A restful couple of nights in Puerto Montt and we were ready to start cycling again. We spent a fortune at the supermarket, loaded our bikes and zoomed off down Route 5 to the ferry for Chiloe. Route 5 is the main road through Chile and finishes at the end of Chiloe. As you can imagine it is a big four lane highway with lots of trucks etc. Lucky for us we had a tail wind and with some nice new tarseal we made good time to the ferry.
For some reason we were expecting a lot from Chiloe because a lot of people go on about how beautiful it is.........we were a bit disappointed to be honest. After the lakes, mountians, rivers and fiords we had been cycling past so far the rolling farmland of Chiloe seemed a bit boring and tame in comparison. Luckily the loveliness of the people totally made up for that. Everyone was very welcoming and friendly and the seafood was really good!!!
Our disappointment with the landscape probably was not helped by the poor decisions we made about where to go. There was more than one option....aaaaarrrggg!!! Way to hard. Much easier to just have one road and stick to that.
We spent three nights on the island and at all of the locations the owners of the establishments were the most welcoming and kind people you can imagine. They all cleared indoor spaces for us to cook in and let us use their wood stoves if they had them. This made our stay on the island very enjoyable. At the island`s capital Castro we had a delicious seafood luch, which included Cuantro. This is a local dish made of seafood, pork, potatoes and dumplings and is traditionally cooked in the ground like a hangi. Seafood lunch also coincided with one month on our bikes - how quick time flies!!!
We had a limited time on the island because the ferry back to mainland Chile, and the road south, only went twice a week. We headed down to Quellon and parked ourselves in a restuarant for several hours while we waited for the ferry that did not leave until 2am!!
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| Camping inside the barn/event centre at Entotourismo Kaicheo on our first night |
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| Enjoying the wood burnign stove while the wind and rain rage outside |
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| Dalcahue |
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| Dalcahue |
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| Cuantro and beer for lunch......mmmmmm |
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| Restuarant in Castro. The buildings on stilts are called palafitos. |
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| Palafitos in Castro |
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Camping down on the farm
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Final stretch of Route 5 and the road to the end of Chiloe
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Map of our route including some of the seven lakes district and the road before Puerto Montt. Blue is road travel and green is ferry travel
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