Photos

This was taken driving on the P16 road from Daqas to Kebili (50km), a few minutes before 9am. Daqas is about 5km behind us and my camera was pointing to the north. Focal length is 70mm and the we were traveling 80km/h. It's about 350km (6 hour drive) south from the capital Tunis.

What you see is the dried up salt lake of Chott el-Jérid (7000km2). The most famous dried up salt lake, that I know, is Bonneville in the US (100km2). The dried up salt lakes are hard, flat and open and are therefore ideal to try and break the land speed record. A lot of these records were broken on Bonneville. The fastest car that drove on Bonneville exceeded 1000km/h! I am facinated by these land speed records and always wondered what the actual surface would be like in real life. I never got the chance to visit Bonneville in the US and am glad to have seen this one.

There is a road, the P16, right in the middle of the lake that is build on a 'dyke'. You can find a couple of spots along the P16 were you are able to descent and actualy drive on the dried up lake yourself. You don't need a 4x4, it can be done with a 2wd car. We didn't though.