I have to recount an unbelievable meal experience. I arrived in Antofa after a 6:30am flight from Santiago. Everything went smoothly, I even managed to find myself a cute and fairly inexpensive hotel room almost straight off the bat. I took a walk around town, bought myself an empanada, checked out the beach where I saw a massive sea lion and a bunch of pelicans and then took a nap.
I was hungry when I woke up, so I went to a restaurant I saw earlier in the day. They seemed to have well priced lunch and many specials, which suits me since I haven't tried much chilean food yet. I accidentally tried ordering desayunos even though it was 3pm, and the waitress directed me to the lunch menu. I picked the second thing on the menu, the ceviche mixte. I didn't really know what to expect, since I was still a little tired and a million new spanish words were still breezing through my head. Everyone else was eating some type of curry or soup with small biscuits, so I figured I was getting that.
The meal took a very long time, and I started getting nervous. Free Willy was on TV in spanish, so that calmed me down a little. Finally, the waitress came to my table with a tower of fruitas-del-mare. There was raw fish, octopus, squid with red onions and red pepper in a lime sauce. Hidden underneath were 3 small vegetables, a potato, sweet potato and a slice of corn on the cob. It came with some dried corn kernels and a creamy hot sauce. The seafood was incredible. It was rich and fresh, not too fishy or chewy (although the diced octopus was a little rubbery). I dug in and after 10 minutes or so I had hardly made a dent.
It is fairly naive of me not to know what ceviche was, I've even had it once before in Thailand. Regardless, it was a nice surprise. I think I'll have to go through that menu plate by plate to see what other surprises are waiting for me! The icebreaker for my conference starts soon, and I have my talk tomorrow, so I'm pretty busy for the next day or so!