With all the trips I have taken from Chile, I've found that there were two types: The kind where you go to a place knowing that you will be doing A, seeing B, and eating C. You have plans, tours and restaurants in mind and typically these trips are to the more toursity areas of the world. The second kind of trip is the kind where you go with the bare minimum about the town- you know how to get there, that you have a plane ticket/bus ticket, a hostal reservation and a suitcase in hand.
Maybe you wrote down the names of the Plazas in town, a museum or two and a pretty view you should check out. The truth is there probably wasn't TOO much to do in these towns, but nevertheless they were enjoyable and full of unexpected events and unforseeable delights. This is basically how my trips to La Serena, Puerto Varas, Montevideo and now Chiloé went. Like I said they were great- but one of the biggest reasons that I went was to get out of Santiago and to enjoy some of the varying landscape Chile has to offer. I mean we've got the desert in the north, beaches and mountains running along both borders and the beautiful, lush but cold southern region.
Chiloé falls under the cold but enchanting category. Like I said before, it is made up of an archipelago of many islands (some big and inhabited, some small and essentially just wildlife and forrest).
My friend Hannah and I decided that one of our last weekends in Chile we should visit the hyped about Chiloé to see the Palafitos (houses on stilts on the waterfront of the islands)
eat some good seafood, and enjoy the beauty of southern Chile. And we did!
One day we went to a market of handicrafts (because doesn't every south American city have on- and I ALWAYS buy way too much),
we visited many churches (the area is famous for its abundance of ancient wooden churches)
another day we hopped on a bus that then hopped on a ferry that we were about 80% certain would take us to an island we had googled the night before. It did indeed take us to Lemuy Island, but we soon found out that in low season this island is virtually uninhabited (but still beautiful!) and inhospitable (only one restaurant was open- the lady who ran it served as the hostess, waiter and chef- and the food was kinda awful...but we survived(; ).
Luckily the trip redeemed itself through the vistas from the bus rides and the heladeria that was on the street corner in the main plaza. I told Hannah that I would have been happy just hopping on a bus each day to wherever it was going and just looking out the window because no matter where you were- it was lovely- and there wasn't much else to do anyways! haha
We enjoyed many coffee breaks (I have now decided that this is the best way to travel- get coffee and a dessert at around 3pm in the afternoon),
I enjoyed ice cream every single day (per usual) and we got our aforementioned pics with the palafitos. One night we watched the Copa America game with the locals in a nice little bar (Chile won- duh!) and the last day we got to go horsebackriding (in the rain- bummer)
in Chiloé's national park. It was only like 40 USD (upside) but I do wish we had gotten to go during high season when the flauna was in bloom and maybe it was a little warmer (downside).
The horses were great (tired- but responsive and did their job) and Hannah had a ball (she had never really been horsebackriding and was dying to go).
Even though we seemed to get the gringo treatment at some restaurants- they would tell us that they only had certain things available and then we would see them deliver it to another table- this actually happened twice!- we found two gems- one had delicious pizza and the other had tasty sammies on homemade bread. Unfortunately my leftovers from the pizza place somehow got thrown away...even though we were the only guests in the hotel- but my main man/hotel worker felt so bad that we reimbursed me for the lost food..so I just went a bought myself a delicious sammie instead.
So as you can see from my random assortment of anecdotes, it was a great trip- and even though it's been a while- I couldn't leave it without a re-cap
One day we went to a market of handicrafts (because doesn't every south American city have on- and I ALWAYS buy way too much),
We enjoyed many coffee breaks (I have now decided that this is the best way to travel- get coffee and a dessert at around 3pm in the afternoon),
in Chiloé's national park. It was only like 40 USD (upside) but I do wish we had gotten to go during high season when the flauna was in bloom and maybe it was a little warmer (downside).
So as you can see from my random assortment of anecdotes, it was a great trip- and even though it's been a while- I couldn't leave it without a re-cap
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