Lagunas Day 3: Sand and Thunderstorms

The night in the tent at 4530m was warmer than expected.
The sun kissed me good morning at 6am, warming up my tent and making it easy to get up and start the day.

We were slow at packing up and left at 8.30am, thinking we had an easy day ahead - at least so we had read in someone elses travel report from two weeks ago.

Either the person writing that report is the biggest masochist on earth, or it was simply BS, because today was far from being an easy, breezy ride.

The whole day was made up of sand, washboarded sand and sandy washboard again, making cycling challenging and in places impossible. Especially for Matt with his narrower tyres, pushing was often inevitable.
I for my part spent a good part of the ride wondering whether you could get a concussion from riding on washboarded surfaces all day...because it very much felt like you could.

Almost 2/3 into the ride, as we were passing through the endless desert landscape, we noticed the weather changing once again. Big, dark clouds started covering the horizon to all sides.

Knowing how much I hate thunderstorms, Matt told me to go ahead to the shelter we were aiming to reach today, as he was noticeably slower in the sand. He had to say no more, and my thunderstorm-fear soon had me race the sandy washboard with almost 18 kph (my poor butt). 🍑

As I reached the Arbol de piedra, our designated goal for the day,around midday, the thunderstorm started rumbling tremendously...
We were hoping to find shelter with the park rangers living there, but when I arrived there was no one there and all the buildings, including a brand new fancy toilet building, were locked. Great.

Luckily the worst of the Storm passed us some 100m to the east, and while it was dark and windy, we got spared the worst.
Matt arrived 20min after me, telling me about the battery of lightning he saw (and that I am happy not to have seen...).

This one and a second storm continued to circle around us for most of the afternoon, and so we could not do much more than sit around and wait for the wind to weaken to set up the tents.

At 6pm we could finally pitch the camp and hide inside our tents, sheltered from the wind.

The one entertaining part of the afternoon:
While we waited, many tour Jeeps came to let tourists marvel at the - frankly, underwhelming - Arbol the Piedra. Of course all these tourists were devastated to find the bathrooms were closed and frantically looked for other places to hide and do what they had to do...
It's the small things in life.

🚴‍♀️Distance cycled: 29 km
🕓 Time travelled: 4 h
⛈️ Thunderstorms: 2
⛰️ Highest point on route: 4618 m (camp)
🚽 Jeep tourists looking for a loo: 30+Read more