00:00 - A very long and wet day today! We left the hotel after breakfast at around 8am and have just got back to our rooms. We were driven by Rafa (our driver for the last two days) onto a ferry about an hour away from Puerto Varas. It's on the Atlantic Ocean side. The ferry takes about 20/25 minutes and then you land into Chiloè. I had great expectations for the day, as the island is very pretty and all the houses are built with wooden shingles and are all in different colours. However, as we landed on the other side and were driven to a lovely square with a church, it was pouring down with rain!!! The windows of the bus were steamed up and due to the rain, no amount of cleaning them really helped to appreciate our surroundings. This is where we picked up our guide Pablo. A very enthusiastic local that leaves in Castro (I believe the main town on Chiloè). He talked a little bit about the island and how it was converted by the jesuits. There are 160 churches on it and it's the second largest island in Chile. We drove to a beach where we took a walk (it was optional and wet but we all took it) and he explained about the different types of seaweed and birds. There were some lovely black neck swans amongst other things. There was also an unusual cemetery (very flowery and colourful as you will see from the pictures). I only used my little camera all day as to avoid flooding the reflex, but the poor thing still got pretty drenched! At the end of the beach and across a little bridge, we stopped to do a little oyster tasting. Local oysters are indeed very nice and as I doubt I will pass this way again, I ordered a little extra plate of them :-). We then drove on to a local market which is actually under a temporary roof due to a recent fire. The variety of mussels is pretty impressive in the fish market section. Some of them are really huge. And finally the rain had stopped. There was just a very light drizzle. We went for lunch in a little restaurant overlooking the ocean. The fried fish was very tasty indeed. I took a picture of the Trauco statuette outside the entrance. If you find yourself pregnant on the island, and don't know who the father is, Trauco is the father. It's a local legend born from the fact that the women used to be raped by the spanish and left with child. To be able to integrate the children, a local 'man' was taken to be the father: Trauco.
Throughout the day it has been only a pity that the colours were a little spent due to the whole greyness around us!!!!
We then made our way to Punihuil. It's a bay with some small islands where penguins live. Fortunately the weather was just about ok to still go out on the boats to see them. Not so great that it was possible to actually take decent pictures as it had started to rain again. The penguins only come here to reproduce from september to march, and for the rest of the year live out in the ocean (they have adapted to sleeping and eating in the water).
We had a hot chocolate before jumping back into the van and being driven to Marialuisa's house (a local woman that run a tourist bed and breakfast in her small ranch). Rafa and Pablo prepared a pisco sour as an aperitif. Here we were to have a typical rural meal, cooked on hot stones under leaves and turf. What they do is to heat the stones on a fire made of coal, then place a bed of mussels on them, and put sausages, potatoes, chicken, potato bread (a local delicacy) and pork on top. They cover this with some big leaves and then bits of turf until it is all sealed. The steam coming off the mussels cooks the food. After about 40 minutes, they unearth everything and serve it all, including the mussels. It all has a smoky flavour but is quite delicious. We said our goodbyes to Pablo and Rafa drove us back home. Unfortunately, we had to queue up about an hour to get on the ferry back so we made it back at about 23.15...
A nice day but what a pity about the weather...
As an aside, it was really nice for a change to have someone contextualise what we were seeing.
Also, the group at mealtimes seems to have a decided order now, with the 'not so old' on one side and the more mature on the other: me, Lisa, Peter, Tina, Karen, David and Linda vs the rest of the world, with Sunitta as a Jolly!