Struan and Anna in Chile: Chiloe January 2011: houses on stilts and other magical things!

The third of our posts looking back to January, when we did our grand loop down to the Magellan Strait and back. After spending a couple of days in Puerto Varas, we got back on the bus down to Puerto Montt, the transport hub of the Chilean Lake District, known otherwise as the commercial centre of the Chilean salmon farming industry - big business, we think second only to Norway in terms of production for export.

Puerto Montt itself is not a place to spend much time, as Lonely Planet says, it's useful as a transport hub - it has an airport, major bus terminal, and ferry port - but otherwise it's grim:

we didn't stay here, but we knew that the aptly named Hotel O'Grimm would find a place in our blog

There is a lot of poverty in Chile, and a fair amount of homelessness, but Puerto Montt was the first place we've felt it in the atmosphere, where people have seemed genuinely desperate and angry. It's not as if the tramps (if you're American we mean hobos, not loose women) are happy with their lot in Santiago but there's certainly a sort of camaraderie between them, and with all the hilarious stray dogs they do give the impression of making the most of their lot. We saw in Puerto Montt a young tramp trying to start a fight with a supermarket security guard which was pretty scary, and unusual - there was a threatening feel in the air here, so there seems to be something strange going on in Puerto Montt.

Chile has a problem with wealth distribution and apparently in Puerto Montt it's particularly acute - with salmon millionaires contrasting with the people who do the dirty jobs for very little money and no job security - which may partly explain the atmosphere. Who knows, but it didn't feel like a place to spend time.

This at least lightened the mood a little:

just pulling out

Anyway, the reason we went to Puerto Montt was to catch the ferry to our next destination, Chiloe, the largest of the inhabited islands wholly in Chilean territory (not sure whether, Tierra del Fuego, off the end of the southern tip of Patagonia, is bigger, but it's shared with Argentina anyway).

Chiloe is a place held in some awe by Chileans, twice in its history it has been notably independent - it was one of the last native strongholds against the Spanish conquistadores, and later the last foothold of the Spanish Crown against the Chilean Republicans. It certainly has a unique character, and is now known (among other things) for its UNESCO protected churches but simultaneously for survival of its indigenous myths and legends despite the imposition of Christianity, and the awesome palafitos - coastal houses on stilts. This was one of the places we were most looking forward to, everyone we'd spoken to about it in Santiago sort of got a wistful look in their eyes when we mentioned Chiloe.

the bus on the ferry

Anna on the ferry

leaving the mainland behind

the ferry going the other way

Chiloe hoves into view

The first thing that becomes obvious from the photos above of the journey across to the island is that the weather was glorious. Chiloe is known as a sort of emerald isle, and that greenness is maintained by normally daily rain. Also, part of Chiloe's reputation as an island of mysterious secrets comes from its rolling mists. It was basically beautiful clear skies almost the entire time we were there, the hostel owner was concerned that the grass would start to parch - we're not complaining, but we wouldn't want to give the wrong impression.

beach times!

Now onto the palafitos, one of the defining features of Chiloe. We stayed in a hostel that is a converted palafito - it's unique, immaculate, and comfortable, so also a little more expensive than other options and not easy to get into, but well worth it. We stayed in Castro, the capital of Chiloe, about the size of a large market town in the UK.

palafitos at low tide

the big red and yellow one is the hostel

view from the balcony - people collecting shellfish at low tide

bedroom

lounge

Here's some more pics of palafitos:

palafito legs - low tide

high tide

Chiloe is named for the gulls that inhabit the island, we can't remember exactly how it works but the guy in the hostel explained it roughly like this - the type of gull here was known as something like a "chil" (or that's the Mapuche word for gull), and "hue" is a Mapuche word for place. So when you put the two together ... this is also one of various explanations for the name of the whole country: Chile.

