Talca, Monday

1543 At Varoli on 3 Oriente. Menu given to me verbally but getting pollo asado with chips. Walked up to Cerro La Virgen and back. Feet hurt. Write more later.

Jams Blunt "You're Beautiful" just played, couldn't help thinking of the Sesame Street "Triangle" version...

Feel a bit better than yesterday, and I think I feel better for having got out and "done" something compared to how I felt this morning.

Floss (a few days ago), toothpaste and deodorant have all run out as of this morning so will see if I can buy any after this - ideally at a supermarket where I can see price before I buy.

1610 Food pretty good, getting a coffee. Calendar on wall from Relojeria Omega has among other things a picture of the statue at Cerro La Virgen on. Also says "Donde canta el pajarito" ; is this referring to the city as a whole??

1744 Back at hostel. Got floss, deodorant and toothpaste (all except toothpaste eye-wateringly expensive) at supermarket, treated myself to cold 1.5 litre bottle Nordic Mist ginger ale so drinking that on swing chair outside room now while using dregs of phone battery. Going to sort out onward travel later but have cold drink first.

1815 Flicked through guide book. Toyed with getting the scenic train over to Constitucion on the coast. However, booking.com's absolute cheapest place is £70+unspecified taxes and charges for three nights, the second cheapest place is £121 including taxes and charges and airbnb seems to be helpfully offering me properties in Talca despite having searched for Constitucion. I think it's absolute high season and gut feeling is I'm just not that desperate; I could easily go another time of course.

Since I am flicking through guide book very casually and reading it in crappy Dropbox PDF viewer I only just noticed now that at start of section on this region it says a rental car is pretty much required to reach most national parks, which makes me feel a bit better about not "doing" any of them.

If I went to Constitucion I'd also then probably end up coming back on train to Talca in order to get back to Santiago, though I could probably get a bus.

1909 OK. Just been to train station to buy a ticket for Rancagua and there is no service to anywhere tomorrow. I don't know why, but the woman at the ticket desk was very definite about it.

2008 OK. I went to bus terminal on the other side of train station - first time have been that side of tracks, did seem a bit "earthier" and bus terminal just ever so slightly intimidating, but I got a bus (first two or three places asked didn't have one to Rancagua) for midday for CLP6k and at least I get to patronise Talca, Paris & Londres whose garage and buses I had seen around town and whose name amused me.

Have booked a half-decent cheap-ish (hair under £20/night, so sure as fuck not cheap, assuming there's no 19% VAT on top because I'm a foreigner) hostel in Rancagua for four nights on booking.com. Airbnb mixing places miles away in the results without it being clear until you click on them, presumably because they don't have much. One place on airbnb was vaguely tempting but check in was 7-9pm and I expect to arrive about 3-4pm (tho only a guess) and they also list wifi as an amenity then in the small print say "amenity limitation - wifi - I don't have wifi yet", which doesn't instill confidence.

Sorely tempted to eat at one of the numerous cheapy restaurants round the bus terminal but I'm not really hungry and I have some bananas and frankly the last thing I need is to be eating even more.

Owner (?) said something jokingly to me about coming back drunk on Sat night as I came back in the last time. OK I guess but also a bit off-putting.

There's a private bathroom at the new hostel and apparently also a washing machine so I'm not going to hand-wash tonight or ask about the washing machine which according to airbnb is here - if I'm hand-washing better to do it tomorrow when I won't have to pack the damp clothes the following morning.

2046 So quickish write up of the trip to Cerro La Virgen. Walked over there, out of town the path by the side of the road wasn't always super distinct but generally not too bad - I had to fight through some thorny bushes growing over in one or two places and one spot was thick enough I climbed over the crash barrier and walked in the road for a couple of metres to get past.

The bridge over the river was oddly cool - there's another bridge next to it which had no traffic, and only when I got almost to the other side did I realise the other bridge has a big chunk missing - you could see it on the ground underneath. Obviously a shame and I suspect this might have been down to the 2010 earthquake but it was a strangely impressive sight.

