Even before we had started the day many trucks carrying heavy loads and producing clouds of dust, had already passed. The tent therefore under a thin and light layer of brown dust. We were lucky that it was not volcanic dust.
At the time we couldn’t really understand where everybody was going.
Guallatire, the tiny little village we were heading for, was obviously not the reason for the rush of lorries, no way. At the police station a friendly officer, a carabiñero, filled the strange black water sack with water, so we could continue. No shops, no new chocolate reserves for us, no reason to stay here any longer … life is so easy.
Now what better reason could there be to continue than the clouds emitted by the smoking Guallatire volcano (6060 m) right next to you? All the trouble we already had with all the dust lorries, we didn’t want it to get any worse on a much bigger dimension. So, lets go!
At the bottom of the valley now. Time for a short snack break. The day should get a pretty hard one for both of us. The terrible road, the big trucks, strong sunlight, fully loaded bikes, the altitude and only mediocre food supply … what an outlook. An exhausted body easily spreads this fatigue on and weighs heavily on your mind!
Trivia start to matter and they’ll keep your mind tied up. That’s pretty hard when you’re alone but it’s a thousand times harder when you’re a group! In these situations silence is golden. Your mental capabilities are not 100%Â – far from that – so you have to find a way to control your thoughts. In these situations a bit of intuition can help a lot!
I went to the river, picked up some stones and threw them into the water. Later I slung them into the water and watched them disturb the otherwise harmonious flow of the water.
These interruptions, these turbulences caused by my stones make me think. What are we, I mean we humans? Are we also not just some turbulences in the flow of time on this planet? Some may think they’re great but in the end the stream will compensate the differences. A big manager lying in the flow of time like a giant rock in a dangerous current somewhere in the mountains. When his time as individual is over maybe his ideas will live on for some time, but these times are limited like the lifetime of a rock in a strong current. Tiny little sand particles in the water will hit it and make it to sand itself over time. All the big names of today, for how long will they be known, for how long will people talk about them? So what should we focus on in life? Is it important to pass on your wealth? What about your genes and ideas? Or might it be better to live in a meaningful way, connected to others, living a life of love and peace and unifying with what you’ll be one with anyway when you’ve passed?
We continued, leaving volcano Guallatire behind. Now slowly we got the idea why the trucks came here. Must be the salt lake Surire because at certain places on the road we found what they had lost, 5 cm big parts of the salt lake. From above 4000 m altitude they were bringing this white crust down to the ocean it seemed.
The police officer in Guallatire replied to my question about what the camiones had laden with an answer I could not understand. But I surely couldn’t make out the word sal in his reply, so I was mislead the first half of the day. Probably he had answered something about the industrial usage of the salt. There’s another word which I’ve just found on the dictionary right now: clorhidrico.
Finally we make out the lake of salt directly in front of us. Tiny little things, smaller than ant for sure, are slowly wandering over the surface of the great white plain. That’s the trucks, these tiny little bastards 
Due to the heavy winds that came up in the late afternoon we decide to pitch the tent quickly. Cycling is getting too frustrating if you can’t make the progress you’ve planned in your head.
Securing the tent from the furious winds has first priority! Better take 10 minutes longer and have a safe shelter for the night than risking to lose the precious 600 € shelter, the only shelter we had.
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