On the Island of Chiloè

On the Island of Chiloè

Thursday, Feb. 9, Castro, Chile

The full day I spent in Valdivia, I took the bus upriver to a town called Niebla. It´s a small village where a ferry travels back and forth to another place, Corral, across the river. In Niebla, I wandered the area and eventually found a restaurant filled with local people. I sat at a table on the porch outside and ordered their special--fried fish. It was a big hunk of fish apparently cut from one of the big, long fish I have seen in the markets, since the bones in it were about 3 inches (7.5 cm) long! That made it easy not to swallow a bone. It was served with rice and a salad. There was a wonderful orange colored salsa that I ate with it all. Unfortunately, the place was too busy, and I was mostly ignored by the waiter. He forgot to bring my drink, and he never brought utensils. I used the plastic spoon from the bowl of salsa to eat my food. But the lunch was delicious. I just left the money on the table and walked away rather than wait forever for him to me again.

We stopped at a small island on the way to Corral. It looked like a very nice, secluded place with expensive homes. Corral itself was far more interesting than Niebla. There is an old fortress there. And the streets are very steep going uphill from the waterfront. I walked looking into the small wooden buildings housing shops that look as if they may not have changed in 80 years (except for the merchandise inside them). After about 1 1/2 hours, I took a ferry back across and caught the next bus back to Valdivia.

In Valdivia, the bus took us by Austral Universidad de Chile (University of Southern Chile). It was a nice looking campus. It´s a big school and is what gives the city life. It´s summer now, so all the students are gone home and the town is rather quiet.

My room in Valdivia was the best I have had in a while and is the best value place during all my visit to Chile. I just found it on my own as I walked toward a place the tourist office had recommended. It is in a modern, private home. I had a nice room with carpeting and lots of light through a window. There was cable TV in the room, and the bath was just beside the room on the hall. The woman who owns the home is always smiling and is very likeable. She takes pride in the breakfasts she serves. We had cheese, two kinds of breads, butter, 3 kinds of jams, teas, coffee, and a fresh piece of cake (different kind each day) for breakfast. The cakes were both especially nice. The only way to make the place better would be to have a private bath that didn´t have to be shared. But the room only cost me about $11.50 per night.

Yesterday (Wednesday), I took a 7 hour bus trip from Valdivia to Castro on the island of Chiloè. On the way, we passed an area with lots of snowcapped volcanos. This the southermost point I will reach in Chile. When I leave here, I will go 3 1/2 hours back northward near the volcanos for a few days and then cross back over to Argentina. The conductor on the bus was a very nice young man who took an interest in me. He checked on me every time he came back into the bus to check tickets and do other duties. And he visited with me on the 30 minute ferry ride to get to the island. Unfortunately, he didn´t speak English, so we were limited to the little Spanish I speak and to sign language.

Chiloè is famous for its wooden churches. Castro has a fantastic one on its main plaza. The entire inside of the church is in pine with vaulted ceilings, a dome, etc. It is just fascinating to see. Each town and village has its own version of such a church. Some are less ornate, some have painted wood, but each one is built entirely of wood. All the houses are also built of wood. Most are covered in wooden shakes on the outside--various shapes of cuts--and painted often in very bright colors. It´s a bright, cheerful place.

There are many backpackers here in Castro. It´s the first place I have visited this year where I see them sitting and walking around everywhere. It´s much like the places I went in northwestern Argentina last year. Mostly, they seem to be university students traveling on VERY low budgets. My guess is that they are camping out or paying $2 each to sleep 8 to a room in places! Most of them look like they could use a good shower! I´m glad I am paying more for where I stay so that I didn´t have to compete with them to find a place to sleep.

I´m staying in another nice place. I have a very small room with one single bed, but it is furnished nicely and has cable TV. Also, it has a good breakfast. The man of the couple who runs it was wearing an apron when I arrived yesterday. This morning, I could see why. His kitchen is filled with professional equipment, and the breakfast was great. We had a bowl of homemade yogurt to begin. Then he cooked a big omelette filled with local white cheese and herbs that were running when he served it. There was bread, coffee, and tea, too.

Today, I took a bus to Chonchi, another town about 30 minutes from here. It is much more atmospheric than Castro. It runs down a steep slope toward the waterfront. Again, all the buildings are wooden, but the ones there seem to be much older than the ones in Castro. Almost all are occupied, but there are several huge old wooden buildings that seem to be abandoned. Maybe they were warehouses at one time. There was a small fish market that even included locally smoked fish. There were several bakeries, but one was especially nice; I took a photo of some of their bread and bought two pastries to eat by the waterfront.

I returned to Castro for lunch at 2 p.m. I went to a local place I found last night and ate what everyone else was getting--a bowl of soup. It was a huge bowl that had chunks of pumpkin, potatoes, peas, tube-shaped noodles, etc. It looked like there were chunks of roast beef, but then it didn´t taste like beef. I didn´t really like the taste or the texture. Maybe it was heart. Or maybe it was horse, since that is eaten here. Anyway, I forced myself to eat half the meat, then I finished the rest of the soup without meat. The soup itself was good.

Two updates:

I finally got through to Mexicana. Although their site said I needed to complete the payment method form before making a restervation, it continued to reject me as I tried. So I made my reservation and then went to the payment procedure from there. Finally, it accepted that my credit card was from the U.S. even thought the computer recognized me as being in Chile at the present time. Therefore, I am flying into San Antonio from Mexico City on Friday, Mar. 10.

I exercised my thumb some on Wednesday. At first, I couldn´t get my thumb to even touch my index finger. But I eventually got it touching two fingers. Yesterday, since I had 7 hours on the bus, I did the exercises a lot. I got to the point where I could touch the tips of all my fingers except the little finger, and I could barely touch the side of it. I also did the exercise where I twirled my thumb in a circle clockwise and then counter-clockwise. I also was able to hold my pen and write again. Well, I must have overdone it. During the night, my hand began aching. Today, my thumb was so stiff I could only touch the tip of the index finger, and that was with pain. I´ve worked at it some today, but it has hurt. I guess I stretched tendons and muscles that I haven´t used for a while and they have reacted by being sore.

Tomorrow, I will catch a bus to Puerto Varas back in the Lake District. That´s my last stop in Chile, although I will make serveral outings from there. I figure I will be there 3-4 nights before crossing back to Argentina.