Castro Chiloe first impressions

Hello everyone,

We have arrived in Chiloé! Sunday night at 8:00 we took an overnight bus from Santiago that arrived in Puerto Montt about 8:30 Monday morning, then gradually made its way to Castro a little after noon. Things are different here!

First, the bus: Put most modes of transportation in the U.S. to shame! We took a sleeper bus, which had fewer seats and more legroom. The best part is that the seats are wide, recline almost 180 degrees, and have a fold-out footrest, so they're really quite comfortable for sleeping. Blankets and pillows are provided, and there's a porter on the bus to bring you drinks and little snack boxes and open and close the curtains (and help keep the driver awake). Even the restroom at the back is far superior to anything you'd find on a plane. Everyone slept well, which helped the last 2-hour stretch from Ancud at the northern end of Chiloé to Castro to go smoothly. {Those of you who have traveled with Lisa can guess what happened after the winding streets of Ancud and the lurching of a bus struggling through a small town. Best to say, we will rent a car or stock up on dramemeen.}
The best part of the trip was awakening at sunrise (around 7:30) and seeing a line of snow-capped volcanoes off to the east. Spectacular! We saw Volcan Osorno, one of the prettiest and most symmetrical cones, in the first light of the day, with Lago de Llanquihue in the foreground.
The bus drove right onto the ferry south of Puerto Montt, which thrilled Beto greatly. The ferry looked like a landing craft and maneuvered to put its ramp right onto the jetty - no tying up to anything. The actual channel is narrow, only 2 km or so, but the ferry ride between sheltered anchorages was half an hour or so. Off to the left we could look across the Golfo de Ancud to a line of snow-capped volcanic peaks (the highest, Volcan Minchinmavida, almost 8000 feet); to the right we saw the headlands and the wide Pacific Ocean beyond.

On the bus with us was Jake, a fellow PIAP (English Opens Doors en español) volunteer who is posted to Ancud. The countryside reminded us of northern Washington State or Alaska: Little farms and ranches, scrubby forest, lots of mud and standing water. As we approached Castro, things started looking drier and more prosperous, and as we topped the ridge, we could see the mountains on the mainland in the distance.

Castro itself is a little scruffy - looks like a town in Alaska where everything is homemade and people make do with what they've got. It's the 3rd oldest town in Chile (after Santiago and La Serena up north; founded in 1569) - perhaps because there weren't many natives living here at the time. (Most of southern Chile was not settled by Europeans until the 1870s, comparable to the American West, and for much of the same reasons: The native Mapucho didn't take kindly to being herded onto haciendas.)

Lisa's regional coordinator Rocio was there to greet us, and we loaded our giant suitcases into a cab and the smaller bags and ourselves into Rocio's car and headed out to the place she'd arranged for us in the village of Nercon, 7 or 8 km south of Castro, at a latitude comparable to southern Vermont. There's a famous church just down the road from the days when the churches had circuit-rider priests. Our place is small and has its pluses and minuses: On the plus side, it's got 3 bedrooms, a gas heater and on-demand hot water heater (it seems that a lot of places here have only a wood stove), and access to the water, the landlady (next door) seems nice, it's fairly quiet, and the bus stops just down the road and comes every 5 mins. or so. On the minus side, it's kind of far from town, and it's too far for the school bus to come, so Lisa and Beto have a long commute.

We have been blessed with three nice sunny days in a row! If you were in the sun, it actually seemed warm! We've been exploring the town as much as possible and are learning to find our way around. Clothes shopping is still a bit challenging... But we've found supermarkets, fruit markets, stationery stores, banks, and laundry, so we've got the basics. Thursday it sprinkled off and on and rained heavily during the night; this morning it was clear for awhile, and now it's raining. We did get to see the southern stars earlier last night! Not sure I saw the Southern Cross, but I could see enough to recognize that the sky was different from the northern hemisphere.

In future posts we'll send more photos of Castro. Put for now, check out a variety that Google has: http://www.google.cl/images?hl=es&q=castro%20chiloe&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=578

Well, we are prattling on, aren't we? I guess that is what 4 days without internet connection will do to you.