If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air...

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So we found ourselves in the busy and not especially pretty town of Puerto Montt and in apparently the best hotel in town. (Described in the Lonely Planet as a ‘boutique hotel’. We are pretty sure they meant hoStel) However, it was a base for a couple of days. On the day we arrived, which was Sunday, we took an afternoon trip to the fishing port of Angelmo, just along the coast, wandered around the fish market and feasted on fresh salmon. Monday was a washing and shopping day, ready to head off to the beautiful island of Chiloe.

Chiloe, is Chile’s misty, emerald isle, off the west coast of the mainland, and we expected, maybe a bit like being in Scotland or Ireland. We took a short 20 minute car ferry across the water and found ourslves driving through beautiful undulating countryside, interspersed with lakes and coastal inlets. We had timed our visit to the island to coincide with Chile’s big annual sailing event - a sort of Cowes week/ Tour des Portes. We headed out to a peninsula where we hoped to see the boats come by, but they were a way offshore, so we made our way to Castro, the major town on the island and watched the boats coming in over the finish line. It looked like great fun, a spinnaker run with flukey breeze and wind shifts all the way to the finish! The town of Castro is famous for it’s brightly coloured wooden houses on stilts over the water and as a busy little fishing port. We had a fantastic Curanto, seafood stew, for lunch and then headed out of town to find a nice place to camp for the night overlooking the sound.

The next day we decided to head out to the west of the island and to the national park, which runs along the Pacific coast. We went from what had been a relatively warm and sunny day on the other side of the island to a windy and misty coastline of sand dunes and low scrubby trees. We found a lovely campsite, with pitches in amongst what looked like giant rhubarb, within earshot of the roar of the Pacific. In the afternoon we walked across the sand dunes and out to the beach where the air was filled with sand and spray. Nothing but a few islands across the Pacific between here and where, Australia maybe?

That evening we got a good fire going and had steak on the bbq and a few glasses of wine. Then it was time for bed and almost as soon as we had zipped up the tent, the rain and wind started. The first rain and wind we’ve had, and therefore the first test for our tent (which we have christened The Alien - it’s the eyes.) The tent was waterproof and mostly windproof, although we wouldn’t want to camp on a mountainside!! It rained every night on Chiloe and the wind blew straight from the Pacific.

The next day we planned to go for a bit of a hike inland to see a lake, which was supposed to be very beautiful. We set off with our lunch packed, walking sticks and a fly swat. (We’ve been warned about huge black and orange horseflies, which are prolific in the lakes and Patagonia in January, and we’ve already been bothered by a few further north, so a fly swat seems a very useful piece of equipment!) For the first kilometre along the road, it was great sport, swatting at the flies and hearing a fantastic ‘thwack’ when you hit one. They were starting to become annoying after a while though. Then, after turning off on the track towards the lake, and being surrounded by about 30 of them, we decided this was no fun at all and admitted defeat!! Beaten by horseflies! We turned back to the campsite and ate our lunch sitting by our tent! The afternoon’s activity was a drive (to avoid the horseflies) around the park to see the coast a little further along. Apparently the horseflies have a short season and should be gone by the end of January. So that means they should only have about 5 days left….

After a very enjoyable (despite the horseflies) few days on Chiloe, we headed south on the island to the port town of Quellon, from where we would take the ferry to Chaiten, back on the mainland and from where you head south on the Carretera Austral - Chile’s southernmost route, an isolated road through spectacular scenery. This was a late addition to the plan, but sounded like a great trip and we were looking forward to it.

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