Weeknote 152

A week in Chiloé

• During my penultimate week of a month-long visit to South America, we spent some relaxing days in Castro on Chiloé Island in southern Chile.
• There is only one LATAM flight a day to the island, and it departs at a very inconvenient hour, so we chose instead to fly into Puerto Montt on the mainland. From there we took a taxi that included a ferry crossing, which turned out to be a much nicer way to approach the island and gave us a stronger sense of arrival.
• The weather was surprisingly warm for Chiloé. We didn't see a drop of rain, and the skies were almost always clear.
• We were fortunate to secure the most spacious room in one of Castro’s loveliest waterfront hotels. The waterfront hotels, restaurants, and houses there are built on stilts and are known locally as Palafitos.
  The island’s green and lush scenery, largely free of litter, offered a refreshing contrast to the dusty desert landscapes and trash-strewn roadsides we had explored in northern Chile the previous week.
• Over the week we joined a couple of guided minibus tours that showcased the island’s beauty both in the north and the south. A highlight was seeing penguins in the wild for the first time.
• We enjoyed delicious locally caught seafood alongside potatoes prepared in a wide range of styles, including a pancake called Milcao and a dumpling known as Chapalele, both of which were entirely new to me back home. The portion sizes were enormous, with a single serving easily enough to feed three people in my view.
• All too soon, it was time to leave. We departed from Castro’s tiny airport, the smallest I have ever visited, and flew directly back to Santiago.