Drifting away to Chiloé

  Chonchi, Isla Chiloe, Chile
Thursday, October 9, 2008

Peaceful island life
Interrupted only by
Our hostel owner

Genuinely thrilled to be moving onto a new place, we hopped the bus from Puerto Varas to Chiloe (pronounced "chee-loh-WAY"), a large island across the water from Puerto Montt. The bus drives right onto a small cargo ferry, and shuttles commuters and visitors off to the lush green rolling hills of this island community. Chiloe is known for its seafood and its slower pace of life, and lived up to expectations on both counts. Bypassing the main cities, we decided to stay in Chonchi, a sleepy little town right on the water. Although lovely, aside from a few (3, let's say) restaurants and a historic church, there is pretty much nothing in Chonchi. By our first afternoon we were on a bus to nearby Castro where there is a bit more action. We enjoyed an afternoon stroll, a nice meal and some NFL highlights on the restaurant TV before heading back to Chonchi.


Tuesday we decided to partake of the one recommended activity in Chonchi - getting out of Chonchi for a day trip to nearby Isla Lemuy, accessible only by ferry. Our nutty hostel owner, an eccentric ex-pat who greeted us with updates on the US stock market and diatribes about random subjects whenever we bumped into him, drew us a "map" of the island. We never found any of the things supposedly indicated by his scratched out mess of wavy lines, but we did climb a hill and get a fantastic view of the patchwork pastures of the island. Everything is covered with that same yellow flower we saw in Niebla, a stunning contrast against the green and blue landscape. We made the ferry back to Chonchi, and enjoyed a delicious fish dinner to celebrate not getting stranded on Isla Lemuy.


Bidding adios to beautiful, peaceful Chiloe, we spent Wednesday night a few hours north in Osorno, a hub for buses to Argentina. Osorno turned out to be a fun, well organized little city, with an architecturally fascinating church and a great vibe. We thought about staying until the weekend to catch more Chilean basketball, but it really is time we moved onto Argentina. Our time in Chile has been eye-opening and fantastic, and we can't wait to see what the other side of the Andes has in store.



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