October 25: Another rest day in Coyhaique
Coyhaique was very nice but is not really a tourist town. I arranged to spend two days here, then Googled for things to do. This was the wrong way around; as far as I can see the main Thing To Do in Coyhaique is the regional museum. Google showed a few other things to see but it's a stretch to call them tourist attractions so I won't list them because it would be insulting. It's not really a tourist town, and that's absolutely fine. That being said, there are a lot of hostels around so there must be a lot of visitors - but what for? Presumably not tourism...
From left to right: street art (I think I found the best ones yesterday). Swan tyre. At the #2 tourist attraction, the shepherd statue - the windblown look is realistic and good to see.
I visited the museum today, partly to get a bit of exercise and partly because I felt a bit of obligation. The museum is right on the edge of town, two kilometers away. I walked but it was cold and quite windy: a good day to be indoors rather than on the bike. (The forecast for tomorrow is much better, so I really can’t complain about my choices: two days here was the right length.)
Well: they don't have much to work with, but they're done the best they possibly could. There's clear signs that there was a healthy budget: the museum is a very nice building, everything is very nicely presented. There's a full size replica fishing boat, and a lengthy computer generated video flying around the insects and animals of Chile. There was an animation showing the history of the region, and it included Darwin's "Beagle" voyage, even though he didn't land on this part of the coast. There's models of the fish to be found in the rivers, models of the ferry on the lake ... and that's probably the clearest way of putting it; when the car ferry that connects Chile Chico with Puerto Ingeniero Ibáñez gets a high-value professionally produced model it's a sign that there wasn't enough material.
From left to right: accurate model of the ferry I went on. Border marker for the Chile-Argentina border which was the subject of a rather contentious dispute. Maté exhibit. Lemon meringue pie!
I did take a picture of the "10 commandments of maté" at the maté exhibit which is useful information. I’ve been handed maté a couple of times now, and now I know that you don’t say thanks until you’re done. Being polite I was saying thanks after my turn, but I’m sure the people I was with recognized that I was new to the game.
And even if it's not a tourist town, the cafes are great. The coffee is good, and so are the cakes! I stopped in one for lunch and had an unusually good piece of lemon meringue pie.
Tomorrow I'm back on the bike. Probably will be a while until I'm among good cafes again ... so even if Coyhaique isn't set up for tourists like me, I'm going to miss it.
