Chiloé

A ferry ride away and lots of rain later we arrived to the Island of Chiloé, where blue sky doesn't exist. We exchanged our little Yaris for a huge pickup truck and we rumbled around the island to Ancud, a sleepy little fisherman village in the north. There we found our dream Cabañas, and after 6 days of sleeping in tents we were in heaven.




It felt just like home to me with chalet-style walls and cozy rooms. We spent 2 luxurious nights there (for $6 each!!) sleeping late, having tea and honey for brunch and leaving the house at 3pm to do some exploring.

The first day we visited a penguin colony with some fishermen just off the shore of the mainland. There were maybe 20 penguins in total, both the numerous Magellenic ones and the endangered Humbolt penguins. We had gruffy fishermen enthusiastically explaining the penguins to us in the driving rain. We then dried off with fresh seafood empanadas and an exquisit seafood soup next door.



We bumped the pickup through the backroads of this mythical island to the capital of Castro, where they have a completely wooden church and some picturesque stilt houses. We did this trip 2 more times in our 4 day stay on the island, for reasons unknown to me. The second time was passing through it to go to the Chiloé national park, where we walked through mossy fern-infested trees and drove onto a deserted beach with huge crashing waves.



The previous night we did some wild camping nestled between the dirt road and a placid lake under a rare canopy of stars and spinning satellites. After spending one last night in the paradise of our cabañas, waking up to a pancake breakfast we headed back to the mainland, a bit sad for not being able to do the Carretera Austral (cuz it would have cost us $240 in ferry money), but happy to have some days to laze around.




The following days we wondered around the Chilean lake region, stopping at an closed (its off season) campsite next to a national park, and we set up our tents next to a riverbed and a great rock throwing beach. The day after we continued south after a promenade in the national park and then back north to Puerto Varas and to the foot of the Volcano Osorno- in an embarkment called Petrohue. There we found another closed campsite that we had all to ourselves -the best one yet!- with an amazing view of the secluded lake and snow-capped mountains in the background.



The next day we saw the whole of the imposing volcano for the first time in 10 days, and returned riding on the back of the pickup to Puerto Montt. Half an hour later we were on the bus to Bariloche, Argentina, crossing between the snowy andes and its naked moss-draped trees to our destination.