Charming Chiloe

We set off early in the morning, keen to arrive in Chiloe as soon as possible. Chiloe is the biggest island off the coast of South America and is only a 30 min ferry ride from the coast near Puerto Montt. All buildings on the island are made from wood including all the churches which are very beautiful inside, unfortunately not all are maintained as well from the outside. A large amount of indiginous Mapuche people live on the island and the islanders are a very superstitious people creating a variety of folklore. We were aware of the need to watch out for the following: El Traucho – A small, ugly, smelly man who sits in the forest awaiting for virgins to seduce. Apparently the ladies find him irrisistable. If you disturb him while he is seducing one of his virgins you will be deformed beyond recognition and die within 12 months. La Fiura – A small ugly woman who also lives in the forest. She attracts batchelors with her bright clothes. The hapless man is put to sleep from her foul breath and she has her wicked way with him. He then goes insane. There are also said to be mermaids and ghost ships that haunt the island. We didn't see any evidence of this but I kept a check on Al's midnight wanderings less he should stray into the forest.

We drove from Puerto Varas to Puerto Montt, quite a long drive down the motorway. Unfortunately at Puerto Montt we made a wrong turning and missed the petrol station. We were very low on fuel but had just enough to take us to Pargua, the town from where the ferry departs, there was a petrol station clearly marked on our roadmap. We drove fairly conservatively to Pargua – not A/C, no radio, not wanting to waste any fuel. After what seemed like an age we arrived at the town, fuel gauge flashing away at us, completely empty! The town was very small and we couldn't see any sign of a petrol station... we stopped and asked a local who informed us that there used to be a petrol station in Pargua but that it is no more. Ahh!! We began to panic at this point. We decided that the best thing for it was to hop on the next ferry to Chiloe where there had to be a petrol station. We boarded the ferry and took some time to de-stress, watch the seals and dolphins and enjoy ourselves a bit. As we disembarked we asked one of the crew where the nearest petrol station was - “In Ancud, 30kms away” came the response. Ahh!! What were we to do? We would surely run out of petrol before we arrived there! We had no choice but to continue on our way. If we broke down we planned that Al would hitchhike to Ancud, buy some kind of container to fill with petrol and bring it back to the car. We prayed it wouldn't come to that. Al started hitting the clutch pedal and coasting down the hills instead of using the engine, we were crawling at around 50kms/hr and being overtaken by lorries. Just as we thought the car was about to die we rounded a corner and saw Ancud in the distance... just a few more kms!! We made it to the petrol station, practically kissing the man who came to fill the car. He laughed when we told him our story and said that manys the tourist who has ended in our predicament due to the inaccurate tourist map. Darn map!

We drove, with our newly filled car, round Ancud to find lunch and then on to our next destination, a small village called Chepu where the guidebook recommended. The Chiloen countryside is very much like that of Britain – green fields, rolling hills, small farms. It was very picturesque. We arrived at the village but found nothing in the way of accommodation. We had seen a sign a few kms back for an 'agrotourism' residence, somewhere where local farmers run a small hostel and the tourists share their way of life. As we were turning around two German tourists ran up to us and asked for a lift. It turned out that they were staying at the agrotourism place we had passed. They said that they really enjoyed it and recommended it to us. We arrived and met the son of the owner. He explained that his mother (who ran the business) was away at an appointment but that she should be back in a couple of hours. He showed us around but couldn't agree to take us in and quote us a price until she arrived. We agreed to stay for a bit and so spent some time walking round the farm, milking the cows – yes I actually milked a cow for the first time in my life!! - and looking at the pigs and chickens. It came to 7pm and the lady still hadn't arrived, so frustrated by this we decided to move on and find somewhere else.
Off we went again, in a bit more of a hurry this time, and ended up at a small village called Quemchi. We booked into a hostel in this small village and enquired as to the best restaurant in town. We were pointed to a little place called El Chejo and popped our heads round the door. “Come in come in” a voice called to us. Ok, we entered the restaurant. “No come in!” a smiling face invited us from the kitchen. In we went to meet the cook, his wife and daughter. They were extremely friendly and the cook ushered us over to the stove to sample his food. It tasted delicious and we quickly sat down. We had the best seafood at that restaurant that we have had in the whole of Chile. It was amazing! Most of the fish here is just deep fried, but this man really knew how to cook. We asked him for his salmon recipe but he just smiled and changed the subject – Al thinks he's worked it out though so we'll try it when we get back home.

