The devil's throat

Due to a national strike in Chile on Tuesday, our tour of the day got postponed. Only hearing about this on Monday evening from the operator, we only just managed to rent mountain bikes in the town center so that we could take them out for a spin on Tuesday morning. Besides the bikes, we received some fancy vests and helmets. We planned to leave right after sunrise to avoid the heat in the afternoon. In combination with the heat, the humidity (or lack of) is actually what makes it so tough to adjust to the climate of the Atacama desert. It hovers around 15% and is a killer of our hands, noses and lips. We're going through creme like crazy.

So after a bit of predictable delay we set off to 'Gargante del Diablo' . It was a gorgeous gorge with an excellent biking trail. It was also deserted, we only came across 2 other bikers on the trail. We took longer than expected, but that had more to with us stopping every 100 meters to take pictures and losing the way at one point, rather than anything to do with our mountain biking skills (we were awesome and did some rad stunts).

Having lunch back in town we saw quite some footage of protests going on in various cities. Pretty shocking to watch.Read more