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Published: August 12th 2014
Seductive, destructive witches and warlocks stalk the forty, Irish-green islands of the Chiloe archipelago, or so they say. Located off the coast of Chile's Lake District, the islands were isolated for centuries, and many are still rarely visited by outsiders. Thus, they've developed their own culture filled with magical tales, a unique dialect and cuisine, and a vernacular architecture of brightly-painted houses on stilts and beautiful, handcrafted, wooden churches. I was up for an adventure! Big Skies Flurried with Clouds
I'd been in big city Puerto Montt, and after a week of waiting for the clouds to part, I'd finally gotten to see the perfect, snow-capped cone of Volcano Osorno; I was ready to leave. My rolling suitcase flew me down the steep hill to board one of the many buses for a four-hour ride to Chiloe's Isla Grande (Big Island ), the largest island in Chile after Tierra del Fuego. The journey included a wonderful, bouncing ferry ride through choppy white caps and under shape-shifting clouds compliments of a whipping wind that produced the only sunny day I was to have in my week there. It was mid-May, 2011, and autumn was changing to winter down here in Patagonia; we low-season travelers sometimes have to pay the price of funky weather.
On Isla Grande, we drove through rolling hills and pastures, a verdant green, thanks to the near ceaseless rain and mist. Fat, grazing cows, colorful bee hives and tall, autumn-golden poplars dotted the small farms on the hills, while the island sloped down to the Gulf of Ancud, lined with small fishing villages and colorful wooden boats. I disembarked at the little bus terminal in Castro, the capital of the islands. While it was by far the largest settlement on the islands, it retained its charming, traditional, painted wooden buildings and small-town feel. Residencial Marisol and Thrifty, Tasty Island Ways
I headed away from the center for something cheaper than what I'd found online and in my guidebook. I came upon a brightly painted green house with red trim and a flower-filled garden--Residencial Mirasol. An ancient, but very sturdy Marisol and her terror of a terrier greeted me. Chilotas, isolated for so long, have developed their own dialect, and it took me five days to begin to understand Mirasol. Normally, in season, it would cost US$16 just to share a room. But I used my new technique of proposing $10 if I stayed a week. In this low season, when I was the only person in the place, there was no problem. The room was freezing and damp--just like Chiloe, and I piled the blankets from the two other beds onto mine. There would be no turning over at night, but at least I'd be warm.
The next morning, I descended the creaky wooden stairs for breakfast in the kitchen, the only heated room in the house. The islanders are famously frugal which meant that they purchase very little in stores--lucky for me. Instead of the typical inedible South American breakfast of white bread and margarine, there was island honey, homemade jam and local butter for the freshly-made bread; I eagerly tucked in. On the wood-burning stove, Marisol and her equally ancient sister, cooked up huge, fabulous-smelling pots of produce--fruit into jam, kale for savory pies-- from the recent harvest for the coming winter. These self-sufficient islanders saved money and ate wonderfully fresh, local foods. A unique dish of the islands is curanto, made with seafood, meat, sausage, potatoes and anything else they have on hand, and baked a long time in a pot in the ground, a technique learned from the Chilota natives. While the creatures in it looked nasty to me, others swore it was quite tasty.
Chiloe's Palafitos
Castro's main plaza and the upper town were on a promontory which, like all the island towns, dropped steeply down to the waterfront which was lined with the charming palafitos (houses on stilts) for which the islands are famous. They, like all structures in the islands, were covered by thin, wooden shingles in a dazzling variety of geometric patterns and colors for protection from the almost constant rain and drizzle. Palafitos look like normal, brightly colored, wooden houses on the street side but their backs jut out over bays and estuaries on stilts that serve as mooring for boats when the tide is in. While many are sadly rundown, others have been spruced up and converted into hotels and restaurants. I spent lovely days walking along the bay past these palafitos and fishing boats as well as longer walks to the peninsula that sits across the bay from Castro. Chiloe means place of seagulls in one of the three indigenous 
Achao's Iglesia Santa Maria de Loreto
upturned-boat ceiling painted blue with gold stars and loads of hand-carved detailslanguages, and indeed there were tons of seabirds, including rare Patagonian black-necked swans.
