Chilling in Chiloe

After almost a week of early starts I was looking forward to taking it easy on Chiloe, which is an island in the Pacific just off the coast of Chile. As I only had a limited amount of time I chose to stay in Castro, the capital of the island.
 

I used the bus company Cruz del Sur to make the journey from Puerto Varas to Castro. The company has several departures each day and I caught the 9am bus. The trip was quite pleasant and the ferry crossing was so smooth it took me a while to realise we were even moving!

 

About four miles out of Castro we got stuck in a big traffic jam. Assuming there had been an accident I took a nap and also caught up with some journal entries.

 

After about 1.5 hours we had moved but not a lot. I checked my GPS and we were about 1.5 miles from Castro. I could see the town in distance along with some smoke. A lot of other passengers were getting off and walking so I decided to join them and got my luggage.

 

As I approached the town the road had been blocked off by the police and I could see a tanker in the distance along with plumes of black smoke. People seemed to just be walking straight through, which puzzled me as at this point as I thought the tanker was on fire. I tentatively walked past the road block expecting to be stopped but wasn't.

 

When I got round the other side of the tanker I realised it was a protest of some sort as there were lorries blocking traffic in both directions and a big pile of burning tyres in the middle. The crowd seemed in good spirits and appeared to be quite amused by me walking through with all my luggage.

Chiloe is well-known for its palafitos, which are wooden houses on stilts over the water and the ones I saw in Castro were also really colourful. stayed at Palafito Sur, which is in a traditional palafito common on the island.

I stayed at Palafito Sur, the hostel was nice although the four bed dorm I stayed in was a little bit of a squeeze when full of people and bags. As there was no traffic getting out of Castro the hostel was very full as people who had been due to leave had to stay another night. 

The next day the strike was over so I took a wander round the town, first walking out to Peninsula Ten Ten, which has good views across the water to Castro. Then I walked back into Castro and discovered the fish and artisan market where I bought myself some gloves.

 

I had been warned that it rains a lot on Chiloe but I was really lucky with the weather and had sunshine and blue skies. In the centre of Castro there is the Iglesia San Francisco de Castro, which looks very Disney-esque as it is painted yellow with purple turrets. 

 

In general Castro really reminded me of a small cornish fishing town and at times I had to keep reminding myself I was in Chile because the landscape was very similar to England.

During my stay I bumped into James and Vicky, an Australian couple I met on the Pachamama tour, they invited me to dinner with them that evening at a restaurant just a few doors down from my hostel. I had ceviche for the first time this trip and it was really tasty. There was so much of it I was rather full afterwards.

I left Chiloe the next day to make my way back to Santiago in time to catch the Pachamama bus heading north. I took the Cruz del Sur bus back to Puerto Vargas and even managed to get myself a discounted ticket for a full cama seat with the company Tur Bus for my onward journey back to Santiago. Needless to say I slept really well and unlike many of the Argentinian buses I’ve taken it was pleasantly warm rather than air con cold.

I would definitely like to return to Chiloe to explore more of the island as there is much more to see there.