Chillán, an agricultural center

THAT’s what I’m talking about. 1 liter of aji!

Sunday we took a bus to Chillán, in the heart of an agricultural area east of here. We are within walking distance of the Callao Terminal de Buses in Concepción. The bus ride took an hour and a half and cost us US$4 each, each way. We took a really nice, practically empty bus from Linatal (BioLinatal) out, but couldn’t figure out where to catch the same bus company coming back, even though the nice ticket guy wrote down the location. That was at the train station, but we couldn’t figure out where or when the bus came. Not to worry, there are many bus companies that come to Chillán, however, only one seemed to have a true terminal (Linea Azul). We took that one home (not as nice as Linatal and the same price).

We didn’t take a lot of photos, so I’ve pinched a few from the Internet (and included links back to them).

Chillán market, from overland’s Flickr photos

They have a large market, where Tim bought me the liter of hot sauce (aji) pictured above. Yum, yum, yum, yum! We ate a simple (and cheap!) lunch in the indoor market.

 

 

 

Chillán’s funky cathedral, from Wikipedia, Chillán

I didn’t take a photo of the cathedral because the cross is being repaired and is obscured by scaffolding (another earthquake restoration?). It’s pretty wild, for a church.

Beautiful church

Shrine outside of the church

Tim near the square

The trees were still flowering, and the town looked nice. The area outside of the market blocks was pretty dead on this Sunday.

Muerte al invasor, from www.novedadesdetabasco.com

We wanted to see the murals by Mexican painters David Alfaro Siqueiros and Xavier Guerrero at the Mexico School in Chillán, but they are still being restored after the 2010 earthquake, and the building was closed. We could not get in there to see them or the other murals we saw when we peaked through the windows.