We hit the sack pretty early last night, certainly by South American standards, and slept well until about 2am which is 7am back in South Africa so our bodies told us to wake up. I'm sure they'll settle in to their new time zone over the next few days. I had struggled to find any decent food the night before so it was stale, dry pan (little round breads) from a mercado a little way away because the local mercado recommended to me was shut for the New Year. I picked up some butter and eggs at the same time hoping to fry the eggs as an accompaniment but I couldn't get the stove at the hostal to work. Breakfast this morning was empenades from the same mercado which is what I should have bought last night. I can see us eating a quite a lot of these over the next few weeks.

The owner of the hostal, Jorge, was back today - we're not too sure who the young fellow is who let us in yesterday. Friendly, helpful and loquacious, Jorge is very hard to ignore and very easy to like. I took the opportunity to book an extra night at his hostal so we can sit out the heavy rain predicted for tomorrow. This means we will only have to deal with lighter rain when we leave on Thursday, if the weather forecast on Wunderground is to be believed. It also means we can rest up properly.

It was raining lightly and was pretty cold this morning when we cycled down to the mall a couple of kilometers away. Here we managed to pick up a data sim card for those times that we can't find wifi and also buy gas cylinders for the stoves. Somehow both of us had forgotten to pack t-shirts we had identified for use on this trip so we found replacements for them at the mall.

By the time we got back to the hostal it had warmed up quite a bit. In fact this afternoon is dry and pretty balmy at 17 degrees C. The recommended mercado was open today so I bought a loaf of bread and checked out the rest of the goods with an eye on what we should buy for supper and what to stock up on for Thursday. The owner chatted away to me and, more via sign language than anything else, said he had seen us cycling round and round yesterday while we were looking for the hostal. Chileans are proving to be very friendly and ready for a chat. Jorge had showed me how to work the stove so we were able to enjoy the fried eggs that we were supposed to have for supper last night for lunch today.

After lunch we both crashed only waking up after five o'clock. Hopefully we will get to bed a bit later this evening and slot into a better sleep rhythm.