Month: April 2016

Date Explored: February 9th

Yi-yi, what an adventure! We set forth from Chepu Adventures EcoLodge to a completely mysterious B&B in the Ten Ten area of Castro, which is the major city on Chiloe Island. We were extremely lucky to find accommodation. Upon arriving at Castro, we took the very first opportunity to stop and gaze at the palafitos (houses on stilts) while the tide was in:

We had decided that we weren’t going to book ahead for our two-night stay in Castro. Instead, we would stumble upon whatever we found once we were there. That was before we discovered we were traveling at the height of Chilean travel season (for Chileans). On the advice of our host at Chepu Adventures, we went ahead and found a B&B on Booking.com the night before leaving, and, let me tell you, the Interweb pickings were slim. When we arrived in Castro, the traffic was crazy, it was hot, and the little hotels along the main drag looked hot and sweaty and noisy. Our B&B sounded fantastic…if only we could find it.

We stopped at a gas station to ask directions. The guys were pretty sure the gas station attendant said to head back out of town and take “the second right,” but for reasons unknown to SILly and Moi, the guys took the first right, “just to see” if they could find the B&B that way, you know, not trusting that they heard “the second right.” Hey, I wasn’t driving. I had to leave things in the capable hands of our resident experts.

We drove a lot of dusty gravel road. Finally, when we began to wonder if our B&B existed, my dh, who was in charge that day, noticed a Castro police car on the side of the road. So we stopped, and he attempted to communicate in his lousy Spanish (have I mentioned we neglected to bring our handy little Latin American Spanish guide on our trip?).

My poor dh! He couldn’t understand the police officers’ Spanish well enough, and they couldn’t speak or understand English at all. So he got the bright idea to take my iPad to the police, so they could look at the address. They understood immediately where it was and attempted to communicate the information, but alas, alack, amiss, it was not to be understood. These police officers would not let a little language barrier stop them from helping us! First, they called the B&B to ask questions and let them know they had their guests. Really, they were looking for a stolen car, but I think we were more interesting. Because next thing you know, they volunteered to escort us to the B&B!

If you’ve been following my Chilean adventures, you might remember that my husband brought two gifts from Canada to give to folks who he felt went above-board. One he gave to our wine tour guide around Santiago. The next he gave to the officer who helped us, and the officer was very happy. 🙂 🙂

Too bad, so sad, we found our destination but our hosts had not finished cleaning it for our arrival. No problem, we went back into town for lunch. We parked down at the water and found a place called Nueve Galicia. It was excellent. If you’re in Castro, you have to eat here! We sat at the very back, which meant we had a view of the cooks:

After lunch, we visited the Church of San Francisco downtown, which is famous for being constructed entirely of wood on the interior (we would see another church like this the following day). Exterior:

Finally, remembering our directions from the kind police officers, we returned to The Loft at our B&B, and discovered, to our delight, that it was practically brand new. DH and I took the bedroom, and BILly and SILly took the loft. We shared the fashionable bathroom. Everything about the place was funky and fashionable. The Loft came with a little fridge and sink and stove, and also with a wood-fired hot tub that had never been used before. It took quite a while to get going, but eventually those of us who wished were able to enjoy a soak.

 

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!

Dates Explored: February 5 – 7, 2016

Last we left off, we were on Easter Island. On February 4th we basically flew back to the Hilton by the Santiago Airport and crashed (as in fell into bed) for our flight the next day from Santiago to Puerto Montt, from where we would rent a car and drive to Puerto Varas. Some Travel Tips!

• Remember when I said the Holiday Inn by the airport was more expensive than the Hilton Garden Inn? I guess because it’s really close and you don’t have to get a shuttle. For the Hilton by the airport you need a shuttle, and, man, did we waste a lot of time getting organized. There seemed to be no easy way, with the language barrier, for us to find which was the free shuttle that would take us to the Hilton Garden Inn. We were told a number of things and eventually we found our way. I guess I should have taken note of how to find the shuttle for other travelers reading this, but it’s out of my brain now, sorry. Maybe google “how to find shuttle for Hilton Garden Inn at Santiago Airport.” It’s one of those things that once you know (if you remember), it seems sorta easy, but at the time it seems crazy disorganized.
• If you decide to rent a car at the Puerto Montt airport (recommended, and booking in advance also recommended), do not, I repeat, do NOT ask the rental car folks for their wi-fi password so you can email the supposedly non-existent front desk at your destination hotel. You might get the information you need (“Yes, of course we have a front desk, you nimrod, we don’t care what the hotel sites say about emailing or calling ahead to find out how to get in”), but you might also find yourself suddenly locked out of your email. This happened to poor Moi, who just wanted to send one simple email. My server decided it looked super suspect that I had been in Chile for two weeks, was in Easter Island two days earlier and had now–gasp!–found my way to Southern Chile. So, you know, best thing is to lock Cindy out and force her to spend an hour chatting with tech support once at the hotel instead of having a Pisco Sour.

Yes, use the rental car wi-fi at your own risk. In retrospect, a quick in-and-out check of my email might have appeared suspect, so I can’t totally blame my server.

Here’s another Travel Tip! Let your server know you are traveling and where. Just like you might do with your credit card company. Why didn’t I think of that?

