I took the bus back to Puerto Montt on Sunday with Marilyn’s daughter Denisse, my bicycle, and four cats. Denisse invited me to stay with her in Puerto, and Marilyn let me leave a bunch of things I wouldn’t be needing — my tent, my stove — until I passed by again.

Anything I needed they somehow produced; any problem I had they solved. At one point I told them they were too nice, and Marilyn said, that’s just how we are; we like giving more than receiving. I said they were so nice I almost felt bad for not being nearly as good of a human. I was mostly joking around, but then I said, though maybe in the future I’ll be inspired to be nicer, and Marilyn seemed completely serious when she replied, “exactly.”

My bike gets fixed

Confession: I know very little about bikes. I do know how to change a tire, generally with a lot of swearing involved, and I used to know how to adjust a different kind of brake that my current bike doesn’t even have, and that’s about it.

I brought my broken bike into the shop, convinced I’d wind up waiting for weeks while they ordered a replacement part. Instead, the mechanic, using a tool I already had, fixed the problem in about ten seconds. Boom.

It turns out there’s another screw you have to loosen first and then you can tighten the one that needed to be tightened. Which was exactly what my bike guy back in Minneapolis had told me via email, but, not knowing the names of the parts, I didn’t understand a word of it until I watched the Chilean mechanic.

He didn’t even charge me.

I find my fuel
Denisse and I went everywhere. The biggest supermarket where they even sell clothes. The gigantic Chilean equivalent of Home Depot, with an entire camping section. No one had my fuel.

I had resigned myself to using rubbing alcohol, which I had remembered was a back-up option, but after getting my bike fixed I happened to walk past a small hardware store and decided to stop in just in case.

When he handed me the bottle I was so surprised I had to ask three times and inspect the label to make sure it was really the right fuel. “No one carries this; I’ve looked everywhere!” I said.

“I know,” he said, “but we do.”

I celebrate my birthday
Since I was leaving the morning of my birthday, Denisse decided we needed an early celebration. She took me to a bakery and ordered one of every kind of pie — four slices in all. We had it for dinner along with a bottle of mango sour, which turned out to be much stronger than I had anticipated.

Then I packed up and went to bed, ready to start the Carretera again the next day.