The next day we pressed on taking the coastal road south through the island. We stopped by small fishing villages watching people go about their daily routines and headed through the countryside watching farmers herding cattle. We drove past a small village where the bruja (witch) of the island is supposed to come from (I made sure Al didn't wander into any forests) and past another small town which hosts a beautiful wooden UNESCO protected church. The small coastal roads where in bad condition so it took us a while to get to the capital of Chiloe, Castro, which is situated in the middle of the island. Castro is a fairly large town (large for Chiloen standards) with a plaza de armas, cathedral and a variety of restaurants and bars. We found some cheap accommodation and the coolest bar in town which played '80s rock music on a duke box and were fairly happy for the rest of the evening. As we were about to leave an old drunk Mapuche man came to sit down next to us. The Mapuche's are the natives of southern Chile. When they were discovered by the Spanish conquistadors they were still living naked and hunting with spears. They were a very ferocious people and were actually the only ones to hold the Spanish off, thus retaining their culture which is still evident today. We also saw photographs from the end of the 19th century which showed Mapuche people naked and painted in black and white stripes for a ritual. They have progressed since then but are still very poor compared to average Chileans. The man started talking to us, telling us that his dark skin prevented him from having a job... we couldn't understand much else he was saying and as we got up to leave he took the money we left for a tip and walked off.

The next day brought with it a chance for Al to test out his new fishing rod. We drove to Lago Huillico, a nearby lake where we parked up and hid behind some bushes for a spot of illegal fishing.
Pepe sat watching quietly. It took us a while to work out how to use it but eventually Al was off and I sat back and read my book. After a while Al walked up to me with a sad look on his face. His fly (or whatever it is called) had somehow come undone and disappeared in the lake, lost forever. Fishing over. We headed back to the car and continued to the pacific coast near the national park and found a deserted beach with crashing Pacific waves. It was amazing. We ran around for a bit and then hopped in the car and drove onto the sand, Al practising his handbrake turns. We then found a cliff which looked easy enough to climb and climbed to the top. From there we could look the whole way down the beach, it was an amazing view.





On our way back from the beach we stopped to pick up a hitchhiker. He was an elderly gentleman, Francisco, who wore a big leather jacket and had something of a mafia look about him. “Where are you going?” he asked us. “To Quellon” we replied. “Ok me too.” Off we headed, 100ms south to Quellon. He was very chatty and talked to Alex non-stop about his life, our travels etc. Suddenly about 50 kms down the road we pulled into the roadside and Alex stopped the car. “What's happening?” I asked. “Frank says there's a great place for shellfish down here and we should go for some.” It was 4.30pm and we hadn't had lunch so I was quite happy to eat something. It turned out to be the house of a fishfarmer by the sea, he farmed his own mussels, clams and oysters. It wasn't really a restaurant and certainly no where that a tourist would consider going. Everyone looked up as we entered and Al and I felt a little out of place, but Francisco introduced himself and started chatting happily to the cook. We were invited to sit down and were presented with three huge plates of shellfish with lemon and salsa – yummy! We chatted to the locals for a bit and played with the cat who wanted to steal our food and then Fransisco got up to leave. We weren't sure whether we had to pay or not but nothing was said so we guessed our hitchhiker had footed the bill. After we left Fransisco said he hoped we enjoyed it as he'd wanted to show us an authentic Chiloen experience. We drove on to Quellon and when we arrived we asked him where he wanted to be dropped off. “Oh I was looking for a shop here but it has closed now, I suppose I should head back home to Castro.” We were quite amazed by this – Castro is 150kms in the direction we had come from... was this guy crazy? Once we had found a place to stay he sat down and wrote a note to his daughter in Auckland for us to pass on to her when we arrived there. And then he was off, to find a lift back to Castro. We puzzled over this for a while and figured that he just liked an adventure, like us.
We were in Chiloe over day of the dead and halloween. The graveyards were full during the day with people laying flowers and gifts on the graves and at night all the children came out onto the streets to ´trick or treat´- very cute!


Our drive back north to the mainland was stunning. The sky was clear and in the distance we could see across the sea to the Andes mountains on the mainland and the magnificent volcano which completely destroyed the city of Chaiten earlier this year.





Our time in Chiloe was truly memorable. It is a really beautiful island where everyone lives the simple life. We were sad to leave and head back to the busy mainland, but we had car to return and a boat to catch so off we sped.