Chott el Djerid is basically the biggest salt pan in the whole Sahara, a dried-out lake nearly 7,000 km2 in size, about 250 km long and 30–70 km wide. Most of the year it's pretty much completely dry. In the summer the temperatures are brutal and the mirages are everywhere. When you're standing in the middle, you can't even see the other bank.
Back in ancient times people saw the lake as the border between the human world and the desert. Local stories talk about "lost caravans" that got stuck in the treacherous mud. Berber legends mention a group of merchants who tried to take a shortcut between Tozeur and Kebili, wandered onto a soft spot, and their camels started sinking up to their bellies. Panic broke out, no one made it back, and the only traces were found years later. French explorer Henri Duveyrier wrote about confusing mirages that kept forcing caravans to turn back, and Thomas Shaw mentioned changing his route after guides showed him the exact place where a camel and two people disappeared into the mud for good. Even French army reports warned about deadly zones where the salt crust is only a few cm thick.
So what did we decide to do, with all these ominous stories in mind and the fact that it's the rainy season? Obviously there was only one logical choice… go straight through the middle, of course! We'd already had the track, so there was no backing out. First we did some careful scouting, the bikes were already sinking near the edge, but that was more on the eastern side.
So we smartly chose to cross on the western part. At first super slow, stopping every few hundred meters to poke at the ground. One bike way out in the front, acting like our literal vanguard. And then, just few moments later, we were blasting across full steam ahead. Every now and then you could feel the ground sucking the bike, but luckily our bikes have enough power to get through. The feeling is incredible, probably a mix of fear of the unknown, stubbornness, curiosity… and pure stupidity. Was it worth it? Hell yeah, absolutely!
Track: https://loc.wiki/t/243359381?wa=sc
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