Chile, Day 18

The dogs were fairly quiet last night. Just a couple of “soft bursts” of barking at around 1:30 and 4 a.m., but nothing too irritating. Since I’d arranged to take another tour today, I had to wake up at 7:30, shower, eat, and prep what few things I’d need for eight hours away from the hostel. My guide, Juan Pablo, arrived at around 9, and an American tourist joined us since he wasn’t able to make his way to Mechuque today. All through the morning Juan Pablo regaled us with various stories from Chiloe's rich mythology, which is one of the most fascinating things about this region.

We started off driving south from Castro to Chonchi, a small town most famous for its old pirating history, former cypress forests, and a 19th-century church called Iglesia San Carlos de Borroneo – yet another of Chiloe’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites.


The church stands at one of the highest points in Chonchi, and right across the Plaza de Armas, so you can see it from virtually the entire town as you walk through it. The church was typical of others that I’ve seen in Chiloe, though I really liked the long blue roof here, which was like an inverted boat hull, painted with stars and moons.


The church had been damaged during the 1960 Valdivia earthquake – registering at 9.5 on the Richter scale, it was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded – and on one side of the building one found beams supporting the church in the event that another earthquake should strike. And major earthquakes, I was told, hit Chile approximately every 20 years.


From here we walked a few blocks down the main avenue of town to see some of its unique wooden houses. Some of them are not merely weathered, but seem on the verge of collapse, and I felt like I needed to walk very quietly past them so that they wouldn’t topple over from the minute reverberations of my steps.







At the end of the road we came to an algae-covered beach with a few boats stranded in low tide. There were no people outside here, and all we could hear was the lapping of water and the cries of seabirds overhead.


Juan Pablo picked us up beside the beach and we proceeded inland a bit to a small, mist-enshrouded town called Huilinco. There’s almost nothing here, yet I could have stayed much longer than we did. Lake Huilinco is here, and several houses dotted the snaking shore.



We walked to the end of a dilapidated wooden pier and looked out over the black water of the completely undisturbed lake. Juan Pablo told us that he always saw a kingfisher here whenever he visited the town, but as we walked out we only saw a young hawk on top of a house. However, coming back from the pier the hawk was gone and two kingfishers had taken its place.


We walked through the town another two hundred meters to an old church, across from which spread a cemetery that Juan Pablo guessed was nearly four hundred years old.



The cemetery contained a number of old wooden gravestones, and also miniature wooden houses build exactly like those found in much of Chiloe. There was quite a bit of space inside them, and they were typically filled with flowers and various family photos.

After that it was time to go to the Parque Nacional Chiloe, which covers well over 400 square miles along the Pacific coast. There are a number of indigenous Mapuche communities living in and around the park, and wildlife – birdlife especially – is abundant here. We spent our time in the southern part of the park called Chanquín, which boasts a number of excellent hiking trails as well as easy access – minus the mud – to a long, clam shell-strewn beach.



The hike followed a trail consisting of smooth boards and level logs, and went from marshy fields to thick tepú forests, which were filled with birds and birdsong as well as a wide variety of ferns. (Amazingly, the park contains 80% of the world’s total number of fern varieties.)





The forest was incredibly thick in places, and because the tepú tree grows horizontally as well as vertically, one often finds faux forest floors; if you were to step off the trail onto what appeared to be forest floor, chances are you’d fall through it five or six feet to the real forest floor below (and climb back up with leeches attached to your body).


There were all kinds of interesting plants: calafate berries (which we picked and ate), tons of fiddlehead ferns, something called cow-rib ferns that looked very much like cow ribs, and small plants growing alongside a stream that attract, catch, and then eat mosquitoes.

The bottom part of a nalca plant.

There was even a tree that was very cold to the touch; if you stood touching a different tree with one hand, then reached out and touched this cold tree with another hand, the difference was immediately noticeable. It was as cold as the inside of a refrigerator.

At the end of the hike, which actually looped around to the beginning of the trail, we marched through a wetland area and then climbed over dunes to get to the beach.



There wasn’t anything terribly special about the beach, though we did find several interesting fishing apparatuses. These were wooden posts pushed deep into the sand where the waves hit the shore. Lines with fishing nets at the end were tied to each one, and the nets secured in the water with anchors. At some later point the fishermen would pull the anchor up and draw in their nets, which, if they were lucky, would be full of sea bass.


