Carretera Austral - March 8, 2023

I write this on Wednesday March 8 in a wonderful, modern hotel called Tierra Chiloé about 5 kilometres outside of Castro, the main town on the island of Chiloé.

“Chiloé has been described by Renato Cárdenas, historian at the Chilean National Library, as “a distinct enclave, linked more to the sea than the continent, a fragile society with a strong sense of solidarity and a deep territorial attachment.”

Chiloé's history began with the arrival of its first human inhabitants more than 7,000 years ago. Spread along the coast of Chiloé are a number of middens - ancient dumps for domestic waste, containing mollusc shells, stone tools and bonfire remains. All of these remains indicate the presence of nomadic groups dedicated to the collection of marine creatures clams and mussels among others, and to hunting and fishing.

When the Spanish conquistadores arrived on Chiloé Island in the 16th Century, the island was inhabited by the Chono, Huilliche and Cunco peoples. The original peoples navigated the treacherous waters of the Chiloé Archipelago in boats called dalcas with skill that impressed the Spaniards.”

Dalca

“Perhaps best known for its lush rolling hills, green fertile farmland, and wooden Jesuit churches, Chiloe is a quaint albeit eccentric place that welcomes just a smattering of visitors each year. Isolated from the mainland and no stranger to rain, this dreary and overcast island has a number of terrifying legends which still prevail today.

The most famous Chilot mythology surrounds the mysterious brujos, a coven of male warlocks who lived in caves and terrorized the townsfolk. The brujos are said to have inhabited the region since before Spanish rule, but it wasn’t until the nationwide witch hunts of the 1880s that the grisly details of their practice became widely known.

In a rejection of Spanish Catholicism, the brujos underwent an intense initiation ceremony which involved de-baptizing themselves in a waterfall for 40 days before performing a pact with the devil. Next, they were forced to slaughter someone close to them and use their skin to sew a bag for their spellbook. Upon completing the initiation, the spellbook enabled them to shapeshift into animals or cast powerful curses.”

I tell you all this because it is part of the reason for my having the time to write this post.

I arrived in Santiago, a bright modern clean and very pleasant city on Monday, having landed three hours late from a flight that was scheduled to leave Toronto on Sunday at 23:00 but which didn’t depart until 02:00 on Monday morning. Because the last couple of months since Christmas have been intensely busy with a couple of Board projects with which I have been involved, I have felt that I was running on empty for some time now and dealing with a 3 hour delay for an overnight flight left me hoping for a peaceful and quiet time to recharge batteries once I had arrived in Chile.

I was met at our Santiago hotel by Robert, my very good friend and travelling companion for the next couple of weeks.  After a shower, dinner and an early bedtime, the sleep that was to “knit up the raveled sleeve of care” did not arrive and my sleeve of care was still very much a mass of raveled threads the following morning.

We flew from Santiago on Tuesday and arrived in Puerto Montt in the early afternoon to begin our Carretera adventure. We were met at the airport by Hans our guide and driver, and we bundled all of our bags into the van that will be our second home for the next two weeks, and prepared for the drive to Chiloé.

One of the seating areas in our hotel, Tierra Chiloé

After a drive of a couple of hours we arrived at the car ferry which was to take us to Chiloé where we would drive to Tierra Chiloé, our first overnight stop of the trip. The car ferry was pretty standard but the 5Km wide channel that we needed to cross to reach Chiloé certainly was not. We made our crossing at the peak of high tide and the tidal current was so strong that there were swirling standing waves, white capped, wherever the water encountered any underwater obstacle. The ferries could barely make headway against it and piloted themselves across the channel by angling their course on a diagonal well above the dock on the other side so that they could drift down with the current toward their landing spot. This sounds perfectly normal for a canoe or a sail boat but this was a huge car ferry loaded with cars and transport trucks being treated by the current as if it were a piece of straw. There is a massive tugboat that remains permanently anchored in the middle of the channel in the event that, should a ferry lose power for any reason the tug could race to their rescue and take them in tow otherwise they would quickly be dashed on the rocks.

Wooden Cathedral of San Franciso

Welcome to Chiloé.

The hotel where we spent the night was, as I said at the outset, welcoming and a much looked for oasis where we were to spend our first two nights. Once again a good dinner, a relatively early bed and a hope for a good nights sleep. Perhaps the dinner might have been a little too good, a powerful Pisco sour pre-dinner and a bottle of a very good Pinot Noir with dinner, after all R and I had a lot of catching up to do. The outcome was that I met the witches of Chiloé overnight who all insisted that I keep them company until the sun rose. Apparently they took turns keeping both R and I company and when we met for breakfast it was clear that it was going to be a very long day.

Interior cupola over the main alter, Cathedral of San Franciso

We explored Castro, the capital city of the region in the morning, discovering the Cathedral of San Franciso was the highlight. It is seemingly the largest wooden cathedral in the world and is built, inside and outside only of wood, including the twin bell towers and the flying buttresses. Likewise the interior walls furnishings and altars are all of local wood of the local region, really quite stunning. But by noon we were really dragging and so decided that we needed to give ourselves the afternoon off. And so here I am, desperate for a good night’s sleep but, thanks to the witches, with the time to write this post.

Castro houses built on stilts, at low tide

More to come!