Lagunas Day 4+5: Laguna Colorada

The night was short and the sleep bad. Maybe it was the altitude, maybe the cold of the day before, but sleep just didn't come for me until the early morning.

We had a very early start at 6.30 am, trying to avoid getting cought in yet another thunderstorm predicted for the early afternoon. But since our information about the thunderstorm was already 2 days old (last internet access), we tried getting as much of a time buffer between us and the storm as possible.

The road was terribly sandy, almost impossible to cycle and both of us kept getting stuck.

At some point I decided to.look for an alternative path and started pushing my bike across to.the other side of the sandy valley to what looked like another path on the map.
It turned out this was a great decision, as this side of the valley had firmer, stoney sand ground making it possible to ride at a half decent speed.

Shortly he Laguna Colorada came into sight. This Lagoon changes colours throughout the day, ranging from a rusty brown in the morning to a stunning pink in the evening. And of course it is home to several hundred flamingos 🦩

I could see the weather changing slowly as I approached the Lagoon, but thinking I still had plenty of time there was of course no passing by without an extended photo stop!

I had not factored in how terrible the road would become again, now that we were back on the main path, making for very slow going.

6 km before reaching the tiny aglomerate of refugios we were aiming for, the sky started getting dark, thunder began to roar and the first lightning could be seen. Of course this was once again while riding through a shelterless valley, and got me scared near to death.
So, we once again found ourselves racing against a storm. This time along a path whose quality got worse and worse as the storm drew in closer and closer.

Shouting obscenities at each and every stone and bump in my way, I kept cycling for 20 more minutes until the shelter finally came into sight. And not a minute to late!...15min after reaching the safe heaven all hell broke loose, with thunder, lightning, rain and hail lasting all afternoon. Also Matt, who struggled even more with the road conditions, made it just minutes before the storm hit.

We pulled up at refugio that we had heard was very cyclist friendly.
And they were! We were very low on money at this point (the last ATM we passed was in Uyuni, 6 days prior) and I had run out of food. Unfortunately, the main tienda of this tiny village, my planned resupply point, was closed, with the owner being "gone for a few days"...and noone knowing when they would return.

The refugio hosts saw us struggling and offered us to stay for free in the refugio the next day, as it continued raining non-stop, and even gave us lunch and all the leftover food of the tour groups staying there for breakfast and dinner🍝🥞💚

So we spend one rest day here, doing some bike maintenance (I had gotten myself another puncture trying to escape the storm the day before) and enjoying not being out in the windy cold for once.

The next morning the hosts did not only give us free breakfast again, bus also all the leftover bread, pancakes and other food of the 27 ppl tour group who stayed the night, to take as provisions for the next days! We were saved and set off towards snowy mountain tops with our bags heavy with food!

🚴‍♀️Distance cycled: 27 km
😴 Rest days: 1
〰️ KMs of Washboard sand: 15
🛒 Shops open at resupply point: 0 😱
⛈️ Thunderstorms (barely) avoided: 1
🍛 Free meals received: 4 each ❤️Read more