gary & anne go to S.America: Chiloe

El Hombre de Michelin

As mentioned before, Chiloe is a different world from the rest of Chile. This, despite the fact that it is only a 30 minute ferry ride from the mainland. As we made the crossing I keenly surveyed the horizon in search of orcas - someone in Bariloche assured me that she had seen whales while on the crossing. All I got was a lot of wind in my face!
Our second day involved a trip to Mechuque, an island off the eatern coast of Chiloe.( For a short while we believed that the trip wouldn't happen as the first response at the travel agent offering the trip was to say it was impossible. However, what they meant was that that it was very expensive for two people. they took our names and the details of the hostel and said they would let us know. As it happened another 2 people enquired and another 3 from our hostel went + 7 in all - so not impossible!). It involved a bus journey around the eastern edge of the island and a boat trip with a guide to the island. The guide turned out to be Martin's (from the hostel) brother and Martin decided to come along.

Chiloe actually has Unesco World Heritage site status through its churches and we saw a number of them on this trip.

.The first two pictures are of a church that was actually a 'spare'. That is to say, one community built a new church and gave its old one (this one) away to another, much smaller, community. however, the recipient community had to go and pick it up and move it! the 4th picture is the magnificent blue steepled church of Tenuan, where we stopped at a local house for lunch. We had thought it was going to be Curanto (more later) but it was actualled grilled salmon (plus seconds!) and various other courses that, together with the wine and the mini Pisco Sours, made us all very sleepy. We then had a bit of a tour of the owners property where we were shown the pit for the curanto (later ,later!) and given a little sociological insight into the local culture.
Following this we were scheduled to get a boat to the island. Now, what I haven't mentioned is how informal this had all been. The minibus had no connection with the tour company - they had just hired it for the day. This little informality hadn't really sunk in while we were waiting for our boat. We scanned the harbour for our boat - picking out likely possibilities- you know the kind of craft that usually conducts groups on tours around a channel or lake. The woman who gave us lunch meanwhile was gesticulating out to sea , possibly to someone she knew or even at the nice little yacht that would have carried us in some style and then we saw this old rustbucket of a fishing boat come our way. Ah!, we thought she's well in with the local fishing community, perhaps she getting tomorrow's meal delivered. But no , the boat was for us. 9 of us crouched on the prow (me getting pins and needles and having great difficulty getting back up

As you can see we all had lifebelts some of them didn't have straps but at least we did have them - bright orange, most of them, so people would have had a good sight of us before we drowned! Fortunately no-one did fall in the sea even though the boat had no stabilisers and moved laterally as nuch as it moved forward! Notice also the lack of such luxuries such as ....seats.
The island was rather nice, the houses each had their own distinctive design of 'shingle'. It was also extremely quiet. There was a 'museum' somewhat in need of repair, basically a local 'big house' with a cllection of all articles donated by the local people - thus maintaining the rather informal nature of things.

On the rest of the journey we also stopped over at somes 'cascades'. Quite a quaint little vale with two relatively tall waterfalls at the end.

fire flowers again!

Ms Livingstone I presume?

a rocket takes off from anne's head

It proved to be a good day out that took up 12 hours.

The next day was Saturday and, of course, everything is on hold for most of that day as it's....... football day!!!!!!!!!!

Listening to the 'Alex' commentary and then watching Man City on the telly took up most of that day. The 'Alex' won but the city match was terrible as confirmed by Martin later.

Anyway we did emerge into world outside and finally had our curanto. To satiate everyone's curiosity (!!!) Curanto is the dish of Chiloe. It is a stew made up of several varities of seafood, particularly mussels, clams and some other shellfish we haven't identified, together with Pork knuckle chicken and lamb. Oh and they throw a few vegetables and potates in as well! The coup-de-grace is that,when it's done authentically it is coked in a pit in the ground, covered with giant rhubarb leaves and then hot stones. Ours was cooked by gas.


a nice snack before lunch!

Anne wasn't very well for a few days afterwwards

The next day was almost a washout. However, the sun broke through late afternoon and we decided to have a stroll around and take a few photos and later a very nice meal in the (posh!) palafito restaurant.

The next day we headed for the national Park of Chiloe on the west coast of the island. an area reputed to be teeming with wildlife including foxes and pudu (a kind of miniature deer) and countless birds. We hardly saw any of these, though i did chase a couple of birds for about 20 mins wasting numerous photos trying to capture them. It also contained what was efffectively a couple of short nature trails which, although we saw no fauna, was nevertheless interesting. We also almost reached the Pacific for the first time. I say almost as a river has recently changed course blocking off access.