There were some good things about Chiloé, but we struggled to enjoy our time on the island.  The biggest obstacles were bad value and overpriced accommodation options, sights that were mostly average and tábanos, black flies that inundate the area every year in January.  They made camping on the island quite miserable and forced us to look for indoor options.  We’ve had some black flies while driving the Carretera Austral this week but not nearly as many as on Chiloé.

We spent last week there waiting to catch the once a week ferry from Quellón to Chaitén which is a small town in northern Patagonia about a quarter of the way down the famous Carretera Austral.

The scenery of the island is scenic and gentle, with some rolling hills, no mountains, and great views of views of snow-capped mountains of Patagonia on the other side of the water.  The main industries of the island are agriculture, salmon farming and tourism.

There are things to do on Chiloé.  You can visit penguin colonies, but you have to pay for a guided tour on a boat to see them.  Living in New Zealand we’re used to seeing penguins in the wild, so we weren’t too keen although we drove out to have a look at the beach where you can buy tours, a hard drive on a very bad four wheel drive road!

You can also visit UNESCO World Heritage Site churches.  We visited Dalcahue on Chiloé island and then took a five minute car ferry to the island of Quinchao where we visited the largest of the churches, recently restored in 2008.  Quinchao church is beautiful and has a really special feeling to it.  It has a service only once a month and even then they only have a handful of people attending which is sad to hear. We really liked our stop here.

Quinchao Church

Interior of Quinchao Church

Sabrina! Boat watching while getting the ferry to the island of Quinchao.

Castro is the capital of the island. Accommodation was expensive here and even camping was expensive ($43 NZD) and we struggled to find something for the night.  We did find something but it made us resolved to get out of town the next day, so after doing some car paperwork errands and booking the ferry from Quellón  to Chaitén we headed to Cucao, the most popular and accessible sector of Chiloé National Park.  Here we stayed in one of the fanciest hostels we’ve both ever stayed in… Beautiful wood finishing everywhere, welcoming communal spaces, comfy king-single dorm beds with heavy feather duvets and the cleanest accommodation we’ve seen in a long time!  Having not seen many Westerners we enjoyed chatting with the people in the hostel. The breakfast was the best we’ve had as well – great bread, a toaster to toast the bread, real fruit salad and yummy yogurt. We suspected the kitchen staff frowned upon our extra helpings of bread, but oh well!

Broody weather in Cucao

Most beautiful hostel ever!

Cucao was also the first time we were back in cold weather clothes. We did some walks in the area the next day, but they were disappointing, especially the last one where we were stalked and attacked by the tábanos again!  It’s difficult to describe their viciousness – but they swarm you, and they bite.  One of the walks was also a let down in that it was a walk to the beach, but after walking through forest, then sand dunes we arrived at the beach only to find a too-deep river blocking access!

The beach so close and yet so far… one of the more disappointing walks we’ve done.

My first stint of four wheel driving. Fun!

We ended up driving all the way to Quellón after Cucao as we again struggled with finding accommodation and a campsite not inundated with tábanos.  In Quellón we lucked out, and stayed in a cabana for the night. A cabana is comparable to a motel in New Zealand and we like to stay in one every once in a while to get properly cleaned up, re-freeze our elements for the cool box and use wi-fi.  Camping in Chile usually doesn’t have these luxuries although sometimes we are able to have hot showers.  In the cabana in Quellón we were allowed to stay until 3pm the next day.  Given that we had to wait to the next night for our over night ferry it was a great option.

The obscene, cruel news about the ferry is that it’s totally rigged – we checked in at 8.30pm and were told to immediately board the boat.  We boarded the ferry at 9pm and at 9.30pm the ferry undocked (it was meant to leave at 11pm so we felt very lucky about checking in when we did).  The captain then made an announcement.  Apparently the ferry only takes four hours so instead of arriving in the middle of the night in Chaitén, the ferry stays in Quellón port, making circles and drifting until 2am when it starts to make the journey to Chaitén . It was painful stuff.  A four hour journey took twelve hours.  Once we reached Chaitén, the ferry dropped its anchor and we just sat there in the water for more than an hour.  It’s a bit like if you were to get the Interislander from Wellington to Picton (3.5 hour trip) and promptly after leaving Wellington, the ferry would drop its anchor and sit in the harbour for five hours.  Then after five hours, it finally sets sail, only when entering the Marlborough Sounds it then drops its anchor for another hour or so.

Overall our estimation of Chiloé is that it does have some good stuff going for it, but we really struggled with finding the good stuff and we spent more than a week there and visited all corners of the island.  We had read and heard great stuff about it, and at the end of the week we felt like we had made the most of the week’s visit however if someone were to ask me now if I would recommend visiting it, I would say skip it and head straight to Patagonia.