November 8: Rest day in Rio Bueno
The surgeon advised me to take at least one day of rest so that's today. I'm actually feeling OK, like I could ride today if I needed to. But pushing too hard runs the risk of getting sick, which I don't have time for. So I'm taking the day.
As always there's a few chores. I need to get salt for mouthwashing, more drinks, soft snack food, and visit an ATM. And get my laundry done. I also want to take a thank-you card to the pair of dental clinics who helped me yesterday: they were very patient with me and my Google Translated questions, and meant I could get everything done very promptly so I really appreciate it. Also cake! It's a rest day after all.
The B&B I'm staying at is nice, but it's 15 minutes walk from the town. Rain was forecast so I packed my backpack with a raincoat, then accidentally left it all behind. After I got into town the rain started. Just a drizzle, then stronger: I was in my fleece getting steadily wetter because I didn't want to take the 30-40 minute roundtrip back to the B&B.
The only interesting part is that thank-you cards aren't a thing in Chile. I found this out the hard way, of course: tried three bookstores and two mercardos and the closest I could find was a gift card. In desperation I tried a pharmacy (in hindsight, I must have been very desperate) and ended up having a chat to the lady running the shop, who explained that thank-you cards aren't a thing in Chile. She did have some A4 card and envelopes though, which I gratefully bought. Please don't ask me to explain what Chilean pharmacies have in stock, I have no idea what the rules are.
I hand-wrote the thank-you messages in Spanish, picked up some nice biscuits and trudged for 40 minutes through the rain to drop them off. They were warmly received which made it all worthwhile.
From left to right: rainy day. Excellent cake and coffee.
And that's pretty much all there is to tell. I'd been trying to hail a taxi all day without success, but after dinner someone from the restaurant offered to call one for me, since it was a 30 minute walk back to the B&B in the rain. To complicate things my B&B doesn't actually have a usable address: on Google Maps it is "Unnamed Road, La Unión, Los Ríos". The taxi driver got lost, probably accidentally, and I ended up having to do the navigation.
Tomorrow is five hours to Valdivia where I'm going to spend a day doing tourist things. Looks like a bit of rain in the early morning, but it stops around 9, so that's a good reason not to leave too promptly.
