Chiloe

30/03/13 to 04/04/13 - The next morning we took the bus from Pucon to Puerto Montt, which took all afternoon. We arrived just in time to catch the ferry to Chacao on the island of Chiloe (the biggest island in South America). The ferry journey was nice but quite chilly as the wind was blowing off the icy Pacific and we felt like we might experience a bit of winter after all. In the channel there were a few big yellow and red boats, that looked a bit like toy boats as they sat in the dark, icy blue sea.

After docking, the bus continued to Ancud. After a huge plate of Curanto (the local speciality, consisting of a huge plate of huge mussels, clams and oysters, with a side of chorizo sausage, Gannon steak, chicken leg and two types of dumplings) we slept well and struggled to get stuck into the full spread of a breakfast the next morning as we were still full from the night before.

We decided to walk off the bulge with a walk up to a viewpoint above the town. There was a great view over the sea and the snow-capped volcanoes in the distance.  We also visited the museum which had a full skeleton of a whale that had beached here some years ago.  In the main square there were a few table football (or baby-foot) tables, so we had a few games there.  Then it was back to our place for a (deliberately this time) meat-free pasta meal watching the sunset from the bench in front of our hostel. We chatted to a canadian couple, Dave and Marilyn, who were very funny to talk to, especially after a few wines and we later saw them playing on the outdoor gym on the seafront at midnight.









They told us about their trip up from the south, and they helped sow seeds into our minds about continuing to Patagonia. Should we go back up north to the warm weather, or down to the extreme south?

The following day after yet another great breakfast of fruits, yoghurt, homemade bread, ham and cheese, we hired a car to tour the island further. We visited Castro, to see the palafitos (houses built on wooden stilts on the beach) and stopped in Dalcahue for a seafood lunch, before catching the ferry across to the island of Quinchao, where we toured around admiring the many wooden churches there, and the magnificent views over the smaller islands to the east with the snow-capped Andes and volcanoes in the distance. We took a couple of dead-end roads to the sea and also saw some salmon farms just off the shore. Then it was back to the island of Chiloe where we took a long gravel road before making it to the tiny village of Tenaun just after sundown where there was a great painted church, with its towers pointing up at the really clear, bright stars.

The weather was uncannily warm for Chiloe, which made all the woolly jumpers and hats on sale in the market in Ancud seem unnecessary. We took advantage of this and hired some mountain bikes to ride along the coast, along a long empty beach, over some rocks and then up a long, steep hill to a village called Picullo, which had another small wooden church and a tiny football pitch. We decided we could go any further as we’d have had to come back up the other side of the very steep hill, which we couldn’t face again (at least not without blood transfusions and some EPO). We got back to our hostel and had a good chat with a german guy who was into kitesurfing and he told us about some good spots in Holland and Spain that we might try out one day.

We also talked to a chileno couple from Santiago, who showed us some of their home videos of the 2010 earthquake.  As Flora's birthday was imminent, we asked them how to sing 'Happy Birthday' in Spanish.  They sang 'Cumpleanos Feliz' to the familiar tune, before jumping into a second verse accompanied by an upbeat samba rhythm they were beating out on the wooden table.