Chiloe's UNESCO-listed Churches
Castro's church of San Francisco on the leafy plaza, is one of the largest of the 16 UNESCO World Heritage-designated, wooden churches that dot the archipelago. The church is a faded lemon and lilac with two Gothic towers, a beautifully hand-carved, wood paneled interior, models of many other Chilota wooden churches and loads of flowers. One of my favorite parts was the statue of St. Anthony with baby Jesus, the latter normally scantily clad, but here, wearing a warm, knit sleeper in this chilly clime. This was the church's fifth incarnation. Like many Chiloe churches and settlements, it had been destroyed twice by English pirates, and then once by fire. Finally, it was leveled by the great Chilean earthquake of 1960, the largest earthquake ever recorded, that had also destroyed most of coastal Chile. However, each time, the church was rebuilt in its original style, albeit with modern touches, such as steel nails this last time. Spanish conquistadors occupied Chiloe as early as 1567, followed soon by Bavarian Jesuit missionaries and later by Spanish colonists driven off the mainland by the fierce indigenous Mapuche. The Mapuche had stopped both Incan and later Spanish expansion into Patagonia. Thus, for 300 years, Chiloe was the only Spanish settlement in southern Chile; isolated from the mainland, it developed its own traditions, culture and architecture.
Jesuit missionaries first started visiting the islands in 1608 and brought their European, Gothic influence to the ecclesiastical architecture. The churches were built of native woods to resist the humid climate of the islands. Additionally, the maritime heritage of the indigenous people and settlers led to applying boat-building techniques to the churches, so they often had ceilings shaped like overturned boats. The lack of metal led to churches constructed with wooden pegs instead of nails. Additionally, these churches faced the sea with their towers acting as lighthouses for returning boats. Island Hopping
For several days, I hopped local buses and ferries to nearby towns and islands, seeking out some of these hand-built wooden churches. The little town of Chonchi has one of the best-preserved churches and lots of beautiful wooden homes. The town had gotten rich on the cypress timber industry and many mansions around town and on the plaza were made of this. It was known as the town on three levels with almost impossibly steep streets between the plaza, the upper town and the colorful waterfront with artisan shops,
palafitos on stilts and fishing boats.
I also visited Dalcahue and its 1850 church, Nuestra Senora de los Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows), its plaza with a fishing boat to proclaim its heritage and for kids to clamor over, down to waterfront with its artisan market and excellent museum with artifacts from indigenous tribes and early settlers.
A favorite day jaunt took me on a bus and then a ferry across to island of Quinchao and then a bus Achao, a small, pretty fishing village that serves as the market town for the ten even tinier, barely inhabited islands nearby. It was founded as a Jesuit colony and its church, Santa Maria de Loreto, the oldest on the islands, was built in 1784, and is still held together without nails. From the outside, the church is plain, and I wasn't sure it would be worth the hassle I endured in finding someone to open it. However, the interior was a dazzling explosion of whimsical designs, hand-carved details and my favorite Gothic blue ceiling with painted stars.
Small Disasters
Life has always been harsh on these windy, rainy islands, and in the 19c, many islanders left, further south into Patagonia to the wild southern Magallanes Province to work on newly established sheep ranches. However, they left their influence there in the many colorful wooden houses in Punto Arenas and Puerto Natales. I'd hoped to visit and hike the wild, windswept national park on the open Pacific side of the island, but Chiloe's dampness had seeped into my bones and lungs and laid me up. When able to move, I returned to Puerto Montt to catch a long-distance bus back to Bariloche, Argentina, where my Patagonian adventures had begun months earlier. On the bus to Bariloche, I saw the smoking cone of Chile's Volcano Puyehue, which would soon drastically change my travel plans. But first, I enjoyed a scenic, autumn-leafed tour of the Route of the Seven Lakes Ravishing Route of the Seven Lakes with my dear friend from home, Nancy, and a quick trip with her to Valdivia and Santiago, Chile. Then, I was to return to Bariloche for its snowy winter. However, on June 4, 2011, the Puyehue Volcano exploded in a massive eruption, spewing ash all over Bariloche and closing airports in South America, South Africa, and Australia before circling back to Chile. I'd left things in Bariloche, but as the Argentine Lake District was under a half meter of ash, I stayed away; it would be nine months, not two weeks, before I'd return. Poor Bariloche and the Lake District lost their winter revenue from the ski season; as for me, thank goodness, I was as ever--flexible!
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aspiringnomad
Jason
Chiloe
Loved Chiloe. Love the name too...we (I) even considered naming our daughter Mandalay, Chiloe!