Exploring the Island of Chiloe

There is an old saying that says, “It is about the journey, not the destination.” For us, Chiloe was about both journeys and destinations.

By The Family

Once again, our parents woke us up early, made us eat breakfast real fast, and then get in the car. We had to drive two hours from Punta del Este to Montevideo to return our car, then take a cab to the dock, then take a three hour ferry to Buenos Aires (luckily there weren’t any screaming kids on the boat this time), then we took another cab to the airport and flew to Bariloche, Argentina. It was about eight at night when we got there. We checked into the Grand Hotel Bariloche, which in Darius’ opinion was nothing like the Grand Hotel Guayaquil. My parents unpacked while I (Micayla) read Charlotte’s Web and Darius tried to get on the Internet. I didn’t want to leave the hotel because I wanted to keep reading Charlotte’s Web, but we had to get dinner. We walked around town and found lots of chocolate stores. Bariloche is considered the chocolate capital of South America. After tasting some chocolate and then buying some too (it was good), we ate dinner at the Pilgrim Pub and then went to bed.


The next morning, we rented a car and headed for Chile. It took about two hours to drive through the Andes to get to the border. When we got there, we had to wait in one line to get our passports stamped and then another to get permission to take our car out of Argentina. We were surprised to learn that we had to go through the whole process again 40km later in order to enter into Chile. This border crossing was very different compared to crossing from Argentina to Uruguay and back. When we crossed into Uruguay, an official from Argentina and an official from Uruguay sat next to each other and stamped our paperwork together, one after the other. It took all of five minutes. In contrast the border crossing into Chile took over 2 hours. When we reached the Chile border control, we had to get our passports stamped again and get permission to take our car into Chile. They then made us take all our stuff out of the car so they could look for fruit. They are very strict about this because one of Chile’s main industries is fruit. In fact, much of the fruit we buy in our supermarkets in New England comes from Chile. We didn’t have any fruit and got to put our stuff back in the car and then kept going.

Darius slept while we drove down the mountains to a town called Puerto Montt. Puerto Montt is an old fishing town that has grown a lot recently and did not seem as nice as Bariloche. After checking into our hotel, we walked around town and had dinner at a hamburger place. It was the best hamburger I (Micayla) had since leaving Wellesley.

The next morning, we woke up early again and had to drive an hour to get to another ferry. When we got to the town where the ferry was, there was a real long line of cars and trucks waiting for the ferry. We found out that this was very unusual, but we still had to wait in line for about an hour before we could take our car onto a ferry. While we waited, people walked along the line of cars selling empanadas and roasted peanuts and hazelnuts.

The ferry took about 20 minutes to cross the channel. While we were on the ferry, we saw lots of seals in the water and also saw a few penguins swimming in the ferry’s waves. Mom said seeing the animals in the water made up for the long ferry line.

Once on the island of Chiloe, we drove another half hour to Ancud, another small fishing town, and had lunch. My dad had a special dish called Curanto that came with sausage, chicken, pork, polenta, and lots of shellfish. It is all cooked underground on hot stones. The waiter told him that he needed to eat in a special order too. The sausage first, then the pork, chicken and polenta followed by the shellfish. After lunch we drove another hour to Castro. We could not get the pay-phones to work, so we had to wait and wait at the house we rented for someone to come let us in.





The house was called a palifito because it was built on stilts that came out of the water in the bay. Palifitos were built on the water by many early settlers because they liked the water and would collect shellfish for their food. The house was bright yellow and had two stories. The first floor had a nice kitchen, a living room, and a television with three channels. Upstairs there were two bedrooms with lots of beds. Out the back door, there was a deck that was over the water. It was nice to sit in the living room and watch the water. When the tide was low, there were lots of people who would walk out and catch shellfish. When the tide was high, birds would swim near the deck and hunt for fish. Across the way, some boat makers were building wooden ships by hand. A few times, we saw rainbows out the back window. Mom liked to drink her morning coffee and look out the window at the water and the black necked swans.




Inside our palifito:




Castro is small, rustic town right on the bay that had a main square, a few good restaurants, and a museum that showed the history of the town. In Castro, it is not uncommon to see people traveling with their livestock or carrying heavy loads of shellfish. Castro is also the capital of the island of Chiloe.



