4-6-10 Cochran, Chile

We decided to ride to Cochran, which was about 20 clicks south of the start of the road that would lead us to Argentina. A little backtracking would be necessary, but we thought it would be worthwhile as we were hoping for a good hostel with wifi and some good food. We found a little hospedaje run by a sour old lady and dropped off our stuff before running over to the local library which had fewer books than my own collection. There they had the only computers in town, three of them. I checked just a few emails as it was slow. There’s no WIFI in this town either. It’s hard to imagine a life without easy internet access. It might have a few perks, but not many.


Next we shot over to the grocery store. We were hungry. Very hungry. We hadn’t seen a grocery store since Puerto Montt and were happy to see real food again. It was big general store that had old-fashioned irons meant to be heated on a stove, Stihl chainsaws, Taurus revolvers, dutch ovens, 35mm film, cassette tapes, stoves, sides of beef, frozen chicken parts and lots of canned goods. Hot dogs were four bucks for a package of 8! Pan was cheap, a dollar for about a dozen hamburger bun sized pieces.

We wanted to cook something that would allow us to take advantage of the kitchen as we had one at our disposal back at the hospedaje. We found two bottles of Tabasco sauce and went wild. Hadn’t had a good spicy sweat since somewhere in Central America, can’t really recall where. Down here it’s all Aji, a non-spicy pepper that the locals think is devilishly hot. It is not.

We threw 8 dollars of Tabasco in the cart, several packages of pasta and sauce, some hot dogs as there was no chorizo available, cookies, eggs, juice, milk. We were going to eat well.

We pulled up to the inefficient line and were about 6 people deep. We waited for the checker to return as she’d disappeared for a while. Not sure what she was doing. There was a sacker standing all by her lonesome that probably could have done what the checker was off doing, who knows. Finally she returned and started working again.

We opened a bag of cookies and ate them all since we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. Coconut crème. I think they were good, don’t really know as I wasn’t concerned with the taste.

‘They take visa here, right?’ Mark asked

‘Yeah, I think I saw a sign out front’

We gave each other a bit of a nervous look.

“I’ll go check” I said

Sure enough, no VISA sign.

I asked the sacker if they took tarjetas de credito. ‘Oh, no’ she said in a condescending tone. Mark had been watching me from about twenty feet off as I asked her and he must have seen the look on my face as he had a horrified look on his when I glanced over him. I instantly burst out laughing.

We were pretty shocked that they didn’t take credit cards as virtually every place this size does, especially since it was the largest store in town. We were low on efectivo, not having near enough to cover our feast so we pushed the cart to the back of the store, threw more than enough coins in the empty cookie bag and walked out to the bikes still hungry. We rode to a papas fritas stand and ordered 1000 pesos of papas, a package of mustard and two of ketchup. Very good fries. Next we found another grocery store that was not unnecessarily packed and got a few essentials. Juice and pasta basically. We went home and had a meager but hot meal.

We met a guy from Wheatridge, Colorado at the little hospedaje. He was a divorced doctor looking for a piece of land down south. He said it was surprisingly expensive. He had exactly the same feeling of the average Peruvian and also of the Chileans which we have become to see as rather Peruvian in nature. He thought they drank ‘mate’ in order to stay occupied and avoid doing productive things. He was also put off by their rudeness at times.

The next morning we woke up seeing our breath under the half foot of blankets piled up on our beds. We walked out to our delectable breakfast which the owner provided. I had asked her the night before what breakfast consisted of. Her answer, “Café, café con leche, te, te con leche, pan, pan tostado, mantequilla y marmelada.”

She said it all with such enthusiasm as if it was a secret family recipe. This is the typical breakfast down here in Chile unfortunately.

Breakfast is one of the things I miss most about home, and I’m not a huge breakfast eater typically. Dennys, IHOP and Waffle House all sound pretty good at the moment.

It was coldest in our room, but only slightly warmer in the little dining room area next to it. She had a heater going in the kitchen which was next to the dining room, separated by a closed door. Don’t want that heat to get to the guests now. Mark wore his blanked over his shoulders to breakfast. She had a stove in the dining room but it wasn’t burning despite a mountainous woodpile outside. Mark debated burning his passport for a little warmth.

We ate all five pieces of bread provided and guzzled the hot water which we flavored with instant coffee. I asked for more hot water but was denied. Mark and I both saw the humor in this batty old woman and decided to leave as soon as possible.

Mark wearing his blanket into the dining room infuriated the old lady.

‘Why is the blanket out here!?”

‘Um, because it is freezing’ I replied, stating the obvious.

‘We almost died from the cold last night, I think it’s warmer outside than in here’

(evil look from old lady)

‘Do you not have cold in the USA?’

‘It is much colder in the USA, but we use ‘califaccion’ (heat)’

Yep, it’s time to go.