November 23: Rest day in Concepción
Which means laundry. And again, it's going to be tricky. Google Maps shows a bunch of laundromats around, most are closed in the weekend. There's a few that are open today, but they're closed on Sunday. They also tend to close at 1600, which means it not only needs to be done today, but quickly. Spending just the weekend in a city makes things complicated! Originally I was planning to arrive on Thursday night so I had Friday for these things. But the rest day after the crash in Temuco delayed things by a day.
Anyway, one of the very few laundromats that's open today is just around the corner. I take over my laundry bag and ask if they can get it done today? Sadly no. (The answer was a lot longer but my Spanish isn't good enough.) I'm so desperate I go back and check if skipping ironing and folding will help: still no.
My experience with hotel laundry is that it's wildly expensive but I'm now desperate enough to ask. The guy at front desk says they'll do it and have it back tomorrow! How much? He needs to find out... and then he comes back with the news that they don't actually do laundry on the weekend.
I'm out of options. All I can try are some more creative Google searches. Searching for "laundromat" instead of "laundry" finds a place that's open the whole weekend, until 8 both days. Not kidding. Why didn't it appear before? Maybe some sort of Spanish/English mismatch? Would have saved a lot of time and energy...
From left to right: bus to the laundromat. Bus shelter art. Big sculpture in the park. Painting on the library wall (with graffiti framed out).
It is not close by. 20 minutes by bicycle, including going over a long and busy bridge which may not have a cycle lane - no. An hour on foot - maybe? Ten minutes by bus... that will work. Google search may have disgraced itself, but Google Maps is great at moments like this: it gives me the place to go to catch the bus, the bus numbers to look for, and shows the route on the map so I know when to get off. And when I'm on board, some assurance I'm going the right way.
Can they do my laundry by tomorrow? No, Monday 9am. Not good, I need to leave then but I could probably make it happen... After a bit of back and forth and a very valuable assist from Google Translate, it turns out that I misunderstood, they can actually get it done in two hours!
So I got my laundry done. But I don't remember washing being this complicated on the European Divide. For the last few weeks it hasn't been easy. Maybe just badly timed rest days?
Nevertheless: this should be the last laundry day on the road. Unless something unexpected happens, I'll be in Santiago next weekend and washing won't be so urgent and complicated.
