After four perfect days of blue skies and sun in Pucòn the weather Gods reminded me of what I’m missing back home, namely wind, rain and cold! So the last four days have been pretty uneventful as I’ve dodged the rain staying inside a bit and not got up to an awful lot! The bus from
Pucòn took me to Puerto Montt. Its a pretty dour port town, and I only spent two hours here for a quick wonder to check the drunks out on the seafront, have lunch before getting a bus over to Isla Grande-Chiloe, which included a ferry connection. I arrived in Ancud, just before nightfall and went out for food, got back at eleven to a very quiet hostel. The average age of travellers on Chiloe was a little nearer sixty, as I think bird watching is probably one of the main attractions. And I do mean of the feathered variety. In the morning I woke to a pretty cold miserable weather, I also realised I’d slightly made a mistake with my itinerary for the next week and had lost a day. Apparently there are only thirty days in November..who knew?! That meant I only had two nights on Chiloe instead of three. I went for a walk out if the town a long the coast. I hardly saw another soul for a few hours. I headed back into town and checked out the fish market and had lunch at a fish market restaurant, the portion was ridiculous and I have no idea what it was, it was a white fish covered in a sauce of clams, muscles, urchins and other shellfish… But it was very tasty!

I took a bus later that afternoon to Castro which is the largest town on the island. If you google image Chiloe you’ll get lots of photos of colourful houses on stilts by the water, this is the place they all are. They are called Palafito houses, and my hostel was one such property. On a nice sunny evening it high tide it would have been pretty nice to sit on the terrace overlooking the estuary, but when I was there it was very grey and the tide was low so just mudflats! That evening I met up with a Dutch couple (thank you facebook) who I’d met previously in San Juan. They are travelling for one year in their BMW motorbikes from Miami, to Alaska, all down the West coast of America, through central and south, they will finish in Brazil in March. Pretty amazing trip!!! We had a very convivial dinner and it was really fun to meet up with them again.

The Friday morning I had planned to go for a hike but it didn’t stop lashing it down till gone midday. I had a few hours to wander round the town, market and port area in the afternoon. Lunch was very fresh salmon ceviche that was delicious! Caught and prepared on the dock. Chiloe is a very strange and different place to the rest of the places I’ve been to. There is a lot of mythology on the island of Chiloe of Trolls, whitches and mermaids. Unfortunately I didn’t really have the time to explore very much, but I was gutted I didn’t see a mermaid as November is high season for spotting them. I think the best viewing point was on the west coast.

I took the last bus out of Castro, and back to the mainland arriving in Puerto Varas late evening. After a couple of quiet days on Chiloe I fancied a bit of life, on asking the girl who was working at the hostel of any decent bars she told me that it was a really quiet and unfriendly town, and everyone keeps to themselves and it’s not very social. Filled with hope I set off to the little down town area and found a perfectly nice and friendly bar for a snack and a drink. It then transpired (thank you facebook) that a girl I’d hung out with in Pucòn was also in town so we had a few more drinks and agreed to hire bikes and go for a cycle along the lake the next day. The next day was even more miserable, rain and wind and bikes or anything outdoors was out of the question. It also transpired (thank you facebook) that the British guy I’d travelled a bit with in Cordoba and Mendoza was in town. So a bunch of us met up and took over the upstairs of a Pizza cafe to watch Wales loose and England do quite a bit better in the Rugby. That evening the British couple I’d been with the previous week arrived and we all went out for some final drinks. Getting up the next morning for my bus to Bariloche not so easy!

So a fairly uneventful couple of days, and I know I can’t complain about the weather as back home there has been flooding etc. But it was a bit of a shame that I wasn’t able to fully enjoy the places I’d visited. I still had a great time hanging out with friends, and it’s impossible to have an “amazing” time all the time!