After my 23rd flight since my retirement in December, I arrived back from London into Puerto Montt in Chile last week. I had secretly been rather apprehensive about my plan to drive to the islands of Chiloe in Northern Patagonia since I thought I had left it too late in the season. When I left Puerto Montt at the beginning of April it was already starting to get pretty autumnal and two weeks later I expected that I would be in for lots of rain and cold wind. Besides, Chiloe is famous for its rain--over 2200 mm per year. The rain supports its temperate rainforest vegetation and adds to its mystical atmosphere . However after two weeks of rain in London I wasn't keen on more.
The first two days on the mainland, in Puerto Varas, a pretty, small town in the Lakes District on the shore of Lake Llanquihue (see last post), confirmed my fears--rain and fog-- and the beautiful volcano Osorno remained firmly shrouded in cloud so I had to content myself with looking at the historic (the beginning of the 20th century is historic in this part of the country) wooden houses built by the industrious German settlers who immigrated to the area (P.S. However the day I flew to Santiago where I now am, and having some time to kill before my flight I returned to the towns around Lake Llanquihue, which were by then luxuriating in the fine weather I had brought with me from Chiloe, so I got some nice photos--see below).
On the third day, after driving the 65 km to the ferry over to Chiloe, the sun suddenly came out and I had almost perfect weather for my three and half days in the Chiloe archipelago. Apparently this is almost unheard of and is probably considered cheating, but I am not complaining!
Chiloe? Where is that?
Briefly, Chiloe is an archipelago of islands about a mile off the east coast of Chile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilo%C3%A9_Archipelago. The largest, Isla Grande, is about 165 Km north to south by 50 km wide. It begins just south of the Chilean Lakes District and ends at the beginning of the remote and empty Chilean Fjords. Tectonic plate shifts and volcanic activity at this point have caused the coast of Chile to break up into islands and fjords which extend deep into the coastline right up to the Andes themselves. The Chiloe archipelago does not stick out into the ocean but rather is inset into Chile's west coast (obviously in earlier eons it was part of the mainland before tectonic shifts turned it into an island). So while the west coast of Chiloe's Isla Grande is buffetted by the Pacific storms, its north, east and south coasts are protected by what is in effect a (relatively) benign and calm inland sea filled with small islands. The smaller islands of the archipelago closest to the east coast of Chiloe are easily reached by ferry and are dotted with little villages and farms. The landscape is pastoral, one of steeply rolling green hills on which Hereford cattle graze in the clearings.
What is its history?
Because the big island has a protected coastline and islands on its east side, the Chiloe archipelago was occupied several thousand years ago by certain of the Mapuche tribes, who lived off the sea and later on agriculture, and developed their own culture and mystical traditions in isolation from the mainland. The making of their canoes to fish and collect shellfish around the islands's coast meant that the local tribes developed excellent woodworking skills.
The unique nature of the Chiloe culture (and its strategic importance of the archipelago) was recognised by the Spanish and was a particular focus of the Jesuit missionaries, in part to counter or harness the vivid mystical traditions of the island, the magic creatures which brought fish and good crops or disaster and pestilence and raped virgins.
The Jesuits and later the Franciscans encouraged the local tribes to use their boat building skills to build beautiful churches of the native woods, in strategic coastal spots on the east coast and on the smaller islands of the archipelago. Settlements grew up around these churches and the Jesuits would visit by boat several times a season. A number of these charming churches are now UNESCO world heritage sites (see below).
The Spanish seem to have behaved in an unusually benign way towards the local tribes and there was much intermarrying, and the strong Chilote culture thrived in relative isolation from the mainland. In fact so successful was the integration with the Spanish that Chiloe was the last stronghold of royalist resistance to the Chilean independence movements of the 19th century.
What is Chiloe like?
Chiloe remains something of a world apart and it has long been known to the hippy backpackers who were attracted to its distinct culture and isolated lifestyle. Even the names of the settlements are still Mapuche names, not your usual South American Spanish names like "San Jose" or "Santa Maria" but rather "Quinchao", "Dalcahue", "Chonchi", "Tenaun", "Cucao", and "Huilinco". Given Chiloe's its royalist history, the names of revolutionary heroes like "O'Higgins" and "Libertador"are not trumpeted as street names as they are in most Chilean towns and cities.
