October 24: Rest day in Coyhaique
One big perk of this sort of cycling trip is that you can eat everything. And probably should. This is a great reason to take a trip in Spain or France where bad restaurants are not permitted to survive, by law.
But in rural South America it's not always a benefit. I've been through a lot of days where the only options are beefsteak, hamburger or pizza. Being hungry makes any meal better but even with that adjustment, I've had a lot of average burgers.
And in smaller towns the list of restaurants is mostly pizza places or burger places. It's like this the world over, I remember one Swedish town where finding something that wasn't a pizza place was like playing Where's Waldo.
From left to right: wall art. The bridge, one of three noted tourist attractions in Coyhaique. View down the street outside my room. The horizon. My dinner, best so far this trip.
Coyhaique is nowhere near that bad. But it did remind me of those times when I was looking for a place for dinner tonight: click on a well-reviewed restaurant, discover the menu is mostly hamburgers. Repeat.
But buried in there was DaGus restaurant. Effusive reviews - and the menu didn’t have a single burger or pizza. It's a laid-back place and so good I'm going to use it as evidence that this South America tour was a good idea. I had beef bourguignon: it was so large the waiter warned me against having side dishes. (I haven't done any cycling today so I followed his advice.)
I've got one more night here in Coyhaique and I'll search the same way tomorrow night. But it's easy to imagine that this is the best option, once again...