By all means, rent a car at the Puerto Montt airport and head straight to Puerto Varas, which is maybe half an hour away at most via Route 5 and ABSOLUTELY BREATHTAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL. If I ever have the chance to visit Chile again, I think I would spend more time in the Lagos region (lakes). We had two nights in Puerto Varas before heading to Chiloe Island, and we could have easily used a few more days to drive north and view more stunning country.

Once in Puerto Varas, we stayed at the Radisson, which was right on the lake, which is stunning. Yes, if you’re Canadian you have seen stunning lakes before, especially if you live in B.C., but it’s always a thrill to find equally stunning lakes elsewhere. I admit, we are spoiled at home for our lakes in B.C.

The Radisson is a great spot. Comfy rooms, walking distance to eating and supermarkets and to the festival grounds half a block away (yes, we had somehow located another festival). Our traveling partners went to bed “early” while DH and I went and hung around with locals and listened to some fantastic bands and music.

The next morning we hopped into our rental car. I was the Secretary or Leader for the day, which meant I was in charge of the purse-strings and making final decisions (such as, yes, boys, we are going to drive around the entire lake). We headed to Petrohue Falls (which really reminded us of B.C.) and then made for our major destination of the day, a view of Lake Llanquihue (sorta say it like Lake Yankeeway) from Volcano Osorno. Volcano Calbuco blew in 2015, but Osorno is still a ski mountain, and you can ride up the chairlifts, walk around, and maybe take a zip line coming down. All recommended!

Yes, you can zipline down Osorno! You don’t have to book in advance, just walk up to the little window where you buy the tickets to ride the chairlift. You have to tell them at that point if you want to book a zipline trip and they will sell you the appropriate tickets. First, you take two chairlifts up to view the glacier (you don’t have to take the second one if you only want to zipline; in that case, just take one chairlift), and you can do this sort of thing even if you’re afraid of heights. Just make sure the other person in your chairlift ISN’T afraid of heights. I had begun conquering my fear in Peru six years earlier, and luckily I had ziplined twice before, once at Whistler (terrifying) and once in the Okanagan Valley of B.C. (still terrifying but not as much). The Osorno zipline was my third attempt, but it’s set up differently and our group of four were the only English speakers. So the friendly Chilean guy we met, Francisco I believe was his name, interpreted for us while safety instructions were being delivered. There might have been something lost in the translation, because I was not quite clear on what to do if big winds blew up and stopped me IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LONGEST ZIPLINE. You know that idiot who winds up stopping and can’t get going again? Yup, that was me.

Part of the issue was language. The zipline is the type where you wear a thick leather glove and hold the line and use the glove as your overhead brake. I hadn’t ridden that type of zip before and like I say, I lost something in the translation. So not only did the wind stop me cold on the longest of the four ziplines, but I then had no clue what to do to get going again. I gazed in wonder at Lago Llanquihue and tried to will my heart to stop beating in my throat. I was getting quite freaked out.

Here is what it looks like if you’re doing it correctly:

I had stopped quite a ways back…. Ahem. So my husband and the Chilean zipline guy are yelling directions, and I’m like “What? What? Frack, my heart! Frick, the height! Nice lake! I am going to die! I AM the idiot hanging on the zipline who does not know what to do!!!”

My husband and the zippy guy decided to hop off the landing platform and come to help me. My husband was giving me instructions to pull myself hand-over-hand, which, frankly, was what Francisco had mentioned but I had forgotten (in my fear). But then the Chilean guy said, “Just let go!” (Ah, so he did know some English; maybe he hand-gestured, my lungs were in my ears at that point).

“Just let go!” does not mean you will fall onto the ashy ground, it means you will grasp your hanging thingies with both hands instead of one hand on the brake and the second on the thingy. Thusly, thisly, thashly, you will zip to the platform.

How embarrassing.

After a lunch at the ski lodge, we headed back down the mountain and began our circumvention of the lake. We saw a lot of this:

One of the things we read to do was head to a small town called Fruitilar, but if Fruitilar is your destination, head LEFT out of Puerto Varas. Believe me when I say you will get there a lot faster. Head RIGHT if you want to visit Petrohue Falls and Osorno. Coming into Fruitilar the way we did isn’t as, picturesque, shall we say, as driving from Puerto Varas to Fruitilar.

Any way you want to slice it, the Lagos Region is a site to behold. I am so grateful to folks on Trip Advisor for sharing their experiences. We flew to Puerto Montt as a way to get to Chiloe Island via ferry, but someone on TA told me Puerto Varas was not to be missed, and they were right. I would have loved a few more days in the area.

Two restaurants we chose in Puerto Varas were outstanding. The first night we wanted Italian and found a place that might have been Restaurant Tratria Di Carusso. Pity I didn’t write down the name. There was only one other table besides us while we were eating. I had minestrone soup that came in a cauldron that could have fed four and then beef gnocchi that was amazing. If the chef is a round older fellow sporting a feathered pen and wearing his chef hat, you’ve found the place. Amazeballs.

The second night we wanted steak but didn’t have a reservation, and it was festival time, remember, so it was super crowded (as in Chileans were filling the streets crowded). We were extremely lucky to get a table for four at La Marca. The folks in front of us had six in their party and could not be seated. We had to sit right in front of the grill, which was a bit hot (the back of my neck was to the grill), but it was great to see how they cooked, the coals, etc. And the food was divine!

I didn’t expect the food to be as wonderful as we found in Puerto Varas. I would have loved more time just to sample the gastronomic delights!