Chiloe has two "cities" (if you can call a place with 29,000 inhabitants a city): Ancud and Castro. Even they have a unique feel to them--no neon signs and colourfully painted higgeldy-piggeldy wooden houses with tin roofs, some of them built on stilts over the water (called palafitos). And then there are several dozen little towns and villages of between 250 and a 1000 souls, almost all on the east coast or the archipelago islands.
Once you leave the sheltered north or east coast and travel west towards the Pacific, you are in a different world of wild temperate rainforest with vines and unfamiliar (to me) trees and shrubs, and huge Chilean rhubarb (see photo) . Interestingly the native trees and shrubs do not seem to turn colour or lose their leaves in autumn. So it is only the non-native poplar (of which there are many) and sycamore and the delicate small flowers of the gorse and wild fuchsia shrubs which add a splash of yellow and red to the deep greens of the native trees and the bright green of the fields.
To add to the colour there is the red and white of the Hereford cattle, the brightly painted wooden houses, the bright blue of the inland sea dotted with the yellow and red fishing boats , and in the far distance the snow-capped volcanoes on the mainland. Since the weather was so benign while I was there, the sheltered bays were covered with a multitude of gulls and cormorants and the lovely black-necked swans with red knobs above their beaks (see photos). You can see why I was glad to have such good weather since all of that would have been shrouded in mist on a normal day.
The wooden churches of Chiloe
A word about the wooden churches which are unique to Chiloe (and see photos below). Although they originated in Jesuit times in the 16th century and still remain on their original sites and follow their original designs, most of them have been restored and even rebuilt a number of times. After all, this is a wild and wet climate, and wood decays. What to me is interesting though is that the rebuilding and renovation, which is still going on with the support of UNESCO funding, is so meticulous, and demonstrates that the original Mapuche craftsmanship and skills are still alive and well in Chiloe.
The design of the churches is similar although each has its own unique features particularly in the shapes of the steeples (see photos). Basically the design is that of three upturned boat hulls, side by side to form a triple nave covered over with a large triangular roof, so you only see the boat-hull structure from the inside. Colour was used, particularly on the facade and in the interior. Although the unrestored churches have lost all their colour and have reverted to the silver grey of the untreated wood, some of the newly restored ones are a riot of colour. The Chilotes love colour in their boats, their houses and their churches.
Wood and fish
It used to be all about wood . The economy of the island grew rapidly in the 19th and early 20th century by large-scale lumbering. These were native trees. Originally, the insect resistant red wood of the alerce with its lovely grain was the most prized until it was realised how slow growing they are (about 2 mm a year and living to over 3000 years) and so were not a sustainable resource (they are now protected). Lumbering still continues but in a smaller way and the trees harvested are mostly introduced pine and eucalyptus.
Houses in Chiloe are virtually all made of wood. And they are heated by wood. Each house whether in a village or in the country has a huge pile of split logs beside it. The exterior walls of most of the houses are covered in overlapping wooden shingles. There is quite an art to this--the shingles are cut in scallops or squares or points or inverted half moons. Many are painted but many, particularly the older ones , are left a natural silvery grey. Although some wooden shingled roofs remain, metal roofs are now the norm. (see photos)
At present the curse and blessing of Chiloe and the whole coastal area south of Santiago is fish farming. Although there is farming of shellfish, particularly oysters and mussels and clams, this is fairly small-scale and for domestic consumption. The Big Business is salmon farming. Chile is now just behind Norway in the world salmon-farming stakes and it contributes enormously to the prosperity of Chiloe. But, unlike Norway and Canada where salmon farming has been going on for decades, salmon is not native to Chile.
The waters around the coast of Chile and particularly in the inland sea between Chiloe and the mainland is thickly dotted with colourful buoys and floats supporting cages in which the salmon fingerlings that are spawned in large plastic tanks on shore, spend a year or so growing to marketable size. These salmon are fed fish meal prepared in factories and when fully grown are "processed" in these small factories which are found along the coast. The smell of these factories is unmistably horrible. The potential for pollution and environmental and ecological damage and the health risk caused by this fish farming industry are evident but the value it brings to what would otherwise be an economically depressed part of the country so far overweighs such concerns.