We stayed here for about half an hour, until around 2:30 p.m., and then decided to go have lunch. (On the way back to Juan Pablo's truck, we picked wild strawberries and ate them to tide us over. They were incredible.) Juan Pablo took us to a place called Parador Darwin – a hostel as well as a restaurant – owned by a Mapuche man and his German wife.


The setting here is absolutely perfect, which is why we chose to eat at picnic tables on the lawn.


Across the road is a river, and then a spit of deep green pastureland on which sheep and horses graze, and then the sea beyond that.



I ordered chili con carne, which came sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and set on a bed of rice, which was pretty decent.


As we waited for our food, we were served homemade bread and eight different kinds of spreads for us to try – bread is often given with meals in Chiloe, and salsa-like spreads are commonly eaten with it. Each spread came in its own individual seashell, and included mayonnaise and garlic; pureed garlic; pesto; pickled onion slivers; yoghurt, dill, and cucumbers; red chili sauce; and two types of seaweed.


To me, this was the best part of the meal – and the meal was pretty good. We piled through all of this, and since Parador Darwin is famous for its kuchen conchoyoyu (I might have misspelled that) – it’s made with chocolate and algae – of course I had to order a piece. It was quite good, though the chocolate was very mild, and the only thing missing was a heaping cup of coffee, which I haven’t had in two days.


We came back to Castro after that. I asked Juan Pablo for a recommendation of an author from Chiloe who might have been translated into English, and he gave me the name Francisco Coloane. When we came back to town he dropped me off at a bookstore, but this place, and another bookstore up the street, only carried his works in Spanish. There was a free museum next door to the first bookstore I tried (Museo Regional de Castro), and I went inside and had a look around. The most interesting thing to me were a series of black-and-white photographs of Castro after the Valdivia earthquake hit, though there were other things of interest as well. However, everything was in Spanish and it was hard for me to follow.

And when it came time for dinner, I decided to go light and do it on my own. I went to four fruterias and mini-mercados and bought a dinner of bread, yoghurt, a banana, a peach, and a bag of black cherries. I think this will be more than enough until tomorrow.

Chile, Day 17

The dogs were at it again last night. From midnight to one a.m., and again from four to five a.m., the neighborhood dogs erupted into continuous barking. Why no one tries to shut the dogs up is beyond me, unless most of Castro is deaf.

I took a tour today of Isla Quinchao, which is technically a municipality in the region of Chiloe. There were four of us in all: an Englishwoman, an Argentinean woman, our Chilean guide, and me. We started off the day at a little before 10 a.m. and headed straight up the road about twenty minutes to the town of Dalcahue.


Upon arriving there we stopped at a church, the name of which I’ve unfortunately forgotten. It’s one of the oldest churches in Chiloe, however, and is built entirely from wood and covered with alerce shingles (alerce is an endangered species of tree in Chiloe and only recycled alerce is allowed to be used in construction anymore).


For me, perhaps the most interesting thing about the church was a picture of Jesus surrounded by four creatures from Chiloe mythology.


The Spaniards, when evangelizing local people, were very successful in their attempt to combine Catholic beliefs with traditional Chiloen beliefs. Even today, most Chiloen people still believe in these mythological creatures, which are meant to be endowed with various supernatural, god-like powers.

After wandering through the church we drove a little further to a small, picturesque beach and walked around here for a bit, taking in the boats that had been stranded in low tide, looking at the small stores in the area that sold seafood caught earlier that morning, as well as bundled seaweed used in cooking, and past more of the colorful, weathered houses that are so typical of the Chiloe region.

Look at that two-tone house.

There was also a well-known crafts market that specialized in fabrics dyed with herbs, flowers, and other natural products – I would have bought a sweater, for sure, if I had any immediate need for one, and if the two small bags I’m traveling with weren’t already packed to bursting.


From Dalcahue we took a 10-minute ferry to Isla Quinchao, where we immediately went to a mirador, or a lookout over the water, and were shown a salmon farm that had been abandoned after the industry had basically polluted itself to death.

In the water on the left are mussel farms, and that box-shaped area in the water on the right is an abandoned salmon farm.

We were told that the salmon had all recently suffered from a disease that couldn’t be cured, which wiped out the entire local industry and caused 10,000 people to lose their jobs. The mussel farm, however, was still going strong. Our guide was happy to see the salmon industry collapse, as relations between their workers and the community weren’t very good, and the rich owners were notorious for hoarding their money and not being the least bit charitable.

