Blogs from Chiloé Island, Los Lagos, Chile, South America - page 14

It's nothing that a few thousand dollars can't fix.

South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Chiloé Island December 2nd 2005

We have a plan!!!! We've booked with a company called Antares Patagonia for a 10 day "Adventure Patagonia" tour through Torres Del Paine which starts on 24th December, and allows us to spend Christmas Day hiking right up to the base of the mountains with Christmas Dinner nestled in a Refugio, we spend New Years Day camped beside a lake on our second day of sea kaykaing and I believe we'll spend the first day of the new year kayaking amongst ice bergs rather than nursing a hangover. Throw in a bit of a glacier hike and it's gonna be fun and all for the price of ... well I did say we needed to mortgage the house and sell the dogs. It wasn't cheap! So this gives us a target. We've now got less than ... read more

Broken Dreams

South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Chiloé Island December 1st 2005

Cows with guns

jkd

Just out of Cucao this morning four young guys squeezed inside a small, white, hatchback pulled up next to us. The driver wound down his window and asked: "Do you speak English?" "Yea" "Was that the National Park back there?" "Yea" "What, just the beach and stuff?" "Yep, you can walk for 20kms North and South and it won´t change". I actually got this last on the authority of a British couple we´d had dinner with last night. I hadn´t walked it myself. "That´s a disappointment then" he said, wound up his window and drove off back to the highway. I sat there for a moment longer, digesting his last comment, and thought to myself yea, that´s a pretty good summary of Cucao and climbed back on the bike for the two and a half hour ... read more

Could this be the end?

South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Chiloé Island November 29th 2005

Chonchi Harbour

jkd

Christie´s back on the bike. Yay!!!!! We did an easy 20km back-tracking into Castro where we spent about three hours mooching around the cafes, two hours fixing my bike (again), and then another 20kms to Chonchi where we are staying in a beaut little hostel (though it appears to be under serious reconstruction) right on the beach. Chonchi is a beautiful little fishing town (ex-pirate stronghold) which reminds me very much of what Strahan would be like without the rain and tourists, but with lots of dogs to keep Christie happy ... In short a paradise. Big news of the day is that Christie has decided to call it quits on cycling the Carretera Austral and so we´re reeling a bit trying to decide what to do. Do we split up, she heads home and I ... read more

Up the creek without a spoke

South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Chiloé Island November 28th 2005

Boat at Ancud

jkd

It was 35km from Ancud and I was just coming up to two hours on the bike. I had just reached the top of a little hill and ´pling´... I heard a sound I dread. It´s a hard sound to describe but unmistakable ... the sound of a breaking spoke. Suffice to say the rest of the day did not go as planned. It had started out so well! This morning when I first looked out the window it was perfectly calm with some blue skies and even a rainbow. Sure it hailed 10 minutes later, but Chiloe is pretty much directly east of Tasmania, so no surprises there. Had another fantastic breakfast (Mundo Huevo is pretty $$$, but it is worth it - aybe they should change their name to mucho gusto desayuno) then I´d ... read more

Killing Kilometres

South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Chiloé Island November 26th 2005

Proof!

jkd

Woke up this morning feeling completely unmotivated. Spent the first 30 minutes just lying in bed thinking of ways to convince Chrisitie to pack her bags and head back to Tasmania. When I broached the idea at breakfast however, she would have none of it though, so after procrastinating for an hour or so more looking up ferry timetables and airline schedules for a quicker, easier way down south, I eventually resigned myself to the inevitable and got on the bike. 9.30am ... not a good time to be starting a 100km+ day. Today was just a day for getting to Chiloe. It turned out to be just under 80kms on a long, flat highway from Puerto Varas down to Pargua which is the jumping off point for ferries to Chiloe. It was fast, easy riding, ... read more

Sleeping in a hut

South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Chiloé Island November 16th 2005

from the bus window

emmy

Hola! Crossed the border yet again, from Argentina to Chile, witha small kids vomiting every five seconds - not my best trip. Made my way to Puerto Montt, a town in many respects similar to Portland - a nice foreshore, but not really uch else. I had intended to stay there for a week but decided to keep moving after one night. Travelled from Puerto Montt (black and white photos) to Chiloe (colourful houses on stilts and boats stuck after low tide)) via ferry to visit the National Park near Cucao. Passed masses of gunnera on the beach, the last place I imagined it to grow, but there it was, no more than 50m from the shore line. Spent a few hours hiking with a full pack across hot sand and decided to call it a ... read more

Island life

South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Chiloé Island April 9th 2005

Typical Chiloen House

Foodiefloozie

Puerto Montt is one of those pass through places. Got there early morning after a fairly quiet night on the ferry which I survived by curling up in two seats space and sleeping. Despite the once again cold and threatening to rain weather I decided to go to the island of Chiloe and stay south. I passed out for most of the journey and woke up in Castro, the ´capital´ of Chiloe. Capital in quotes as it has a main street with shops on as opposed to everywhere else in the island which really is small…. I decided that no matter what I was going to stay there for 3 nights and have a bit of a break as I realized I had been on the go since Calafate only spending a night in each place ... read more

Navimag

South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Chiloé Island April 4th 2005

Navimag Ferry

ryanandana

Hello all, We arrived in Puerto Montt, Chile this morning and are now in Castro on the island of Chiloe'. We will be in the Lakes Region (Chile and Argentina) for a week and a half or two weeks. How was Navimag? It was the best cruise of the PataGOnia! Then again, it was the only cruise of the Patagonia. One of the cruise directors, Zilda, was very energetic and always emphasizing that everything was the best of the PataGOnia. The Navimag cruise was very interesting. For those of you that have been on real cruises, it was nothing like that. This was a ferry, where carrying passengers is secondary to cargo, but it was still a lot of fun and very memorable. The ship had about 200 passengers. It was a diverse group of people, ... read more

Brief history of Chile

Prior to the coming of the Spanish in the 16th century, northern Chile was under Inca rule while Araucanian Indians inhabited central and southern Chile; the latter were not completely subjugated until the early 1880s. Although Chile declared its ind...more history

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