I didn't have any salmon while in Chiloe--why do so when I can buy it in Marks & Spencer when I get back to London? But I did have oysters, hake, crab and conger eel which was delicious--a solid flesh and few bones.
Dogs
From what I have seen so far the dog population of Chile will soon overtake the people population! These are not your poodles or lapdogs. These are large mongrel dogs of the Alsatian/ labrador type. And they run in feral packs even in the middle of the larger cities.
I hasten to say that these seem to be very good natured dogs ---they are adept at spotting tourists and cozying up to them with tails wagging and pitiful looks. The English expression "hang-dog look" suits them perfectly. They run back and forth across main roads and bark fiercely at passing cars but otherwise seem to do no harm. They do not seem to be in poor physical condition and look well fed and have good coats. So it seems that the Chilean people and the Chilean dogs have decided to rub along together tolerantly.
In short as you can probably tell, I was very taken with Chiloe and it more than lived up to my expectations. Would I have enjoyed it as much if the weather had not been good? Unlikely. I enjoy my creature comforts too much for that.
I am now in Santiago and will be flying to Easter Island on Saturday. Watch for the next post which will probably be on or about 2 May.
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| Me on the Chiloe ferry |
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| A wheelbarrow of crabs being hawked to the cars and trucks awaiting the ferry |
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| Lunch in Caulin on the north coast of Chiloe--oysters |
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| The benign weather was ideal for the seabirds, including the black necked swans in the background, the cormorants in the middle ground and the gulls in the foreground |
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| a black-necked swan family |
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| The north coast where the Pacific ocean meets the inland channels. Penguins nest on the islands |
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| The penguin beach near Ancud |
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| Pacific breakers on a beach in the far north-west of Chiloe's main island |
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| The sunset from the terrace of the hostel I stayed in in Ancud |
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| This and the following are typical of the older Chiloe village houses. Note the shingles which cover the walls and the roofs |
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| ditto |
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| ditto |
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| view from my hotel window in Castro over the inland channels which separate Chiloe from the mainland |
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| The Chiloe archipelago islands and sea channels on the east side of Chiloe |
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| typical pastoral scene in the islands of the Chiloe archipelago |
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| The archipelago and channels again but with threatening sky, more typical of Chiloe weather |
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| Volcanoes on the mainland as seen from Chiloe |
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| ditto |
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| another pastoral scene |
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| The Hereford cattle have priority on the roads--as do the geese, turkeys, sheep,pigs and of course the dogs |
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| The most unrestored of the Jesuit wooden churches, this one in Acao on the Isla Quinchao. This and the following are all UNESCO World Heritage sites (see blog) |
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| The interior of Dalcahue wooden church--note the rounded nave ceiling built using boat building techniques. The side aisles are also rounded but the flat ceiling is covering the curve |
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| The exterior of Dalcahue church |
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| The interior of San Francisco church in Castro. It is not as old as the other churches but the interior woodwork, all native species, is outstanding |
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| Villipuli church |
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| The interior of Chonchi wooden church |
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| The exterior of Chonchi wooden church |
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| The newly restored Tenaun wooden church |
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| a reminder that Chile is subject to frequent earthquakes |
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| Over on the Pacific west coast the vegetation is wild and the population sparse. This bridge is made in part of a boat |
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| The enormous Chilean rhubarb. Note my black glove on the centre-right leaf, for perspective |
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| One of the offshore fish farms (see blog) |
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| the fish market in Angelmo in Puerto Montt (on the mainland). The hanging fish are conger eels. |
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| Crabs in the Angelmo market |
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| The inlet in which the Angelmo fish market is situated.. Note the brightly painted fishing boats, so typical of the region |
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| A pack of stray dogs taking a break from their duties of begging for food, barking and chasing cars |
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| View across Lake Llanquihue from Puerto Varas to the Osorno volcano |
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| Another view of Osorno across the pastoral fields cleared by the industrious German settlers in the 19th century |
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| View from the promenade of the delightful town of Frutillar on the shore of Lake Llanquihue. Volcano Osorno framed by the bandstand,, volcano Puntiagudo to the left (partly obscured) and volcano Tronador the the right. |
