Chiloe

Over the Christmas period, we decided to do a little exploring on the Isla Grande de Chiloe. Chiloe is a group of islands and the isla grande is the largest island of the group: roughly 180 km long and 50 km wide. The easiest way to get there is to fly to Puerto Montt (which is a not particularly nice city which lies 1000km south of Santiago), then hire a car and cross over via a ferry (all very straight forward, just follow the signs, the ferry is roughly 10.000CLP).

The supermarkets are not terribly well stocked on the island so if you are little picky, stock up in Puerto Montt: Jumbo is normally best if you are after dairy free muesli or chocolate flavoured hazelnut milk, though don't count on finding it! ;o)). There is, however, a great selection of veggies and lots of potato varieties on the island: there is a pic in the slideshow below of some we found!.

Chiloe means "place of the seagulls" and offers the chance of pretty amazing wild life encounters: sea lions, whales, dolphins, penguins and sea otters are fairly common sights (even from land you can spot a lot of these animals). 

Many things in rural Chile are slightly less organised than most EU and North American tourists are used to, but that is nice and has a certain appeal once you get over the fact that things work a little differently over here. For example, if you are trying to book accommodation, don't expect a prompt reply to your email: if you want an answer, call, in Spanish. Be aware that more than one call may be required as you may need to speak to the aunt of the sister of the grandmother who is not in the house at the time of your call and she is the only one who can book you in... also don't expect that anyone will know anything that they advertise on their website, it is not that it is not there, it is just that no-one has ever checked the website and probably they don't even have internet! It is not personal and it can be quite endearing once you are not in "efficient" mode.

After getting over a couple of "booking hurdles", we spent 3 days in Punihuil in a cabin with sea views. We had a lot of sleep to catch-up with and it was the perfect place to relax. We even had a falcon chick in a nest a couple of meters from our cabin and enjoyed the frequent trips from its parents to feed it all sorts! 

In the morning we took "a tour" to see the penguins and sea lions. The original plan was blue whales but first it was a bit early in the season (which runs from end of December to beginning of March) and second we are not totally convinced that the appropriate separation distances were going to be kept - many "responsible whale watching guidelines" recommend 100 m whereas in Chile it is often hard to meet the 10 m rule... We really enjoyed it and it is the first time we managed to see Sea Otters so close!

We moved on inland to an ecolodge in Chepu, location here. They hire cabins which are equipped with sensors to check electricity and water consumption, all very geeky and interesting when you are into sustainable building and energy consumption. Surprisingly, even in places with very environmentally conscious people issues such as sterilising companion animals or reducing meat consumption are not really even on the agenda at this point (that being said, we ate really amazing veggie dinners every night which was very unexpected!) :o)

One can hire kayaks by the hour as well to use in the Chepu river. The idea simple, you get up at 4.30am to be on your way at 5am. You get to see all the mist forming in the river at dawn and if you are quiet and keep your eyes open you are very likely to see some river otters too. The whole thing gets even better when you realise you are in the "sunken forest", a section of the Chepu valley which was covered by a meter of water after a huge earthquake (9.6 in the Richer scale) which happened in 1960 and which has left a previous portion of native forest turned into a desolated dead forest wetland.

Here comes the sun

The sunken forest can be seen to the right of this image

Paddling to breakfast!

Final stop in Chiloe was Chiloe National Park. There are some nice walks to do around the area, as well as beautiful beaches and lakes to have a dip in. There are Huilliche communities in the area too, which we understand are the southern Mapuches and they are some of the "original" inhabitants of the Chiloe islands.

We walked along the beach (follow the hyperlink for the actual location) to the west of the park  and we found the skeleton of a dead whale being eaten by some Jote vultures. While the scenery outside the park has the potential to be stunning, too much rubbish as soon as you get in contact with civilisation, spoil this a bit :o(

Overall, the few days we spent in Chiloe were very relaxing and, although the scenery was perhaps not as spectacular as in mainland Chile at that latitude as there are no volcanoes, the wild life and tranquillity made it definitely worth it.

A few photos below or click here for better resolution:

PS. Chiloe is also well known for its churches and history... the problem is that when you come from Europe, the whole "amazing churches" thing just doesn't quite meet the expectations. Personal advice, if you want to see churches, visit Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Rome, London etc... if you want to see wild life and beautiful landscapes, go to Chiloe, ideally in the early summer (December, January).