Day 46 - Interval training - oh dear!

Constitution to Chanco (70km) - Monday 10th October (bank holiday)

After a huge breakfast to sit on top of the enormous feast last night, we set off to the one place we needed to go - the supermarket to buy more food of course! A few empanadas, some 100% juice (wow no sugar, sweetener or preservatives... We might be dreaming!) and ice cold water and we were ready to start our day.

Feeling slightly coldy, I tentatively asked Ant if he expected any big hills "Na, just the rolling stuff".

An hour later, when we were still slugging up the huge steep hill out of Constitution, we thought perhaps we'd not quite read the contour lines right! We were finding it tough and for once actually sweating - a new phenomenon on this trip. It was finally humid enough for our lips not to be cracked, but that evidently had it's downfalls.

The top of the climb came and we reached the rolling section, which sneakily had caught us out. You see, small sharp ups can usually be taken rapidly, standing up in the same gear - blast them out, maintain speed and enjoy the ride. This is exactly what we were both doing, and enjoying it initially. But after our lunch stop at 30km (which despite cycling enticingly close to the Pacific was inland enough to feel more farm less ocean), we realised our error. By beating it up the short sharp inclines, we'd effectively spent the whole morning interval training and now our legs had disappeared.
It was ok though, as we set off we realised the ups were getting steeper and longer, and the flats and downs were throwing a huge head wind at us (of course!) making us work hard to go down and well as up and ensuring we had absolutely no rest at all!! Needless to say we were now plugging up hill in our most spinney gears realising the error of our earlier ways!

We had two options for our home tonight, Chanco a small inland town (does it have a hostal?), or a place on the coast with a complicated name beginning with P, a further 10km along.  P looked more inviting, coastal with the promise of accommodation, but we hadn't yet decided our route towards conception - we could go inland for better roads, or stay on the 'route del mar' and possibly hit rippio, but have the sea besides us.
As I snuffled and sneezed away, we decided to aim for Chanco and make the decision tomorrow. It was closer and we were nackered.

The cycling was actually very beautiful. The fresh sea air, rolling farms, pine and eucalyptus forests and the occasional glimpse of the pacific, and relatively traffic free - a ride that our minds enjoyed, but our legs definitely did not!

So as we rode into Chanco, we said our hotel prayers and asked a kind looking lady if she knew anywhere to stay: "oh yes, lots of hotels on the square". Wow! Amazing! Not what we would expect from this sleepy old town! And as we rolled onto the square, not what we should have expected from this sleepy old town either! What were we thinking! Everyone knows in Chile you have to ask at least 3-4 people the same question and take an average of their answers and then you probably get the right answer. So having only found one (not many!) deserted and very shabby looking hospidaje (which would be more than sufficient if we could find the owner and a key!), I decided to ask the same question again. The next answer was simply " hostal? No. None here. Nothing. Not even a hospidaje". It should be noted this was said whilst standing almost in front of the hospidaje. Like I say take an average: Many add one, divided by 2 - that should mean there is at least one other place to stay here somewhere.


 We went cycling loops around the square and found a street with no sign of life but a Hostal sign almost hidden from view. After much exploring of the premises, Ant eventually found the owner who said we could have a room, with a double bed and bathroom, for one night - and what time would we like to leave in the morning? (hmmm we want to say something early in the pretense that we will be on the road before dusk, but we both know that's pretty much impossible with our sleeping habits "11am". This was quickly followed by a counter barter from the lady "no, 9am"... What?! Why ask then?!... We continued "ok, 10am"... "Hmmm..." She was clearly not just disappointed but also ashamed and frustrated " I have to make the bed for the next guests arriving in the afternoon"... Seriously how ling does that take! It doesn't look like you'll be doing that much cleaning from the look of the room!... Then finally after some.thought... "ok 10am"... Few... Even that was early for us. It would mean waking up at 8am, but at least we'd be on the road early.

So having settled into our home, we went about exploring the town (I fail to believe it really is a town if I'm honest!) for some food. Nope. Not much of that either! Thankfully we found a shack that sold meat baps 'churassco' (a new 'delicacy' that we've started to encounter that is not dissimilar to kebab meat, though only slightly less elephant's foot, and slightly more cow... But not much!). Would we like it with cheese of Italian? Hmm what a question. We managed to work out via hale from the very smiley couple who ran the place and by recalling a comment from our Santiago walking tour guide, that Italian was not a tanned smooth talker, but actually sources that look like the Italian flag - avocado pure, mayonnaise and (in this instance to Ant's relief) fresh tomato.

We asked if they sell beer (we felt we'd probably need it to get this down)... Nope... Wine? The smiley man smiled more... "oh you mean cola cola... Yes we have that...". He winked, smiled and took an empty glass coke bottle and filled it from a carton of red wine. Enjoy your coke. We did! And the sandwiches weren't that bad after all!

We didn't want more than one though so we ventured to the supermarket to look for our next course. Yep there was a huge supermarket here... Probably bigger than the town itself... Relief!

A few yoghurts and breakfast supplies later and we picked up a Chilean sim card from an unlikely shop in the square... At least we now had internet and the ability to call deserted hospidajes if we needed to.

We strolled around the streets to walk off our rather small supper, found a very large old tall tree for Ant to fall in love with and hug a little (boy likes trees), and stumbled across a very stumbly man, stumbling out of some sort of ex services beer festival. We said 'hola', he burped, we started walking away, he made friends with a lamp post that had kindly agreed to help him stand. We called him Gerald (he looked like a Gerald) and discussed the night we'd imagined he'd had, whether he had any friends that might help him, whether we should help him - although the answer may have been yes, we also concluded that we were by no means best placed to help him. I mean what would we do - approach and grab each of his two arms, whilst communicating "common let's get you home" in the only way we could, which unfortunately would of course have to be a game of charades that let's face it Gerald would probably have struggled to see let alone interpret. We decided this scenario would only mean more trauma for Gerald who would have seen two strange looking gringos approach, start acting out house in a 'kentucky fried chicken and a pizza hut' sort of fashion, then grab him by the arms and try to seemingly kidnap him... We thought it best to just walk on and conclude that he must have some friends who will eventually notice his absence and tow him home.

We got to the end of the street almost back at the square and decided to turn around to get one last glimpse of that huge tree... And plop, there was Gerald laying down star fish on his back asleep... Hmm. Poor Gerald, he'll probably feel that in the morning!