Our Adventure to Isla Chiloe, Chile
Channel: Beautiful Booze
Date: 2019-11-29

We rented a car from the Puerto Montt Airport and we quickly were on our way. The water crossing is quite easy, with frequent ferries passing between the mainland and Isla Chiloe, and if you don’t want to rent a car there were plenty of tour buses on the ferry also. On the island, there is just one main road that runs north to south, with off-roads to all the areas you will be visiting. But that’s boring, we’re on an island. Instead, we opted to turn off as soon as we could and use the local road following the coastline, passing through small local “towns” on our way down to Quemchi. We stayed our first night at Las Conchas de sus Mares, run by an awesome South American family who has traveled a lot and found their paradise here. There wasn’t much going on in Quemchi though, so one night here was sufficient before we said our goodbyes and moved on.

Continuing south, we made a quick detour to Isla Aucar, where one of the famous churches sits alone with access via a long wooden bridge. We soon spotted some locals digging through the mud for mussels and eating them fresh and had to try them out. We made our way down and they offered us some to try, so we politely accepted and cracked our mussels open on a nearby rock. Although a cool experience, I can tell you we won’t be doing that again any time soon. The bitterness was fiercely offensive and did not subside for some time. Lesson learned. Our next stop was in the small fishing village of Tenaún, where we checked out our favorite church on the island.

Before we reached the main town of Castro, where we were planning to spend the next few days, we still had a few more stopovers. The first of which was Dalcahue, where we did a little more shopping and stopped for lunch at Brisas Marinas for their legendary curanto. The curanto is a fisherman's basket of sorts, where they take mussels of various species, clams, chicken, ham and some other items (whatever they wanted), and steam it all in one big bag then bring it out to your table. It is recommended for 2 people, but no matter how much we ate we never seemed to get anywhere. This was some magical bottomless seafood basket. Our day wasn’t over yet, and our amazing hosts from the evening before told us we had to explore the island of Curaco de Velez. Another ferry ride and we were on our way to the town of the same name. Once we arrived we made our way to Ostras los Troncos that had been recommended to us by several locals as the best place in all of Chile for fresh oysters. Although difficult, after our bottomless seafood lunch, we ordered a few oysters and they stood up to their reputation as some of the best oysters we have ever tasted.

Once back onto the main island we made haste and were soon in the municipality of Castro. We initially planned to spend 2 days exploring this town, though, after a quick stroll around town, we seemed to have seen it all and moved on the very next day. This was a blessing in surprise, as it allowed us to venture to another part of the region we thought we had to miss on our original itinerary, Isla Lemuy.

While exploring options on AirBnB for Isla Chiloe, the first one that grabbed our eye was El Castaño Farm, but our original timing didn’t allow us time. Now, with an extra night, we booked it as soon as we could and Silvio met us as we got off the ferry. He guided us to the farm while telling us all about the island. After dropping our bags off, we left to explore the island and visit a few of the local UNESCO listed churches, as well as the cool viewing towers, dotted all around the island. We returned home just as his wife was prepping dinner and she taught us how to make homemade spaghetti, which was so cool.

The following morning we were back on the road, driving directly across the island to the small western town of Cucao. A town with a wonderful National Park and the famous Muelle de las Almas; or Pier of Souls. We stayed at the Palafito Cucao, which was a new hostel in the perfect location. Located right on the lake's edge, and close to the entrance to the National Park. With plenty of time before sunset, we took off into the park. It was a very comfortable walk, with the bonus of a little café at the furthest point of the trail for a quick beer and some freshly made empanadas. The following morning, we were up super early to make our way to the Muelle de las Almas before the rest of the tourists. It was raining quite a bit, though as we approached the pier it started to get better, and as we reached it, the skies were clear revealing an absolutely gorgeous sight. The coastline here is beautiful, and the sight of the pier was very welcomed after a long, cold, wet walk. We were lucky to be the first ones, so we had time to take photos and enjoy the serene beauty before heading back and walking past all the tour groups arriving by the busload.