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| Living the Chiloe lifestyle - easy like blowing in the wind. |
Like all good plans, things don’t always go to plan… but that’s part of the plan when you’re travelling right? Find things on the way, meet new people, stay longer than expected when you find something you love, leave earlier when something doesn’t live up to expectations. In line with this, my plan was to stay in Bariloche for 3 days, see the town, maybe a bit of light hiking, and just relax… but this turned into a week, but I don’t regret it at all. Time seemed to pass without worry and stress, not knowing what day it was or even really what time it was , time passed as it should - eat when I feel like it, sleep until I wake up and do what I want when I want. However, all good things come to an end, and I have many other places on this trip to see, so move on I did. Still sticking to my rough plan (which I must add was pencilled out on a whiteboard at a company I taught at during a cancelled class), Chiloe was next on the list to visit, spending the few days there leading up to Christmas – yes, the Blog is far behind and I am actually writing this from the town of El Chalten in Argentina, home of the FitzRoy mountains – but that is another future blog!
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| a small wooden chuch in Chiloe. |
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| Mapuche street art in Ancud. |
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| Couple playing with a street dog in Achao. |
Chiloe is known for it’s mythology and all Chileans have good things to say about the island. I left Puerto Varas, giving myself a day to recover from a ‘Terimotto’ night out, took a bus early and was there a short 3 hours bus trip and a 30 minute ferry crossing later in the town of Ancud. Immediately I could see why people love this place – rolling countryside, small cute farm homes, sheep and cattle everywhere – it could be the South Coast of New South Wales. The town itself was tiny, and travelling with a tall German guy, we stood out as the very few ‘gringos’ in town. A quick 10 minutes and you’ve covered everything – but the people were friendly, and being school holidays, there were plenty of teenagers hanging around so we got the occasional English word called out to us followed by giggling. Ancud is on the coast, and walking along the water was nice, and I came across an old fort, ‘Fuerte San Antonio,’ built in 1770 to protect the island. Sadly not much is left but a half a dozen rusty cannons, but you can see why it was important as it hold a great view of the port and channel into the town. The rest of the town is a typical Chilean town down south – colourful wooden houses, usually panels but sometimes shingles. The churches here are mostly wooden too – I’m not sure why this is, maybe cost, but I think it is due to the earthquakes down here, the old Cathedral in town was destroyed in the big quake of 1960 and now in it’s place stands a modern concrete and steel monstrosity. The hostel I stayed in was made entirely of timber as well, and it was strange when you went up the stairs the whole building shook a little… it felt very unstable and not very fire resistant either.
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| Castro's famouse stilt houses on the river. |
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| The "Titanic III" is an ominous name. |
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| Penguins near Ancud. |
The only thing to do in town really was a penguin tour, and that was the main reason for visiting, although I liked the town as a pretty, albeit very quiet, coastal fishing town. The tour cost 15,000CLP ($30) and was a half day tour, which included the 1 hour drive out to the boats at a place aptly named ‘Penguineras,’ and a 40 min boat trip to the 4 colonies of penguins. There are two kinds of penguins you can see, the Magellanic and the Humboldt, which are very similar in appearance but one having an extra stripe. There are 2,000 penguins altogether, and have been protected since 1929 by the government – even the amount of tourists and boats have been restricted. There are also plenty of other birds to see, including pelicans and gulls, but also seals and sometimes on the rare occasion you can whales off the coast, even Blue Whales I have been told. No luck for me however. The boat ride was fun, and I was able to see the little fellas up quite close, and even some of their young in the nests. I was slightly worried about the boat though – the name was ‘Titanic 3,’ and we all know what happened to the first of it’s name, but what ever happened to the second? Thankfully there were no problems and we made it back to land safe and completely dry.
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| Riding the waves on a boat tour near Ancud. |
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| Castro's cathedral. |
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| The lavender bell tower of the cathedral. |
With not much else to see here, I moved on to Castro, the ‘capital city’ of Chiloe. Castro is known for the ‘floating houses’ and that’s the main reason I came here – all those Google images you see kind of draws you to a place. However, what the Internet shows you and what you actually see when you get to the place can be two very different things. This was sadly the case with Castro. I did see the colourful stilt houses on the river, but they are few and only in two sections of the town. I was lucky enough to stay in a hostel on the river, so I was able to enjoy the view in the morning, watch the birds, and see the best part of this place. The rest of the town was a little seedy – people standing around in the plaza with not much to do (there isn’t much to do here), out of place Latin music playing, dirty streets, a strangely coloured church and loads of street dogs – very South American I thought. By this point I was travelling with two other guys, and we had picked up a German girl along the way, and now being a group of 4 is was slightly harder to find accommodation for the weekend, so we had to move – unfortunately to the dodgy side of town, and the walk to the hostel was where the local ‘flaites’ hang out – nice enough guys and girls, but not the kind of people you want to be hanging out with or walking past with all your possessions in the world on you, a large camera included. It was all good in the hood though, as my head was kept down, eye contact avoided, conversation restricted to a quick and quiet ‘hola,’ and then a slightly faster walk past. Makes you feel young!
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| Achao cathedral. |
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| Checking the LP guide. |
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| UNESCO Achao Cathedtal |
The following day, all of us headed out to do a bit of a church tour of the island. This is one main attraction here, and one easily enough done by local buses. The ‘micros’ here are much smaller than in Conce, with a row of two seats, the aisle then one lone seat. The also rattle and bump around more. First stop was the village of Achao. It was a Sunday, and so very quiet - like walking through a ghost town. Small wooden houses, sleepy dogs, a few roosters crowing and a strong wind blowing in off the water. We found one restaurant open and had some empanadas before visiting the oldest church in Chiloe, the Church of Santa Maria de Achao. Built in 1740 and made completely out of timber, it’s one of 16 on the island that were declared UNESCO heritage sites, and although it’s not very colourful, it is very beautiful. Grey shingles on the outside and beautifully painted ceiling on the inside, it was all quiet and I was able to stand there and enjoy it… I did however interrupt a very amorous couple when I walked in, who quickly separated when they heard the door. Latin Love. Not much else to see in Achao, we jumped on another bus and visited the even sleepier town of Curaco de Velez. Even quieter than the nearly dead Achao, Curaco pretty much sums up Chiloe – quiet, pretty, and a great place to relax and think. As the sun started to set and the tide went out, we headed back to town and had a little sleep on the bus.
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| "No parking," but the dogs 'of the South' don't care! |
I missed out on a lot of what Chiloe has to offer, as I only spent two and a half days there. There is a lot of mythology surrounding the island, including a ‘troll’ like creature – one story goes that if you are a woman and have a child out of wedlock, you went and slept with the Trauco. I also missed the national park, where Pudos live, and well as a whole arm-long list of other things… next time! I only stayed 3 days instead of the planned 5 - 6, but things change and I needed to get down to Puerto Natales and the Torres del Paine National Park for Christmas. I managed to find a great deal for a bus – 35,000clp ($70) from Castro in Chiloe to Puerto Natales – 37 hours away and crossing into Argentina and back into Chile. That is for the next entry!
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The stilt houses of Castro early in the morning.
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MyUncleTravellingMatt. December 2015.
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