Here's some of those gulls from the hostel balcony:

and beautiful black neck swans

...of beer fame

Aside from palafitos, Chiloe's other spectacular architectural features are its churches. Each tiny little village on Chiloe has one of these, and they are amazing, here's some pics (the interior pics don't necessarily go with the exterior pics in each case):

Dalcahue church

not sure why he has salad forks in his hair...

not long after christmas

shooting star

Chonchi Church

mini version

picture pre-restoration

the sacred heart

the daddy of them all - the flaking grandiose cathedral in Castro

Chiloe was the last part of Chile to be converted to Christianity, largely due to its well-developed ancient "pagan" mythology, mainly revolving around the doings of evil male witches who inhabit the islands. This probably in part explains why there are so many of these fabulous churches on Chiloe: the Church had to try extra hard to impress the locals. Also, and most interestingly, the Church attempted to fuse the ancient Chilote beliefs with Christianity, like this:

Jesus and Chilote friends

In the picture above, floating around Jesus are four of the Chilote mythological figures (clockwise from top left):

Trauco - a malevolent dwarf, with the strength of a giant, with a penchant for raping young single women (or as our myths book puts it: "...desflorarlas" - deflower them). He can be warded off by shouting insults at him, while throwing flaming coals at him (though he lives in the forest so be careful you don't start a fire...).

Camahueto: a sort of unicorn cow, with a golden horn. He has bloodshot eyes and foams at the mouth, but if you can catch him his horn can be used to make various magical ointments (although it seems from our book that if you do catch him then he takes on the appearance of an ordinary lamb - it's all a bit confusing, but something would need to explain why no-one has in their possession a solid gold organic horn).

Caleuche: a ghost ship crewed by witches, onboard which there is a never ending party with dancing and beautiful music. The ship plies the channels of the small islands around Chiloe, when it's foggy - and because of this no fishermen will venture out when it's foggy, in case they are captured and forced to become part of the damned crew. Apparently the legend of Caleuche may originate from a Dutch privateer called Calanche which worked these waters around Chiloe.

Pincoya: a beautiful fertility goddess of the sea, when she comes up from the ocean scantily clad in seaweed, she dances on the beaches which will see the best catches of fish and seafood. Our myths book tells us that she's so beautiful that she causes the fish to gape with wonder, making them easier to catch (we know you're thinking, surely they mean fishermen gape with wonder, but no really it says fish).

Trauco up close - run if he starts to take his trousers off

Pincoya - super-attractive to fish

We don't have pictures but a couple of other particular favourites are:

Invunche: the deformed doorman of the witches' cave, raised naked by the witches on a diet of human flesh and cats' milk.

Cuchivilu: a cross between a wild boar and a sea-snake. Basically sits in rivers and inlets infecting the water with his scabies. He's horrible.

Anyways, that lot seem to have happily co-existed with Jesus in a weird religious pantheon on Chiloe. Then again, everyone knows that Christianity is a bit of a hotch-potch of many ancient religious dates and ceremonies, and fusing deities and religious beliefs has been going on since at least the Romans - a perfect example is Bath in the UK, the temple of Aquae Sulis Minerva: the waters of Sulis (an ancient indigenous Celtic deity) who the Romans identified as Minerva in their pantheon. To save arguments everyone just agreed they were the same god. Because, among the many things the Romans knew, one of them was that it's silly to fight over religion.

Time for the other archetypal Chiloe thang: Curanto! Curanto is a seafood, meat, and potato extravaganza, all baked in a hole in the ground.

Real traditional Curanto is not easy to get hold of - it's usually only made on festivals - but a few restaurants make it on the weekends using a concrete pit in their courtyard. Basically it's cooked on the fire in the bottom of the pit, and everything is carefully layered to put the most fragile elements on top. Then the whole thing is covered with large leaves to maintain the moisture.

making curanto

mmmm...

get some more seafood and stuff in there!

Baking it like this makes the dish pretty special, the best thing is the way the shellfish come out. When you boil say a mussel, you have to contend sometimes with a stringy element - this isn't good or bad, it just is. When you eat a slow baked mussel from Curanto you could take it and spread it on toast, it's just gooey goodness. Yum!

up close and personal: potato cakes, pork, chicken, seafoooood...

golden brown huge cockle

Anna. Curanto. Finished.

Another awesome food that's pretty common all over central and northern Chile is Ceviche, super-fresh fish chopped up with onions and parsley and a bit of pepper and cooked in lemon juice. Unsurprisingly you can get good Ceviche on Chiloe. It's great with white wine or light beer.