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Published: April 2nd 2007
Chiloe´s Palafitos
Castro, the capital of Chiloe, is famous for its wooden houses on stilts, beautiful... After the Navimag we headed to Chiloe, an island, which is a pretty laid back place and scenically very beautiful.
Excited to be back to dry land we decided to get a car for the day so that we could bomb around and get the island done pretty quickly. Or so we thought...
After a trip to the national park, we headed towards Quimchey, a small fishing village where we had heard they made good Curanto, the local dish of seafood, meat and potatoes.
Looking at our map, we decided to take the coast road after another village called Dalcahue. When we got to Dalcahue it looked pretty nice so we had a drive around and then headed out on the coast road.
Soon, the road became less and less of a road, and more a dirt track. Our beautiful little Corsa was still handling it pretty well, and despite a few scary bumps, scrapes, knocks and crashes all was going pretty well.
After another hour or so, we came to a T junction with no sign posts. From the tourist map, we thought we just needed to take a right and it was just
Chiloe´s Churches
it is also very famous for having hundreds of churches, they are also wooden. down the hill.
And it was a hill, a hugely steep one at that, and the stony track now turned into serious bumps and pot-holes. The Corsa was no longer happy! As we made hideous progress downwards the few locals present looked at us as though we were mental (which proved correct!).
As we pulled on to the beach at the bottom, breathing a sigh of relief for the respite, we looked up to see 3 houses and a few pigs running around - this was not our desired destination.
Accepting we had made a right mess of getting to our destination, we decided to make our retreat back up the hill. Having made it just a few metres up, we hit a bump and came to an abrupt stop. Starting again, Rich did his best handbrake start, gave the Corsa some serious throttle but the wheels started squealing and as the smoke surrounded us, an ominous burning smell hit our noses!! We hopelessly tried again. By now Catrin had got out hoping that less weight (!!) might help!
Finally a local came down in his 4 wheel drive pick up (of course) and shook his
finger, which I think translated to 'Typical Stupid Foreigners'. He repeated that there was an 'otre camino', another road, and pointed back at the beach. In disbelief, but with no other option, we reversed down, and Catrin asked again - at the beach?? - we had seen no road.
As we got back to the beach we saw another pick up coming down a track in the distance, so we drove over the beach, over the ramp, past the pigs, through 2 streams, and finally out on the road... It really should have been obvious!
When we finally got back to the main road, a sign told us it was another 41km to Quimchey - never rely on a tourist map, it looked 41 metres on it!!
So we turned back, tails between our legs, and more dust, dirt and damage on the Corsa than you could image, and stopped for Curanto back in Dalcahue, where we had left almost 1 hour ago.
When a plate with bits of meat, mussels, clams and some potato based objects arrived at our table, again it wasn’t exactly what we were expecting from a hearty stew. The joys of
sampling the local delicacy ;-)
Whilst Catrin looks back on this in fondness, this was yet another traumatic experience for Rich and Chiloe is not on his list of return destinations...
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