Perhaps the sight of the salmon and mussel farms had been meant to whet our appetites, because we continued from here to a small restaurant called Ostras Los Troncos that specialized in fresh oysters.


Included in the price of the tour, we were allowed to eat as many raw oysters as we wanted – at least the small ones – and I put down three.

That's not my hand...

I could have had more, but since the day was long and we were supposed to have lunch later, I decided to hold back. A group of Italian tourists quickly followed us here, and I watched one older man plant himself in front of the oyster shucker and eat seven or eight before his group pulled him away.

With oysters in our bellies, we headed to another church, this one in a town called Achao. The church here, built in 1740 and now a World Heritage site, is called Iglesia Santa Maria de Loreto and is the oldest in Chiloe.


One of the many unique aspects of this church is the alerce shingles used all over the exterior. The inside, too, is beautiful, especially the ceiling, which is shaped like the inside of an upside-down boat.


There’s a small museum in the back, too, that celebrates the area’s history.

After another stop at a mirador in Achao we returned to Dalcahue by ferry and stopped in town for lunch.


As we were walking along the beachfront, the Englishwoman in our group was pulled into a ground-breaking ceremony held by the local government and asked to take part.

Mathilde is the blonde one in the middle of all those Chilean men.

It took a few minutes for her to extricate herself – we’re expecting her photo to appear in tomorrow’s newspaper – and then we continued walking through some of the back streets to wherever our guide had in mind for us to eat lunch.

Seaweed for sale.

More of the beautifully weathered houses in Chiloe.

He took us to a place he called Cocinas (I think), which is a newly built structure that houses many of the food stalls that had formerly been located in the back of the crafts market.


It was a beautiful building full of large portholes through which one could see the ocean while chowing down, and inside there were numerous options, the specialty of course being seafood.


However, since I wanted a break from seafood I went with oven-cooked lamb (4200 pesos, or ~$8.60), which was excellent if tremendously difficult to eat.



There was also some lamb hair left on part of one piece, and two bugs that I found in the salad. Nothing that a sharp knife can’t take care of, but that burned lamb hair will stick in my memory for a while, I think. And when the Englishwoman suggested dessert, I felt my arm twisting – a very pleasant feeling when dessert is at issue. I ordered a piece of lemon custard pie, which was definitely the best 700 pesos I’ve spent on anything.


Once we had food in our bellies we returned to Castro. Shortly before arriving at the ferry we spotted two dolphins, though one quickly disappeared. The other stayed there for some time, feeding in the fish-rich waters.


By the time we were in the northern outskirts of Castro we took the opportunity to see more palafitos – these were less commercialized than the area of palafitos where I’m currently staying, though the latter really aren’t commercialized at all…yet.


For the rest of the afternoon I didn’t do too much – hit the bank because I just found out I could only pay cash for my hostel, and tried to take a nap but was unsuccessful due to out-of-control German children charging around on my floor, screaming and pounding on the doors. Eventually dinnertime rolled around, and though I wasn’t desperate for any food I thought I’d better go out early so I could return early, too.

After a lot of wandering around, and coming upon restaurants that should have been open but weren’t, I settled on a place called Rapa Nui.



One reason I chose this place was because it advertised curanto, which is a Chiloe specialty consisting of seafood, meat, and potatoes. For some reason I thought it came as a stew, so when it arrived I was taken aback. I mean really taken aback. In fact, I’ve never been so startled, even frightened, by what appeared before me.

I almost thought this was a joke when it was set down in front of me.

The curanto was served in a wide, deep bowl, and included 20 large clams, 6 large mussels, an entire potato, a fat chorizo, a giant hunk of dried salted pork, and something no one has yet been able to explain to me – a pancake-sized portion of what looked like fat-streaked meat but was more like sticky rice (but wasn’t) filled with cooked fish. It was an insane amount of food.

I'm not even halfway through my meal here...

And again, I’m becoming more and more serious about being vegetarian when I return from this trip. Where are the green vegetables in this country? In any case, the curanto was pretty darned good, though the mussels were dry (cooked rather than steamed?) and the clams were chewier than I would have liked. But for only 4200 pesos (~$8.60), you really can’t go wrong with this. It’s definitely a two-person dish!