Was mainly apprehensive about dogs not muggers but didn't have any trouble. One property on the walk up seemed to have a million dogs wandering around and barking their fucking heads off (all the time; not just as I passed) but they didn't try to cross the road to get at me (I don't think they were all penned in) or anything. There were a few stray dogs in the road just outside the little free children's play park at the top of the hill, but although I felt a bit apprehensive as it was fairly lonely they didn't cause a fuss - as I've said before, most of the strays aren't really territorial. There were a few more dogs inside the park, including some sitting on one of the benches, but again they didn't cause any problems. After being up there a while I had a couple of bananas and a single dog came and sat just in front of me; I gave it that last bit of the second banana but it wasn't interested.

The statue of the Virgin isn't huge but it's not bad and I sat on some the nearby benches for a bit. Also spotted a sign "al Cristo" and wandered - a bit apprehensively again, there was no one else in sight at this point - in that direction and found a small Jesus-on-cross statue.

Views pretty nice, and you could see the two bridges from up there. Was a bit dubious about walking back which perhaps made me not hang around up there as long as I otherwise would, but was prob there for 30 mins or so and don't really feel I wanted to stay much longer anyway. There were one or two families and a couple and a pair of blokes around at various points, plus a few other people at one or two very small kiosky things, so it wasn't deserted, but not very busy. I guess that's because it's a weekday.

Prob was about 1.5h walk each way. I took daypack with maybe litre of water and my fleece jic (didn't need it); it was warm but not really hot and although it was good to get back into town and loiter in the cool of Varoli it was on the whole a fairly pleasant walk. Felt a bit exposed to traffic once or twice but generally I was behind the safety barriers to stop cars going off the edge of the road so I didn't have to worry about cars casually running me down. One fucker shouted at me (no idea what) as I was in an awkward place on inside of a tight blind bend (but not in the road; I was in the sloped drainage area at edge) but generally fine.

Among some of the roadside junk (eg beer bottles) I found a small "anything-including-UK to Euro/Chile" plug adapter - I picked it up and tried it out a bit ago and it does work. I don't need it as such since I bought that universal one in Santiago, but worth having I think - and maybe on a future trip I won't bring the universal adapter depending on weight/size considerations.

A not-too-terrifyingly large spider is straggling around on the floor. It doesn't seem terribly healthy but I wish it would just fuck off out of sight.

0012 Had shower, half packed, will go to bed shortly. I think my recent irritation is down to some combination of:

- Rushing around, contrary to what I've said over and over again about not doing it, 3 days here, 3 days there, with mental load and actual organisation of the next stop continually looming. (Yes, this is hardly the greatest burden in the world. But the point is that I think it's contributing to me not enjoying the trip.) In part the problem here is I don't want to book in for a week somewhere then find it's incredibly dull and/or the accommodation sucks in some way.

- Failing to meet (albeit vague) goals like getting some hiking in.

- It's not ultra-expensive here in Chile (I *think* Argentina was a bit more affordable but wouldn't really like to commit myself) but nor is it so cheap I almost don't worry about it. If I were achieving some specific "big ticket goal" I wouldn't mind spending significant money so much, but when I'm just puttering around and getting a bit worked up it's more annoying.

- The plan/lack of plan was and still is to "drift" around a little bit and see what happens (eg when I was in Guatemala, I had half anticipated a longish stay somewhere to study, but I hadn't definitely decided on where or for how long before I got to Xela, and even then the duration evolved over time). I think not having had anything "significant" happen is annoying me, even though it's a natural risk and also a stage that has to be gone through before maybe something *does* happen.

Not sure if that's coherent or complete but WTF.

I am booked for four nights, not three, in Rancagua in an attempt to balance some of these concerns better. Also if I can get an apartment in Santiago afterwards (it's really not that much more expensive than most other places I've been in Chile, unless prices have gone up since was last there) for 10 days or whatever until I fly to Brazil, I think I can probably fill the time semi-"productively" and do some quietly enjoyable things like the language exchange or some other meetup groups or walking in that big park.

Anyway, bed.