The island is about 100 miles long and about 40 miles wide. The people who live on the island are mostly fishermen and farmers. The island has been left pretty much alone by the Chilean government and so the people who live there have a very independent spirit. They are also said to be poorer, but more self-reliant than people who live in other areas of Chile. The houses on Chiloe and the surrounding islands are well-known for their unique shingles, which add a great deal of character to the towns and farms. Chiloe is also a very popular place to visit for many young Chileans and Argentinians. We saw lots of them in small groups along the road trying to hitch rides with cars and trucks.

Chiloe Shingles:



On one day, we drove to the southern end of the island to see the very end of the Pan American highway. The Pan American highway begins in Anchorage, Alaska and travels 20,000 kilometers, passing through 11 countries, and ends in a small town called Quilleon. The last section of the road was made of dirt and was very bumpy. The road then ends about 20 feet from a rocky beach. There is a monument there.

While we were there, we went for a walk along the shore and saw people shellfishing. We picked up some pointy rocks and sticks, and then watched for squirts of water coming out of the sand. We would then start digging. If we were lucky, we would find a clam, a razor clam or a mussel. We gave the bigger ones to the people who were shellfishing.




On the way home, we drove to another town that was having a fair. There were lots of stalls where people were selling handicrafts like woolen sweaters, rugs, hats, or things carved out of wood, homemade chocolates and pastries etc. In the middle of a clearing there was a guy who was trying to climb up a 20 foot pole. After a few tries, he did it. I (Darius) then tried and was able to get about halfway up. When the sun came out, it got hot, so Cayla and I got Fantas (orange soda). There were lots of activities. There was dancing, people trying to walk on stilts, mini-go-carts, rope games, and a bunch of displays. I got to practice spinning tops, which was much harder than I thought it would be. The tops were popular with kids and adults. One of the better top spinners was a grandma wearing a blue dress!


We also got to see how the people of Chiloe make apple wine using old fashioned machines. First they used one machine to take off the skins, then another to make something that looked like apple sauce, then they put the sauce in bags that were smushed by a huge pieces of wood so that the juice would come out. Finally, they would put the juice in big bottles to become wine.

Then there was the making of empandas. Empandas that are pastries filled with spicy meats. They are put in the ashes of a fire and are moved around and flipped occasionally using a long stick.


When they are done cooking, a person then scrapes the ashes off of them and they are ready to eat. When we first saw them taking them out of the fire, they were so black and gray and covered with suit that it was hard to believe they could sell them. But they were delicious!




On another day, we took a short a ferry to a smaller island that had lots of very small towns. It was a very beautiful drive, because there were hills, farms, woods, horses, sheep, and views of the ocean. At least mom and dad kept saying it was beautiful. Micayla and I thought it was a little boring. We drove all around going from one town to the next. Many of the towns had very pretty churches made out of wood.



Churches of Chiloe:



In one, there was a small museum that told us how they made the churches by fitting pieces of wood together without using any nails. The biggest town was called Achau. Every time one of us said the name of the town, my dad would say, “Bless you.” His joke got old pretty fast. Achau was right on the water and looked across to a few smaller islands. On the way home, Dad convinced us to take a dirt road that went along the shore. It was bumpy and nice for a while. But then it turned in land and went up a really steep hill that got really rocky. He almost got the car stuck in the middle of nowhere. Luckily we made it up and were able to get back to the main road.

Roads near Achau:


On a third day, we went to the western side of the island where there was a national park. It was a very cloudy day, so instead of going right to the beach to see the Pacific Ocean, we went on a walk on a trail. Charles Darwin had been here and wrote about how thick the forest was. There were some really cool trees that had roots that grew 4-5 feet above the ground. On the roots, thick moss grew which made the ground seem much higher than it really was. The forest was different than any we had ever seen before and reminded us of a scene from the movie, Lord of the Rings.

Views from the Park:



After our walk, we drove to the Pacific Ocean. It was still very cloudy, but the rain stopped, so we decided to walk all the way to the water. After crossing a small dune area, we stepped onto the beach which was really, really wide. As we got closer to the ocean, the wind got stronger and stronger. Sand was flying across the beach like crazy and we could barely stand up straight. The sand was moving so fast, that it hurt when it hit bare skin. When we got to the ocean, we could jump straight up and then land almost two feet in front of us. It was really fun to be in such strong wind. On our way back to the car, the gusts got even stronger and almost knocked Cayla over several times.

It was great to be in Chiloe. None of us wanted to leave.