The island of Chiloé is a large island, just off the coast at Puerto Montt. Currently, it is accessible only by car ferry (a one-way crossing with car was about £11) but a bridge is under construction and due to be completed in 2020. Judging by the graffiti and posters I saw, it appears that the locals aren’t generally in favour of the bridge, fearing that it might destroy the island’s identity.

I’d been planning to camp on the island but the campsites I emailed didn’t give timely responses, and after the problems I had had with campsites so far, I opted for a cheap hostel in Castro (the island’s capital) instead. For about £20/night, this was perfectly adequate although I was fortunate to be moved from a tiny double room that smelt rather musty to a much nicer three-bed room. The downside was that the new room was right next to Ruta 5, which was busy all night.

Castro is a busy, commercial centre (and driving was no easier than in Valdivia) but once here the area around the port especially is quite pretty. Castro is also famous for its palafitos – houses built on stilts in the sea. Many of these were destroyed by the tsunami that affected the region in 1960 but some have been rebuilt.

By the way, should you ever find yourself in Castro, and if you like seafood, definitely pay a visit to Nueva Galicia by the harbour, recommended to me by the hostel owner. Their cuaranto was exquisite. If you don’t like seafood though, don’t bother – there were no other options on the menu!

Jesuit churches

Other than the palafitos, the other reason for coming to Chiloé was to see the Jesuit churches. Dating from the original Christianisation on the island by the Jesuits, sixteen of these wooden churches survive and all are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Although now used for Catholic rites, the simplicity of these buildings is in stark contrast to most Catholic churches, such as the Cathedral I saw back in Iquique.

Dalcahue

The church in Dalcahue was the first that I visited when I first reached Chiloé, on my way to Castro. This was on Monday afternoon and (despite my guidebook saying that the churches are open every day), it turns out that Monday is the day most of the sixteen do close. So I wasn’t able to see inside.

Castro

The church in Castro’s main square

Chonchi

Chonchi is a picturesque little port town about 16km south of Castro.

Nercón

At the recommendation of the hostel owner, I also stopped in the tiny hamlet of Nercón, on Ruta 5 just on the outskirts of Castro. It was a good recommendation, as I wouldn’t have realised I was so close to this church otherwise.

Sadly I didn’t get to do quite as much as I’d planned on Chiloé, and in particular I wasn’t able to operate radio from here as I’d hoped. The reason was that I discovered my hire car had developed a flat tyre, which caused me to lose a morning. If it had to happen anywhere, though, it couldn’t have happened in a better place – about 50 metres from a tyre repair centre, who charged me the princely sum of 2000CLP (about £2) to remove the tyre, repair it, pump it back up and re-fit it. I’ve never before given a 50% tip, but I think in this circumstance it was well-merited!

Islotes de Peñihuil

Before that episode, it was also good to catch up again with Andy and his wife, whose path I’d crossed up in San Pedro de Atacama. They strongly recommended a visit to the penguin sanctuary at Peñihuil, which (having confirmed that the road there was surfaced, given the tyres!) I was able to visit on my way back. You aren’t allowed onto the islands themselves, and the number of tourist trips per day is regulated, but for about £6.50 you can get a half-hour boat tour of a few colonies on the islands just off the coast. I arrived just before a boat was due to leave, and so I didn’t have time to get organised (in particular, change the lens on my SLR) but I got plenty of video, from which the image below is a still. We got to see both Humbolt and Magellan penguins, which are fascinating creatures. Well worth the slight diversion.

This is quite literally where my road comes to an end. Just south of Castro, in the town of Quellón, the Pan-American Highway finally meets the sea. Its place is taken by the somewhat more infamous Carretera Austral. Pinochet’s great project, and still partly unfinished, this is the road that travels south through Patagonia. It’s renowned for being both scenic and difficult, mainly unsurfaced, with dangerous bends and hundreds of kilometres between petrol stations. Although I did briefly consider taking on the challenge, my more sensible side prevailed. It probably wouldn’t be wise to tackle the road alone without more experience. (Incidentally, for those who watched the ill-fated BBC Top Gear Christmas Special from Patagonia, the Chilean parts of that were largely filmed on the Carretera Austral, which gives an idea of what it’s like!)

So, in the next leg of my journey, I’ll give up the hire car and switch to a cargo ship for the journey down through the Patagonian fjords by sea. It should be quite an experience! Hopefully the weather will stay settled.

I hadn’t planned to come to Frutillar in my itinerary, but the problems at the campsite in Entre Lagos meant that I came here in the hope of finding a better option. I’m very glad I stopped: not only was the weather better, but the town is beautiful.

Frutillar, located on the banks of the Lago Llanquihue and in the shadow of the Volcán Osorno, is one of the places in the region that retains a very Germanic feel. Not only does much of the architecture look as though it has been plucked from Alpine villages, but along the lakefront there are plenty of picturesque shops selling ‘Küchen’ (which seems to be basically any form of fruit-based cake) and Strudel. There’s even the first Lutheran Church that I’ve found in Chile.

This is no accident: in the mid-nineteeth century the Chilean government encouraged immigration to dilute the power of the Mapuche in this area, and the Germans in particular answered this call.

