In the midst of rain, we arrived at the mystical island of Chiloe (off the coast of Chile, close to Puerto Montt where we are boarding our Navimag ferry a few days later). First time I have seen rain since I arrived in Chile, slightly disconcerting. On the way to Chiloe, I got to see a whole bus (i mean a big one) get loaded onto a boat among other cars. AND I got to see sea lions playing in the water, WAY COOL! We stayed at Castro, the capital city of Chiloe. The hostel we stayed at, Palafito, is more like a really nice bed and breakfast. It is definitely the nicest place we have stayed in thus far (and future as well...). Fantastic breakfast with a warm fire. Not to mention that it is right on a lake (inner bay?) that has its water recedes and rises with the tide. We would wake up and the entire area has been drained of water where you can totally walk across from one side to another. I wanted to put this hostel in my pocket and take it to go!
It wasn't all rain all the time. On the second day we got some decent weather, enough that we took a bunch of buses (collectivos) to different cities to see some really old churches. We went to Ancho and Dalcahue, cities on a small island to the northeast of Castro. The church in Dalcahue is really interesting with a painting of Jesus mixed with mythical local creatures. The intention is to encourage conversion to Catholicism by use of local myths. Pretty clever of them. Megan bought a book about the local myths and read some to us. Most of them have to do with witches and warlocks.
My favorite part about Chiloe is that it is the place where I was introduced to Maico. This delicious mash potato ball thing filled with shredded pork and fried. I mean DELICIOUS! Probably not the best thing for me but man...I could definitely go for one right now :)
Posts
