Dates Explored: February 7 – 9
Originally, we decided to visit Chiloe Island off the coast of Chile so we could visit the town of Castro and see the houses on stilts. That led to us discovering Puerto Varas (discussed in last post) and also a place called Chepu Adventures, where you can stay overnight and arrange to kayak at dawn amidst the dead trees and sunken forest of the Chepu River. Now, I am not athletic and have only kayaked a couple of other times in my life, but the story of the sunken forest had grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go.
In 1960, Chile suffered the most massive earthquake of the twentieth century. Magnitude 9.5, the strongest quake ever recorded. It hit the particular region we were traveling in hard, and the effect was devastating. Our host at Chepu Adventures described how the earth dropped around 10 feet in the area of the Chepu River where we were, and the resulting tsunami rushed in and swamped the forest, the salt water killing the trees and bleaching them white, which is how they remain to this day.
Now imagine getting up at 5 a.m. and heading down a path to the river to go kayaking. And the only people doing this are you and your three travel companions. It’s not the sort of opportunity I am good at missing. 🙂
There are directions to get to Chepu Adventures from the mainland on their website. Basically, you drive from Puerto Varas or Puerto Montt to Pargua, from where you can take a short ferry to Chiloe Island. They leave every 20 minutes or so, and you don’t have to reserve in advance. It’s a commuter ferry, always on the go. There is a lot of gravel road on Chiloe Island, so keep that in mind when booking a rental car. Ours was a little low to the ground (a typical sedan).
We arrived at Chepu Adventures after a bit of a confusing journey, because we felt it necessary to have lunch in Ancud first. But we finally found the place. There are two matrimonial cabins for rent (as in they have a double bed).
Be prepared for bugs if you travel there in Chilean summer!
Also be prepared to see tiny Chilean dear called pudu. I didn’t see any pudu myself, but everyone else in my party did. I was back in my cabana when the pudu decided to make themselves known. Sorry, no photos of the Pudu from Cindiana Jones, who is embarrassed, but such is life. I did get to see some really cute cats.
And here is the interior of our cabana:
It was nice to have a little patio and the table and chairs, but there were too many big bee-type bugs to encourage me. I spent most of my time at the main lodge, where you have dinner (big dinners!! Way too much food. We overate trying to be accommodating to our hosts). My time at the main lodge was spent gazing out at the view. Because it was incredible, and pictures can’t do it justice. It was like looking out at a beautiful oil painting.
The next morning, you get up at a time agreed-upon the night before with the host, and this fellow named Carl magically showed up. We hadn’t seen Carl before this point. There was another fellow who magically showed up when it was time to serve dinner. Otherwise, we saw our hosts. There are a lot of great photos of the kayaking experience on Trip Advisor.
We happened to have a rainy day. That’s just the way the ball bounces. So we kayaked, and it was eerie and surreal and quiet. BILly, being an experienced outdoors-man, spotted an otter, but by the time my husband and I made our way over, BILly had scared the otter away (my theory is he scared away the pudu, too). BILly and SILly got very close to a heron or crane (it was very dark when we started out, so we were guessing a lot of time where we were supposed to go, what sunken tree branches to grab and sit for a spell, etc). You guessed it, the crane/heron/bird thing disappeared as soon as my husband and I kayaked along. I am beginning not to believe BILly’s fishing stories as a result…
After the kayaking trip, you’re left with a whole ‘nother day. You can choose to stay only one night, but we had opted for two. And, really, even though it rained a LOT on our kayak day, it was comfortable hanging around the lodge and just soaking up the gorgeous views. Our host packed us a light lunch, and we followed directions to drive to a point where we could walk down a very steep gravel road (not suitable for our rental vehicle), and the idea was to walk to the ocean. But it was cold and rainy, and the ocean, she seemed very far away. Maybe we turned the wrong dune.
Here I am on the dunes:
Dune foliage ready for its close-up:
Would I recommend Chepu Adventures? In the end, I would have to say, yes, it was a good experience. The one night would suffice, I believe, as long as you arrive early enough the first day to get enough of the view. We strictly didn’t need the second night, but to me in the planning stages it seemed odd to go all that way and then only stay one night.
While we were there, we saw evidence of perhaps a ferry crossing being constructed, and we also saw more construction along the river. But the spot itself felt very isolated. So you go for the kayak adventure and a hike, and then you continue on your travels.
Thanks to our host Amory, we came to realize that it was high tourist season on Chiloe. We hadn’t booked accommodations in Castro, to where we would drive the next day. She recommended that we should, and so SILly and I found online what appeared to be the only spot available in an area of Castro called Ten-Ten. We wound up with a police escort to our bed-and-breakfast.
But that’s a story for another time!