Up on the roof

Emboldened by the previous day’s underwhelming breakfast, I had a lie-in, before one of those days where nothing particularly touristically exciting happens, but necessary things such as laundry get done. I also had possibly the worst meal I’ve had so far in South America, a bland combination of chicken and rice in which the former was, as I discovered when I’d almost finished it, not fully cooked all the way through. Quite how it can take 40 minutes to undercook a piece of chicken is beyond me, but I guess I should just count my lucky stars that I didn’t get food poisoning. So I comforted myself by visiting one of the local shops which proudly advertises “32 different types of empanada” and partaking of an “Espanola”, which had chicken, ham, egg, chorizo and onion, all in a pasty. And very pleasant it was, too.

The rest of the afternoon was largely spent up on the roof terrace, chatting with Kyle and a Scottish couple, Rich and Tam, reading and doing some advance planning for Bolivia. I was due to meet up with Cameron, the American exchange student whom I’d bumped into in Puerto Varas and Valdivia, that evening, but unfortunately he was feeling ill that afternoon (had he been eating chicken…?) and had to drop out. I tried getting back in touch with Aga, and got a message saying they should be at the Plaza de Armas around 10, but, when I got there and looked around for half an hour or so, I couldn’t find her or her friends, so I hopped on one of the last trains back to my suburb and gave myself another early night, ahead of the bus to Valparaiso the next morning.