Day 48 - bye bye ocean

Buchupureo to Coelemu - Friday 14th October 80km

So we finally managed to say goodbye to our lovely cabin and set off up the cliff towards the next and final coastal town before we head inland.  After a good steep climb and 10km later we swept down into the town, picked up supplies and said goodbye to the sea one final time, then turned the corner to head inland.
Of course this meant a steep climb over the cliffs and after the stormy weather it was incredibly warm, sticky and humid. Sweat pouring, but very pleased to be back on our bikes, we settled into the climb and enjoyed churning the pedals.

After a few km climbing Ant said jokingly, "looks like we've got a 10km climb ahead of us!!!", both of us chuckling - we knew it was likely to be a long climb but thought 10km was a vast over estimate.

Almost exactly 10km later, after much sweat, thankfully no blood, and no tears, we finally started the lovely rolling descent. A steep climb up, then gently down to lose just a bit of altitude - then repeat.

45km into our day and we swooped down into Querihue (a rough approximation of the actual town name). We sat in the plaza, made avocado bread rolls (our new favourite lunch), grabbed some cash, then set off down the road, along the river valley towards Coelemu - our next stop on route to Concepcion.
Although busier, this road was less hilly and more gentle rolling lumps (joys of being slightly more inland), so we made good progress and eventually found a town just short of our final goal. It had three small hostals and was a tempting place to stop. Not really a town, just a cluster of houses along the main road - but it definitely had places to sleep. We'd been unsure if we would find a home in either town so this was appealing.
But getting the extra 10km under our belt today and reaching Coelemu would help us tomorrow so we took the chance.

As we reached Coelemu, we were greeted by the brown sign of hope - showing what services it has in pictures - this one showed the two pictures that make us happy - knives and forks; and a bed.

After several laps around the plaza and knitted streets surrounding it, we eventually found the hotel. Ok it was about 6pm in a Friday night so perhaps the owners had been enjoying their evening, but Ant reported a very Faulty Towers experience of trying to get a room, whilst I waited watching the boys.

One lady wasn't sure is they wanted to give us a room (couldn't be bothered), the next said yes sure, they then spent a while trying to open a room and failing, then settled on the room outside with sliding patio doors and a distinct smell of furniture polish. It was clean and cosy enough, with its own bathroom so we were more than happy - even if we did have to use our bike padlock to add some sort of security to the unlockable patio doors!
We found a bar that sold yummy warm sandwiches and chips, and bumped into an amazing bakery on route.

So happy and cozy we settled down for Poldark.