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Published: November 16th 2009
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After a 34 hour bus ride from Puerto Natales, Chile, we finally made it to Puerto Montt, Chile after having to cross in and out of Argentina for the ride because southern Chile is made up of archipelagos, making this my 6th time crossing the border between the 2 countries. We immediately got off the 34 hour bus ride to board a bus bound for Ancud, a small town in La Isla Grande de Chiloe, which took another 2 hours. FINALLY at around 9 p.m., we arrived in Ancud and walked straight to Hostel Mundo, so happy to be walking around on our feet and off of busses. We were with our friend Hampus, a really nice Swedish guy, who we had originally met trekking in Fitz Roy, then ran into in El Calafate and Torres del Paine, where we decided we'd travel to Chiloe together. He told us about this hostel, about which he had heard legends of the incredibly delicious complimentary breakfasts, so we decided to stay there. There were a lot of German speakers there, and the guy who owned the place spoke German, Spanish, and English, all very well. The guy who owned it lived on one
side of the house with his wife and cute, baby daughter, while he used the other side as his hostel. The hostel was really pretty and homey with a comfortable living room and breakfast table downstairs, a very nice feeling after having spent 5 days camping in the Andes. It wasn't so much a "party hostel", but rather a comfortable place to relax and feel at home. It looked like a typical house you would see on an island like Marthas Vineyard... very pretty wooden house, and it even had pretty, comfortable beds with blue and white striped comforters and matching curtains. The rooms were just as homey, with a few bunk beds and a few regular twin sized beds. The windows even overlooked the water where there were scattered anchored, colorful little paddle boats with the occasional motor on the back. So, we put our bags down, (I claimed one of the non-bunk beds 😊...) showered, which felt incredible after such a long bus ride, and then went out for some dinner.
The man at the hostel sent us to a good, affordable restaurant where we were the only people because it was already 11:30 and there is
not much going on in the town of Ancud. It did have really good seafood though considering it's a port town, so we all had really good seafood stew. After, we headed back to the hostel for a really restful night's sleep and then to wake up and walk downstairs to the legendary complimentary breakfast, still in my pajamas feeling right at home. The breakfast ABSOLUTELY lived up to it's expectations. It consisted of: the most incredible homemade, whole grain, warm, fresh bread I have ever eaten in my life, really tasty peach and frutilla jam, all kinds of fruit including a typical Chilean fruit called _______, assortment of yogurts, tea, coffee, and orange juice. The breakfast at this hostel was definitely the highlight of our stay in Ancud. It rained A TON in Chiloe, but we decided to bear the rain and use that day to go explore the town. We went for a walk around town, and it was Sunday, so just about nothing was open and nobody was out. We ended up walking about an hour an a half down a road that led us far out of the center of town but kept us walking along
the ocean. Eventually, I came across a little horse farm, so I walked in to see if Bo and I could ride the horses. The guy who owned the place used the horses for rodeo, so Bo and I made a deal with him and rented 2 horses for an hour and road around his coral. It was pretty entertaining, and I hadn't ridden in a while so I was very happy. After that, we had pretty much seen all of Ancud... so Bo, Hampus, and I all walked back to the hostel to spend the afternoon relaxing. When we got hungry, we ended up walking into town to the only open supermarket to buy food to make omelets and a salad. We ended up stumbling across an area with a little open air market of some locals selling fresh shellfish. We bought a bag of clams and went back up to the hostel to cook. We ended up throwing the clams into our salad, which was exciting being able to cook with seafood after being in Argentina for so long where it is nonexistent pretty much or just totally overruled by carne. That was definitely one of our better,
more creative meals that we cooked during the trip. After lunch we just hung around the hostel
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