I always knew I wanted to visit Chiloé on this trip. Years ago I read an article about it in National Geographic. I don’t even really remember what it was about, but something about this island, the second largest in South America stuck with me. I envisioned old wooden churches, colorful houses on stilts and rough fisherman surviving off the wild seas. For some reason I thought Chiloé was rural, rustic and a difficult place to live.
As we crossed on the car ferry from Puerto Montt over to the island I was surprised at how similar it was to the mainland. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was a bit put off by the huge double lane highways and tourist focused towns. To be fair, the ferry spit us out near the capital Ancud, probably the most built up part of the archipelago so I knew immediately that we would have to make an effort to get more off the beaten path.
Ancud
We visited a tiny museum in Ancud. This boat is a replica of the Ancud sailing ship that braved the Straits of Magellan to claim Chile’s southern most territories.
There were forts on the island that guarded the territory built by the Spanish.
Giant whale bones at the museum.
While in Ancud we decided to find a restaurant to eat the dish the island is known for, curanto. Curanto is shellfish, meat, potatoes and dumplings traditionally steamed in a hole in the ground with hot rocks and covered with nalca, Chilean rhubarb leaves. It sounded really good. In reality, the one we tried was just ok.
I hate to say it, but food in Chile leaves a bit to be desired for me. While they have amazing ingredients, I have been a bit underwhelmed by how they are prepared in restaurants. The meat in the curanto was delicious, but the clams and muscles got a bit dried out by the time we ate them, I think partly because they drain off the liquid and give it to you in a cup as a soup on the side. Also, I craved a bit of butter, or garlic, or some kind of spice or fat to zing it up a bit, it was all just a bit bland. Oh well, glad we tried it.
It sure looks tasty in this picture!
Chiloé National Park
From Ancud we decided to head across the island to the national park hoping to get into a more rugged and undeveloped part of the island. Parts of the drive were absolutely stunning, driving along the huge inlet like fjords where the ocean divided parts of the island into long narrow stretches.
We arrived at the national park entrance late in the day and asked the CONAF guard where we could camp. He suggested we take a dirt road to a stretch of beach and find a place to camp next to the ocean. It was a secluded, peaceful place and we spent two nights at it enjoying the isolation.
Our free camp spot near the national park. The huge stretch of sand led to the ocean. We camped in the dunes. It was overcast both days we camped.
There was a bridge near where we camped that looked like a boat from the side, this is Sam crossing it.
The purple and blue wild flowers of Argentina were now replaced with bright yellow ones.
The giant rhubarb plants are all over the island, these would be a staple all the way down Chilean Patagonia.
We took all the hikes in the park. The best hikes were the ones on the wooden walkways.
The parts of the hikes off the walkways were so muddy. Our shoes got totally covered in mud!
While we were hiking we saw the sun for the first time in a few days!!!!
More pictures of the giant Chilean rhubarb plant.
We saw some really interesting plants on this hike.
One more of one of the unique plants we saw.
Overall, we were a bit underwhelmed by this national park, but the area around it and the drive out were worth it. The hiking was not that great and most of the national park cannot be accessed by foot so we could only see a small portion of it hiking, but we still enjoyed our visit and since it was so cheap to go ($1500 Chilean pesos), we had zero regrets.
Castro
Chiloe is probably most known for two things, the UNESCO World Heritage wooden churches and the colorful stilted houses on the water called palafitos. Castro is the place to see both these things. However, the churches are spread out all over the island, so seeing them takes a bit of driving but is worth the effort.
Colorful stilted houses. Reminded us of Sausalito in the bay area of California.
The black necked swans are all over Patagonia and are really striking.
Iglesia San Francisco de Castro. A beautiful yellow and purple church right in the center of the city.
The Jesuit churches were all built with local wood inside and out.
The church in Castro is the only one with neo-gothic architecture.
The bay next to Castro, I loved all the small wooden fishing boats on the island.
Exploring the smaller cities and churches around the island:
Another UNESCO church with a pretty old cemetery.
Front door of the church.
And another UNESCO church…
This one had the most beautiful ceiling. It was painted with stars. I was charmed by it.
Sam in one of the small towns main plazas. I loved all the wooden houses. They were all so weathered and had so much character.
Peeling paint off an old shingled house. I am sure the elements here are brutal on the wood.
As we came out of this tiny church we randomly ran into our Swiss friends Karen and Marcus!!! Such a small world. We had not seen them since Bolivia and it felt like a crazy coincidence to run into them in this little town on Chiloe. We spent about an hour outside the church catching up.
When we were talking to Marcus and Karen they told us of a coastal road on the map they took that was really beautiful. While we were looking at a local map, we also saw a few roads that were not on our open street maps on our Garmin so Sam and I decided to take the coastal road and then drive some of the “other” roads that were not on our maps. This would end up being our favorite part of our time on the island.
The drive along the coast was spectacular. But we also loved the parts when we went inland on tiny back roads. This pic is a bit blown out, I shot it directly into the sun.
On our side road adventure the road we were on turned into sand dunes after we crossed a big river. Not sure if it was really a road, but we wanted to drive as far as we could. The footprints are ours as we tested how deep the sand is.
Me running up to scout out camp spots.
Sam running down. We ended up getting totally buried here. the sand was way too soft, even aired down a ton. so we had to turn back. Sam got tired of digging us out of the sand. =)
We ended up free camping on a beach. Not a bad place and it was stunning and sunny the next morning.
The view out our back window.
Morning coffee walk along the beach. I will miss these when I get home!
One last picture of the coast. It was so pretty when the sun was out! We had both overcast and rainy days and sunny ones, and the sunny ones just made the island come alive with color!
We enjoyed our time here and would have stayed longer, but we had reserved a ferry in three days and had a lot of driving to do so we had to take the ferry back to Puerto Montt and head towards the famed Carretera Austral!!!!!
Side note:
We had planned to originally take the ferry in Quellon (southern Chiloe) to Puerto Chabuco to start our adventure down the Carretera Austral. We did not realize that there was only one ferry a week and that is would cost almost $300 US for us to take it to the mainland from Chiloe! The one ferry was also booked the week we were on the island since it is limited on space anyway, so it solved any questions about us taking it. We were not aware of the cost or the limited schedules (we don’t plan ahead enough I guess) so we had to back track off the island and come up with a plan for another way to start the drive down the Carretera Austral. In retrospect, I am really glad it did not work out because we ended up driving the entire Carretera Austral from top to bottom with our new plan and parts of the drive were so spectacular I am thankful we did not miss them! I love how the trip just unfolds in front of us, even set backs seem to always work out to an even better adventure.