Biking to the Desert Dead Sea

The deep desert float

(Reis) In the beginning I was a little sketchy about this whole mountain biking thing. But as breakfast went on, my confidence grew. Now, we step onto the terrace where the biking will start. I hop on my snazzy red bike, and I am off. After doing a few practice rounds, my self faith is at the highest it can get. As we start on the rocky, bumpy road, my confidence slowly goes… Down…Doown…Doowwn. Good sized rocks and deep sand are ALL over the place. Bumps are always in sight. And to make matters worse, we are confined to a really narrow bike path. Also, I have a bad tendency of constantly swerving. So a combination of narrow path, challenging terrain, and constant swerving, cause Panic to slowly win the battle. It takes Andrew as a trophy first, and the van is called for him. I decided that I will take the van too, because I know that I can’t make it 20KM to the destination lagoon. That is the end of biking for me for today. After taking a van to the lagoon, we get on our bathing suits and get ready to jump in!

(Dana) Contrasting the brown sand of the Atacama Desert and the red Salt Mountains nearby, the white shores and the deep blue water of the Cejar Lagoon shine brightly in the sun. Sweaty from our 20KM ride, we are excited to float in Chile’s version of the Dead Sea. Although the 30+% salinity is the only thing shared between these two bodies of water. The Dead Sea is opaque, coffee-colored, warm and oily with therapeutic squishy dark mud. In contrast, the Cejar Lagoon is crystal clear, blue and COLD and when we emerge and air-dry, we are like a nicely-salted chip! Despite the differences, whether at 100M below sea level or 2400M above, it is fun to float with no effort.