Week Five- Castro, Chiloe Island, Chile

Castro, Chiloe Island

"Palafitos" UNSECO World Heritage homes, Castro, Chiloe Island

We spent a week on this island staying in the town of Castro one of two mid sized town on the island. The rest are small, smaller and tiny. It is an interesting town, a mix of gritty port and artsy-ness. There is a good modern art museum, interesting book stores, galleries, lots of fisher men and boats coming and going. While we were there tons of Chilean families and young people with backpacks on summer break arrived and took over the town. Dave and I spent many hours in the Plaza de Armas (town square) people watching and enjoying the atmosphere. Dave said it was like a circus. Every night there were food and toy vendors, jugglers, musicians, shows in the band shell. One evening there was a chess master playing ten people at the same time. Anyone could play him. When one game ended another person would step up. All the boards were set up in a row and the master just went from one end to the other and back to the beginning. We saw the Miss Castro pageant one night, heard an amazing DJ, saw some bands. One of the things that amazed us the most is there was nothing threatening, no gang members posturing and only a small police presence. People were drinking but there was little drunken behavior.

View from our room in Castor at night

One day we visited the churches Chiloe is famous for.  They are also UNECSO world heritage sites. We took tones of photos.

Another day we went to the national park and took a hike (had an excellent lunch in their cafeteria), 

Nalca, a native plant you see every where

The day before we left we took a tour to see the penguins that nest on two off shore islands. We also visited a farm  where we bought artisnal cheese, a farmers and artisans market, and a museum about the islands churches. Chileans are very romantic about rural life and many tourist activities are farm or rural living oriented.

There are both Humboldt and Magellan penguins on these islands

Typical farmers market stall. Hanging are dried seaweed (looks like kelp), mussels and clams.

We were there for the 450^th anniversary of the City of Castro with fireworks and all night partying.  The next day we took the bus to Puerto Varas. We spent two weeks here studying Spanish. More on Puerto Varas in the next blog post.