Happy island life on Chiloé

Chiloé. According to my guidebook it's the continent's second largest island (not sure what the largest is, if you know, please advise!) and the place I made my home from Sunday until today (Thursday). It is a fairly large place, about 120km north to south and 40-50km east to west. Mostly buses go south through Chile via Puerto Montt to the island which would have meant a quick local bus from Puerto Varas but I was lucky enough to get a seat on one going through Puerto Varas too with Cruz del Sur. Being an island, you won't be surprised to hear that we had to get a ferry across to it and when I realised we'd have the opportunity to get off the bus I jumped at it! Chiloé is on the left and the mainland on the right.

Anytime I get the chance to look at large expanses of water I'm there! It wasn't a long trip on the ferry, maybe 20 minutes or so, but we were lucky enough to see sea lions frolicking in the water! They are so sleek and elegant in that environment compared to on land and a joy to watch. Once on the Island, the bus made its way to Ancud which is where I was thinking of spending the latter part of my trip and so I was pleased to get the opportunity to see what it was like, before the bus continued on to Castro, my destination.

When I book hostels, one of my considerations is how far it is from the bus terminal. Here however, I found a hostel that was well within my budget but was in a Palafito! So distance went out of the window! Palafitos are houses at the edge of the water that are supported by stilts! From the road side of the house, they look like regular buildings

but from the water side...!!

This is the front and back of my hostel...

When I arrived, the tide was in and after sorting myself out I decided to head into town to see whether or not it was going to be worth extending my two night stay. I hadn't been overly enamoured of Ancud and so thought this could be where I set my base. The main attraction for the centre of Castro is its church. There is a tour you can do of Chiloé and the surrounding islands of the churches. However, given how many I did in Eastern Europe, I'm a bit churched out so that was never going to be my plan for this visit. However, who can miss visiting a purple and yellow church? Not me that's for sure!

After that, I just went and bought some food for dinner and then headed back to the hostel. By this point in my trip I was starting to get really tired and so made the decision to stay in the Palafito for 4 nights, and to do nothing the next day. This was despite the weather forecast which said that was to be my only good day for weather whilst I was there. As I ate dinner, the tide started going out, and boy did it get a move on! Overnight, it came back in again and went out again and this is the view I had in the morning. 

As I said, I intended to do nothing the next day, and I pretty much achieved it! It was a beautiful day so I spent it watching the birds looking for food, watching the tide coming back in, and then watching it go back out again! Truly strenuous activities! It was perfect though, because after the break, I woke up the next morning, completely refreshed and ready to go on an adventure. Which I did, to Chiloé National Park - there are a lot of National Parks in Chile! 

I headed to the bus terminal to get my ticket but just missed one and I didn't realise another company had a departure in 30 minutes so booked for the bus that went an hour later. It wasn't a wasted hour though as I needed some gloves for later in my trip and I managed to get the perfect pair in Lippi, an outdoor shop that is popular here (must admit I hadn't heard of it before coming to Chile). The bus took just under 90 minutes to get to the park and then it was just a case of following the trails. One took you to look out over to the lake

Another was through a foresty wilderness (my favourite)

Another took you through the transitional area between the water and the forest

And the final one took you to the beach, with views of the Pacific Ocean.

Whilst in the transitional area, I bumped into Walter who had been staying with his travel buddy Linda in the same dorm room as me the first night I was there; they had checked out the previous day! Linda had gone off somewhere else for the day but Walter had wanted to see the park, and we had a nice chat before heading off in different directions. It was a lovely day and then after the beach trail I headed home on the bus and back to the hostel to relax and read my book for a bit. That evening we had a beautiful sunset 

and so despite the forecast I was hopeful for good weather the next day.

The next day I decided to do a trip to Dalcuhue, a little further north along the coast. I wasn't expecting an awful lot from the place, based on descriptions but I think it would have been better had there not been a large tour group of including Dutch, American and British people who were on a mission to take over the craft market. 

I'm not ever really planning to buy stuff at them, but I really don't enjoy being pushed out of the way so that others can. So I hotfooted it out of there to look at the views, visit the cultural centre and then head to their church. 

After wandering round Dalcuhue for a little while, I stopped and ate my lunch looking out over the water and I couldn't decide whether or not to go to Achao, a town on another island, which my guidebook had said was worth a visit or to head back to Castro. I decided that I'd just get on the next bus that came along and it turned out it was going to Achao, so that's where I went! Getting on the ferry was a little more exciting than most as vehicles had to reverse on! Fortunately we had a very skilful driver and made it on safely!

It took around 45 minutes to get to Achao once we arrived on the island and this place had the most amazing views across the water back to mainland Chile and the snow-capped peaks!

It turns out that pretty much all there was to do here too was visit the church so I did this, 

then gave it shot trying to find something else to do but didn't manage it, so I hopped on the bus back to Castro!

When I was in Puerto Varas, one of the reception staff told me that she'd stayed in the same Palafito and highly recommended the pizza place at the end of the road, in fact she positively raved about it. I wasn't sure if she was measuring it against Western Europe standards or South American so decided to see for myself. It wasn't too bad, but I do feel that they could do with cooking their pizzas for about 5 minutes more out here, it would make a huge difference. I had the worst pisco sour I've had so far which was disappointing. Half the glass was froth! Sadly, Spanish not good enough to complain...

And so endeth my trip to Chiloé. The next morning I got up, had great breakfast again (in this hostel there was coffee, juice, homemade bread, cheese, honey, jam, cereal, yogurt and also fruit and freshly made scrambled eggs! Happy Guillaume? 😀) I think the best free breakfast so far. Then I made my way to the bus station to head back to Puerto Montt. What I should have done is remember to pick up my Cath Kidston bag that I'd left in the kitchen with some food in before doing so. Gutted at its loss, I bought it when my friend Kerry came into town a few years ago and it's been such a good bag. Was very sad to lose it but hopefully someone else will get use from it. All I have left is its bag to store it in

which I'm holding on to as I'm sure I'll be able to find a random use for it whilst travelling! 

I'm now in Puerto Montt and treated myself to a hotel tonight. It's bliss. I have a double bed to myself, a lovely clean bathroom and TV! Although given the news (pretty much the only English Language Channel) I'm not sure that's a good thing!

Tomorrow, I'm crossing the border back into Argentina for a few days, when I go to Bariloche; I wasn't able to get from Chiloé all the way there in one day, hence the stopover. Keep your fingers crossed the weather improves. Currently it's due to rain every day which would not be good as I'm there for the mountain views!