Chile puts the "hiking" in hitchhiking

Through this trip we had good days and bad days. And then, there was that day we left Temuco.

First it took us forever to get to the road out of town.

Then, when we finally made it, we stood there, thumbs out, confident and smiling at the passing-by cars by a bunch of nice yellow flower bushes and a load of side-of-the-road-rubbish.

Nothing.

A blurry picture of the flowers. You'll have to imagine the rubbish,

So we decided to make a sign saying "North", because maybe some cars were getting out of town and taking the higway (9 kilometres further) going south. It was our first time with a sign, and we though it was lovely. I held it out while Chey had his thumb out.

It even had a smiley face.

Nothing.

So we made one extra sign, that Chey held, saying "Por favor" (please).

Nothing.

And there were many cars.

After that, puzzled, we started thinking we were going to have to walk some. So we did. And then some more. And then some more.

The backpacks were heavy, the sky was grey, and the drivers were absolutely oblivious of the poor us on the side of the road. It was pretty miserable.

Except for this cute little fella on the ground. He was pretty cool.

At some point we stopped on a little roundabout where a random toothless seemingly homeless man started mumbling things to us while he frantically searched his pockets (I couldn't help thinking he was going to pull out a knife or a gun, but now I think he was probably just scratching).

So we put on the backpacks again and kept going, after deciding that the reason of our bad luck was the lack of trucks, the big friends of hitchhikers. 

Logically, when we made it to the highway there would be trucks, which would mean success!

But... we still had at least 7 km to go. So we walked more, for so long it seemed like ages.

 It was probably not that bad and I'm probably dramaqueening, but the backpack was cutting into my shoulders and I won't say that I had to stop and cry my frustration out, but it might have happened.

When we got to the (oh, glorious!) highway, where other two groups where hitching (luckily in the opposite direction), Chey found a very handsome hat.

Chey's very handsome hat.

And not too long after, we got a lift to the next big-ish town, Talca. Of course, it was a truck.

Yay!

The driver was quite silent, which was nice, and the drive was uneventful. 

We got to Talca and had dinner at the most ugly karaoke/fast food place, where we ordered fries, fanta and salad. The salad was actually pretty nice. 

We went to bed in our random hotel, exhausted and looking forward to the following day when we would finally make it to Santiago and real coffee.