Isla Chiloé, Chile

December 22 -25

The next day morning, we took a early bus to Puerto Montt. When we had arrived in Puerto Montt, we had pre-booked our bus to Castro on the island of Chiloe and then to Santiago from Chiloe.  We would be spending Christmas in Chiloe. Chiloe was an island Nicole had heard from one of her friends at the chorus.  This was also the trip where we knew very little about the place we were going to and did not know what to expect.

The bus ride to Chiloe was  approx. 5hrs and involved a ferry crossing.  We saw many pelicans making a flight across the straits and it was a really nice sight.  Once in Chiloe, we went directly to a tourist office to inquire about the various activities.  It was here that we found out about the rain that was expected for the next couple of days!!

We walked along the road where there were many hostels.  Most of them looked empty. We went into one and found it to be fairly nice and decided to stay there (its amazing how quickly  decisions get made when one is lugging a 50 pound backpack ).  The room though turned out to be very small, but we managed.  It was a strange arrangement, where we had to go through the house of the owner to get to the kitchenette where we could cook.  We felt some discomfort barging through other peoples house, but there was no other way to get there. [Nicole writes: what made it worse, was that out of 17 rooms in this hostel/private house, we were their only customers there during our entire stay!! The reason why we felt uncomfortable intercepting the owners, was because they weren't the friendliest of people! Can't have it all...].

On the first day, we walked around to find some food and had a veggie chacarero at a local bar.  This was a very big chacarero and very good.  For those of you who don't know, chacarero is a chilean sandwich which is made with avocado and some spicy chilean peppers.  Our first exposure to this sandwich was actually in Boston.  10 years ago, the sandwich shop called chacarero was a hole in the wall establishment on the corner of the Filenes basement/Macys store on Washington st in downtown  Boston.  We've been hooked to this flavourful sandwich since then. Coming to Chile, we were looking forward to trying the real deal.  Even though the one at the bar was really big and looked sketchy, we could not stop eating it once we started.  It was really really good!!

After lunch, we walked around town. We went to the supermarket to buy supplies for the evening.  We tried to buy some yoghurt and had an experience similar to one in Argentina.  Lots of sweetened yoghurt, but no natural stuff.  We ended up asking a local family regarding this.  She pointed out one brand which makes natural yoghurt.  We started reading labels and started smiling at each other.  The "natural yogurt"  was made with gelatine and milk powder.  Go figure that one out.  Anyway, we bought it anyway as it had been many days since we had dairy and I was craving some raita.  Fortunately, the veggies and fruits in Chiloe are really good and the cilantro made an excellent raita from the fake yogurt we had (this may sound very finicky, but at the end of three months, I was really missing Indian food).

The next morning, we were not sure if it was going to rain or not, so we decided to walk around the town of Castro, visiting the palafitos (or houses on wooden stilts).  We also walked around to the local market where we had a very unique experience.  We saw many varieties of seaweed that is consumed by the locals in full display.  The garlic that grows here blew our mind.  Each clove of garlic was as big as the biggest shallot you have ever seen.   The town also had a very nice lookout and the view would have been very nice if not for the rapid development taking place.

That day was a lazy day and we spent the evening going to the local art market.  We stayed in that evening and ate inside.

The next day was even more lazier.  It was the 24th and we were warned that everything would close early.  It was raining in the morning and we just stayed in the hostel sleeping in.  By the time we decided to go out, it was late and all the restaurants were closed!!! We made a mad scramble and bought some pasta from a local store for the evening.  That evening was also interesting.   Our host family celebrated their Christmas eve. with a fairly loud party into the night (accompanied by a TV program that played all the popular songs).

Christmas morning, we decided to venture out.  We had been in Chiloe for three days and had not seen much due to the unpredictable rains.  Our desire had been to go to the town of Ancud and make our way to the Penguin island, but that idea along with the others was washed out. On Christmas day, we took the local bus and made our way to the national park on the other side of the island.  Surprisingly, the park is open 365 days and the bus services run all days. We calculated that we would have about 3 hours in the park (taking into consideration the travel time required, and the fact that we had to leave for Santiago in the evening).

We were both glad that we made this hike to the park.  The vegetation here is very very unique and it is nothing like anything we have ever seen before.  We went through a walk where the trees were growing through the swamp and were completely covered with moss.  We had to walk on a boarded walkway and you could not even tell that there was any water around.  Such strange plants and trees, we had never seen before.  We even walked a bit to make our way to the ocean and had a great view of the park from there.

We returned to our hostel, picked up our bags and made our way to the bus station.  This was another cool bus ride in South America.  Wifi on the bus!!! our first time.....nevertheless we hardly used it.