Cycling Chile/Argentina '04 | Chillan Index Day 51 Day 53
Day 52: Chillan Moy Picante

Chillan is famous for its open-air market. After a nice breakfast with scrambled egg, we headed off.

It took us a while to find the tourist information center and nobody there speaks English. But everybody is extremely friendly and helpful, they laughed at us when Brian asked if "termas de Chillan" had "normal" pool. The termas is 4-hours of bus ride away and we had missed the one going out today.

So off to the market we went. We sampled some churros filled with Dulce and some chicken skewers. We had been wanting to try "Pastel de Choclo", a cornmeal casserole, but it was not in season. Several restaurants did have it but the price too unreasonable. So, we bought some fresh corn along with fresh fruits, (3 huge Asian pear for 300 peso), veggies, dry cherries, and a bag of green chilli sauce.

Back to the hosptaje, we shared the kitchen with Senora Sonia's helper and they liked our selection very well. I added extra chilli to our salsa. It tasted great with avocado spread on bread. "Moy Picante", "very spicy" they commented.

At dusk, we went to the bus station to check if bike lock was in. No luck there. We did though, get to find chorillana, a kind of sausage recommended by Senora's helper. It tastes okay, a bit too greasy. Our habit of getting any food available had to change, we were not cycling the Carretera Austral anymore.