Chiloé

​A fast new update this time!

When we were planning our trip, we had looked up only the main highlights of every country we were going to visit. We had build our travel plans around those. Chiloé wasn't in our planning at all, but in Puerto Montt we had taken a Chile travel guide and we read that Chiloé was a nice island to go to. Our initial plan was to go from Puerto Varas via Bariloche in Argentina back to Puerto Montt in Chile and down via the Carretera Austral. Later we learned about the possibility to go down via Argentina along the Ruta 40. Ruta 40 and the Carretera are both scenic routes that go all the way to South Patagonia. They are isolated roads, sometimes difficult to travel along and crossing vast stretches of beautiful but rough nature. We had to decide whether we would go down south via Argentina, via the Carretera Austral or via Chiloé. In the end we decided to skip Argentina at this point and go via Chiloé to continue along the Carretera later on.

So from Puerto Varas we went to Ancud, on Chiloé. Ancud is a small coast town with a lot of fishermen. We arrived there late in the evening. The hostel we found was nice and the owner was very friendly; we had a nice conversation while enjoying  some bread and tea, even though we arrived at 12 in the night.

Close to Ancud are a couple of small islands (collection of rocks) that are inhabited by several groups of penguins. We wanted to visit those, so we joined a tour that brought us to the Islotes de Puñihuil via a road with several viewpoints of the island and surrounding sea. When we arrived at the beach, we were brought to the boat with a high car that was pushed in the surf to make sure that all the tourists kept their feet dry while boarding the boat. We drove around the islands with penguins for about an hour and we saw many. We saw two kinds, namely Humboldt (near-extinct) and Magellanic penguins. They are so cute! They move funny, wiggling with their fins/wings. We also saw sea lions, pelicans and another type of bird of which we forgot the name.. After the boat tour we had empanadas on the beach and then we went back to Ancud again. In Ancud we walked around the town and sat in the remains of an old Spanish fort for a while, before we got the bus to Castro.

Castro is the main city of Chiloé, in the center of the island. In Castro and its surrounding region many wooden churches with a particular building style can be found. We visited a nearby island, Isla Quinchao, to visit some of the churches and the towns there. We saw the churches of Dalcahue, Curaco de Velez, Achao, Castro and some smaller ones in between. Some of them have really bright colors, such as the one in Castro, which is purple with yellow.

In Castro itself we had some extra time because the ferry to the mainland of Chile leaves only more or less twice a week. We used this time to see the palafitos, a special kind of houses that are build right next to and above the water, on stilts. We also had to arrange our camping gear and food for our trip in Patagonia. Since we had decided to follow the Carretera down south, we needed to have camping gear. It is advised to have this, since you might end up in the middle of nowhere at some point, and camping would be your only option. We would also need this later on in Torres del Paine, where we were gonna make a five-day hike with camping. On top of that, in expensive Patagonia, being able to go to a camping instead of a hostel might be nice too. So in Castro, we walked through the city looking for a tent, sleeping bags, mattresses and cooking equipment. After seeing the entire city twice we had finally found everything, except for the tent...

The ferry to Balmaceda left in the evening from Quellon, in the south of Chiloé. Here we luckily did find a tent. We had some nice scenic views during the boat trip, especially in the morning when we arrived at the mainland in Puerto Raul Marin Balmaceda, a tiny town in beautiful surroundings. Here our trip leads us to the Carretera Austral, in the next post!

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