it that I drove out to.

Before you drive on the salt flat, you go and get an oil coating sprayed onto your vehicle. This prevents the salt from sticking too much. Once you’re all oiled up you can head out there. Driving across it feels like driving a boat on a very smooth ocean. It’s almost perfectly flat so you can drive as fast as you want. I got my little 300cc up to it’s top speed of about 80 mph out there. I also rode out to some massive islands that stick up out of the salt flat like islands in the ocean. It’s a pretty stark contrast to see brown rocky islands covered in cacti sticking up out of a sea of whiteness and they were really cool to ride and hike around and explore them.

Once you leave the salt flat, you head back to where you got your vehicle coated to get it washed off good. You have to get all the salt washed off otherwise it will erode the metal parts very quickly. After a long day exploring the salt flats I headed into Uyuni to spend the night and get ready for my next leg of the trip.