The town itself is split into two – the lower town by the lake is the tourist area and, probably about a mile away uphill, is the upper town, which is the business end of things. The main campsite is between the two, which means it has some spectacular views towards the volcano. It’s also a working farm, and the menagerie of ducklings, cows, dogs, tiny kittens and geese wondering past your tent meant anything could happen. There was lots of interest in what I was doing, particularly when it involved cooking!

It was from here that I also took part in the CQWW DX CW amateur radio competition for 2015. More on that in a different post…

After the chaos of Osorno, I was looking forward to a nice quiet campsite for the next few days. I certainly found quiet – so quiet, in fact, that despite being ‘open’, the campsite didn’t even have any water in the toilet cisterns and the showers were still in a state of having woodwork done in them. To make things even worse, it rained quite hard all day. I did get a chance for a quick walk around the village in the afternoon and quickly determined that there wasn’t enough to be worth staying, so by the evening I’d opted to sleep there for one night and to move on the following day.

I’m sure that Camping Vista Hermosa is lovely enough during high season (it certainly has what would have been a spectacular view had I been able to see it through the rain), but at this time of year it really shouldn’t have been advertising itself as being ‘open’.

The view from the private beach at Camping Vista Hermosa

Getting there

The drive from Valdivia was easy. Again, traffic on Ruta 5 was surprisingly light. There were two tolls, one just south of Valdivia (2200CLP, about £2.20) and another at the exit to Osorno (600CLP). There were none of the problems with roadworks that affected me yesterday.

The only issue was finding the hotel. It’s just on the outskirts on the main road into Osorno, so much so that it took me by surprise. The apartments at Apart Hotel Blumenau are very nice, and mine even more so – a mixup with my booking (to which I was oblivious) meant that I ended up with a huge room for four people. Incidentally, you might gather that this area was largely settled by Bavarians, hence both the architecture in Osorno and the fact that Valdivia’s greatest export is probably Kunstmann beer, a very Germanic-style beer, complete with the slogan ‘Das gute Bier’.

Osorno

What to say of Osorno itself? One phrase comes to mind: building site. I’m very glad my hotel is a couple miles from the town centre because going any further into the city by car would be a nightmare. A large number of the roads seem to be being dug up and there are diversions everywhere. This rather detracts from the wooden houses, which my guidebook euphemistically describes as ‘weather-beaten’, for which the city is famous.

Osorno, according to everyone I’ve spoken to, is the centre of Chile’s agricultural industry and is home to a major cattle market twice a week. Other than a few milk cooperatives, however, I saw very little sign of this. There seem to be a surprising number of car garages and forecourts on the roads into the city, which is much larger than would be suggested by an ‘agricultural centre’. Once you find the city centre, however, it’s quite pleasant but still very busy (despite how the photo below appears!).

There’s really not that much more to say about Osorno city itself, so I’m looking forward to heading back inland towards the lakes tomorrow. It sounds as though the weather, which has been showery for the last couple days, should improve over the weekend too, which will be good as I’ll be under canvas once again.

Getting here

I’d been warned by Carlos back in Temuco that Valdivia isn’t an easy place to drive. So it turned out. This is a city of complex one-way systems, multiple lanes and taxis that aren’t afraid to undertake you if you don’t know where you’re going. But that wasn’t the biggest problem. The main road from the Panamerican Highway into Valdivia, the S206, had roadworks for several kilometres. These particular roadworks, for which there was no signed diversion, involved several sets of contraflows controlled by stop/go boards, and most of the road had had its surface removed, even where there was no obvious work taking place.

Valdivia

Once I was here, however, Valdivia is a pretty city. It’s larger than I was expecting and largely commercial. The river is the focus of the city, with the famous Feria fluvial (literally ‘River fair’, the daily fish market) being the centrepiece.

This is a quite amazing place, with a huge variety of fish and other seafoods available, all looking completely fresh (though none of it seems to be refrigerated at all, not even with ice cubes, so I’m not sure how long it would stay that way). I didn’t buy any fish due to the fact I’ll be camping in the coming days and cooking it would have been difficult, but I did leave with 500g of beautiful looking, new season, strawberries.

One attraction my guidebook hadn’t warned me about was a colony of sea lions that seem to have taken up residence by the river. These bellicose creatures garnered the attention of a number of tourists with their constant (and often loud) fights right in the heart of the city centre!

Fuerte de Niebla

Valdivia was once a stronghold of the Spanish colony in Chile, and the city was defended by a series of forts guarding the entrance to the river leading to Valdivia. Most of these forts are no longer in place, but one, in the village of Niebla (about 20km west of Valdivia), is still standing. Since my hotel room wouldn’t be ready until 3pm, I made the detour to see the fort on my way to the city.

The fort stands on a cliff right at the mouth of the estuary, looking out into the Pacific Ocean – a very picturesque spot, and it’s clear why this location was so impenetrable for the forces demanding Chilean Independence.

The only disappointment here is that, in a laudable attempt to improve wheelchair access to the site, the place has been covered in stainless steel ramps, which rather spoil the spot and make it hard to distinguish some of the original stonework which make up the fort.