Isla de Chiloe!!! Part 1: "How close is my face to yours?"

After a two hour plane ride from Santiago to Puerto Montt, we stayed on enight in Casa Perla, a nice knick-knack-filled hostal in a semi-sketch neighborhood run by a sweet, million-lingual woman named Perla with an incredible view of the coast.

These were my lovely traveling companions-Meghan, Jessie and Kelsey-in front of Casa Perla

My first impression of the South of Chile was that it's very Seattle-like: permanently drizzling, lush geen countryside and surrounded by water, except that there are sheep and cows everywhere. Our first full day we took a bus-and for part of it the bus was on a ferry- accross the channel to the actual Island of Chiloe and into one of the main towns, called Ancud. We then called Antonio Yanez, a recommended driver from a tour guide in Puccon, and two minutes after I left an awkward, “Hi I got your name from a tour guide in Puccon who’s name I can’t remember”, he called me back and within five minutes was driving us down a rural road to see PENGUINS!

For about $30 a person, Antonio drove us 40mins to the west coast of the island to see the penguin rookery, plus we got our own guided boat tour(from a very cute, college-aged Chilean bird lover named Claudio) and insane rain ponchos made of tent tarps b/c it NEVER STOPPED POURING. We saw adorable penguins-honestly I wasn’t that excited beforehand b/c birds aren’t really my thing, I kept searching for sharks- but they were just soo cool to watch wobble down the rocks and into the water. Plus we saw a seal taking in some non-existent sun on the shore, tons of other bird species, and some kind of endangered otter/ferret/mammal scurrying between penguin nests looking for eggs.

Wet, but happy

Then Antonio drove us to our next destination: Chepu.

Don't be fooled by the blue sky, it disappeared in about three seconds

Owned by wife Amory and Husband Fernando, Mirador Chepu is a sort of eco-lodge in a teensy town also called Chepu on the west coast of the island(95% of ppl and towns are on the tranquil east ocast of the island b/c Chile’s main land is so close there aren’t really waves). I chose it because I read on tripadvisor the most rave reviews about the lodge, the owners and especially the dawn kayaking.

The kayaking happens on this river, which even during the day is kind of mystical and
other-worldly-looking

Well, after ten minutes of background on how they met and why they decided to pick up and leave their entire lives in Santiago in order to live simpler, natural lives off the grid and without any debts or strings, I was in love with these people. They built their house and the little cabins we were to stay in by hand, have only solar panel and wind powered electricity and heating, have an organic garden, compost like five different ways, and make money introducing tourists to one of the most gorgeous, unappreciated places I have ever been. The only awkward part was they kept taking pictures of us, I guess for their website, but we shrugged it off as camera-happy b&b owners looking for good publicity. So all was basically fine and dandy, until the one other person staying at the lodge, Brady, a really cool british woman in her 30s, asked about the Mapuche, Chile’s main indigenous group I talk so much about---see my post on the Mapuche March I attended.

I babbled a little bit about injustice, feeling pretty free to speak my mind since the couple was obviously so liberal and awesome, and then Amory interrupted me-“Well, if you want to know the real truth, it’s as follows”.

DUN DUN DUUUN.

She then proceeded to spout EVERYSINGLE stereotype, prejudice and racial slur I have ever heard about the Mapuches, plus some new conspiracy theories I had never heard before. One of the first and classic ones was “The problem is the Mapuche are too lazy and spend all day drinking. That’s why they have no land and are so poor”. Yea. My friends and I(3 out of 4 are also in my “Human Rights of Indigenous Groups and Criminalization of Mapuche Demands” class, so we’re all on the same pretty well-informed page) just sat there trying not to gasp, or groan, or say something like “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR F-ING MIND?!”

Instead at the first moment possible we excused ourselves and when Brady also left, we ambushed her and said, politely, “If you’d like to hear a different perspective on this issue, we’d love to talk more away from the owners”. Thankfully she’d noticed our ashen faces and awkward silence during Amory’s rant and we ended up having a great talk and I hope, cleared up a bit of the stereotypes that had been flung around.

By the way, from the moment we stepped off the plane, through penguins, through car rides, through Mapuche talks and re-caps, it was POURING. So much so, that all of our clothes were soaked through, to our underwear. Even my friend’s Patagonia raincoat had been permeated. Now normally we would hang all our clothes to dry in front of a fire, or perhaps an electric heater-called “estufas”, they saved our lives many a time this trip-but we discovered our cabin had neither, nor did the bunk beds have sheets or blankets or pillows. Hmm. I specifically mentioned in my reservation email that we would need bedding, even though we knew it would cost an extra couple of dollars. When we pointed this out to Amory, she looked at us like we were crazy and said, basically, “Boy are you girls brave for not bringing sleeping bags. You are going to freeze!”

Umm, thanks….

Ultimately we found some thick blankets and doubled up in the little twin beds in order to maximize body heat. Because our group of friends is so great, no one complained too much, and we actually had a fun night singing songs and telling non-ghost stories to pass the time. My favorite line from the night was after we’d turned out the lights, and my friend Kelsey asks her bedmate Meghan, “How close is my face to your face?” Haha, needless to say, we all became really close. We also had hoped to purchase food from them, or a nearby grocery store, but when that proved impossible, we found a bag of spaghetti and had the quickest, saddest dinner I’ve had in a while, then washed the bowls in cold water in their outhouse under a shaking single light bulb in the pouring rain. B/c of the rain, and the fact that we had NO dry clothes, we decided not to do the dawn kayaking, which I think was a good choice, although it still sounds like a fantastic opportunity, and instead left Chepu as soon as we could the next day. The scenery was stunning and we all agreed Fernando was a sweetheart when his “dragon lady” wife Amory wasn’t around-Brady’s words, not mine. Thankfully, since the nearest bus was a 15 mile walk up huge muddy hills, Fernando drove us in a rickety old jeep to the closest bus station and didn’t charge us for the ride, even though the website said it was $10 a person.

Ok I promise the rest of the trip recap will be less wordy, I just wanted to highlight one of our many adventures....

But in the mean time, here's a little more of Chepu

BTW, the plethora of dead trees is due to the salinity of the water, this part of the river is so close to the coast that the water so brackish it kills all the trees. This doesn't stop birds, fish and mammals from enjoying the area though...