Wednesday 5th December
At last! A lie in until 8.30 am!
The day got better with the addition of fresh pineapple, scrambled eggs and home made strawberry jam at breakfast! (And a joyously empty breakfast room..)
It was overcast, but previous experience tells us to pack shorts and suncream anyway! After chatting with Josephine we confirmed our impression that we are enjoying unusually hot and dry weather for Chile.
Today is our free day to go adventuring in our car. It is a very tiny Kia ‘Morning’ and has all mod cons for a small car. We parked it overnight in the small garden behind the hotel.
After breakfast I popped down into the town to buy picnic empanadas from Danes. Meanwhile Bill needed a haircut and headed off to the recommended salon ‘Elvis’! Uncertain as to what he should expect, Bill found a glitzy salon, empty of customers with a short 60 year old hairdresser, who spoke no English. There was no music of any kind, let alone any rock and roll, but she still did a pretty reasonable number two haircut for a fiver whilst chatting to two elderly men who appeared to be there just to read her newspapers! Her diminutive size meant that she struggled to reach the top of Bill’s head, even when on tiptoe!
Back at the hotel we loaded up the car and set off in the direction of Puerto Montt and onwards to the island of Chiloe.
We were surprised to find that the first leg of the journey was on a motorway, but that was no bad thing as it was 60km to get to the island ferry at Pargua. The ferry leaves every 15 minutes and were directed straight on. It was a curios sensation because the high steel sides of the vehicle deck prevented us from seeing out so that the pitching and rolling of the ferry were quite disorientating!
The journey was only 40 minutes long and we were soon heading west across the northern tip of the island of Chiloe towards the Pacific coast.
We stopped for a break in the coastal town of Ancud and found excellent coffee and the most amazing smell of fresh baking at Cafe Amaranthine. We couldn’t resist sharing a warm chocolate brownie as we enjoyed our painstakingly prepared and beautifully layered cafe lattes, looking out over the ocean and watching sea otters playing in the kelp beds.
Next stop, the Islotes de Punihuil to see the penguin colony there. This is the only place where the Magellanic penguin and the endangered Humboldt penguin nest and breed together.
The road along the coast to Punihuil is very beautiful. Initially there are long stretches of volcanic sand and glittering ocean just beside the road, and then the road climbed up onto cliffs and we looked down over broad sweeping bays with surf rolling in over for hundreds of metres of shallow beach.
We drove on to reach the Pinguineras at the Islotes. Here there was a broad flat expanse of sand looking out over the islands where the penguins nest.
The waves were rolling in, onto the sand where several large open high-prowed boats waited to carry passengers out to the islands.
It was all very well organised. We drove along the beach and parked by the eco-nature centre where the guide explained what we could expect to see, we donned life jackets and climbed aboard a funnily little wheeled platform which the crew pushed out through the waves so that we could safely step into the boat with dry feet.
Within moments we were off and bobbing out through the surf towards the islands.
So many things to see! The Spanish guide pointed and explained, a bilingual passenger did his best to interpret for us. First spot were some flightless grey steamer ducks, brown hooded gills, red-legged cormorants, rock cormorants, and loads of penguins! They were lying basking in the sun, emerging from the sea, walking over the rocks, or just standing around looking cute!! Despite the choppy seas, the helmsman was very skilled in getting us right up close to the islands without ever touching anything or disturbing any wildlife. The trip only lasted 30 minutes but it was remarkable and beautiful.
Back on the beach, we wandered along watching oystercatchers and other shore birds before driving back up to the cliffs to sit and have our picnic looking out over the California-like coastline.
Driving on north we stopped again to run along the beach for a while before starting our journey home.
We were back at the hotel by 7pm, ready to chill by the log burner with tea and review the many, many photos that we have taken!!

We returned to Mesa Tropera for dinner and once again enjoyed great craft beer and lively views across the bay to the volcano, illuminated by the evening sun.
The evening came to a rather abrupt end after our starter, when there was a power cut that lasted about an hour! We strolled home through the dark streets, trying not to collide with other pedestrians. We returned to the Guest House just as the power came back on, so ideal for a night cap and some packing, ready for our early start tomorrow - we are moving north to Valparaiso.