Gravel road pictures from top to bottom:
1. Dried salt-earth-mud near Colchani (lots of rumble)
2. Dirt road as an exeption without wash board (just a little lurch)
3. Sandy track, steep uphill, only pushabel (miserable work)
4. Dream-track made from smooth salt-earth-mixture (Juhuu!)
5. On coming traffic on dry gravel road (just stop breathing!)
   (mi/ma/mi/ma/mi)

And where do these dirt roads lead to? To lonesome, lost villages in the middle of nowhere. There we didn't have many diversion and recovery. If you have good luck you can buy some water and something to eat. The salt at the side of the roads looks like snow. Dogs wich are just skin and bones are roaming around, like always looking for food, otherwise it's only a ghost town. (mi)

In the altiplano we found beautiful places to camp. The advantage of this lonely area is, that you can camp very close to the road, because nearly nobody comes by. (mi)

Cause of the migration into the cities there are many houses empty, mostly houses from adobe. Here we used an old shelter as a rain roof while we were preparing our lunch because a thunderstorm passed very close. Otherwise there is nothing far and wide to take shelter. (mi)

Lamas or Alpacas (we'll never be able to make out the diffrence) sometime look really arrogant. On this bad sand-road we asked ourselves what we are doing here! (mi)

When the sun at noon burns down merciless, even an improvisational place of shade is better than nothing. Otherwise a breake at noon is more exhausting than recreative. We admire all the animals and plants, which can stand this bad conditions and stay alive. But not all survive. (ma, mi)

Washboard and lose sand: the nightmare of all cyclists, even of mountain biker, what we heared of the two brave Dutch Sandra and Ronald (see also at "who we met"). The only solution was pushing or better draggling the bikes. That was sometimes no more fun! In the backgrond you can see one of the sandstorms which blow always around us. (mi, mi)

"Oups, where ist the road left?" Such a river crossing can be really refreshing after a long, dusty day. (mi)

THE "insider tip" of the nativs: use the pathes next to the train tracks! What a pleasure to escape the bad roads for a while. (mi)

After some hundreds of kilometers of gravel that's for shure: This experience we don't need anymore. Without full suspension we like more to ride on paved roads! Fortunately, even in the most remote area you can find alternatives and doing so you meet nice people (see also at "Who we met"). (mi)