Sunday, June 3, 2012

Chiloé, how I wish I could stay

So, sorry I havn't written in my blog for so long. I know all you very dedicated followers await with baited breath my chilean adventures and yet, I continue to disappoint with blank spaces in the months and months I have not written. jk, thank's mom for being the only one who reads this.

Anyways, so I went to this island last week called Chiloé, which is about as close to Patagonia as you can get without exactly being in patagonia. It was absolutely amazing! I went down there with two friends, a backpack, some noodles and no return ticket. Unfortunately there was a set return date as there are these things called classes that we sometimes have to go to despite being abroad and fancy free.

I am going to elaborate mostly on Chiloé so as not to overwhelm all of you with the significant amount of things that have happened since I last wrote. Besides, Chiloé is by far the most interesting thing that has happened to me since the last time I wrote. Today I am just doing homework, case and point. Going to Chiloé also means returning broke apparently, so I'm out of the mix for a little bit, I even needed to beg some pesos of a german tourist just to get on the metro to go to class...that's a lie. It would have been funny though.

We took an overnight bus ($20.00US) to get down there which was significantly less comfortable than my bed, but adequate for broke travelers, plus they wake you up in the morning by handing you a little alfajor cookie (which are super delicious). Arriving in Puerto Montt was extremely exciting as would have been arriving in the middle of an uninhabited desert....just to get OFF THE BUS. We walked around Puerto Montt for a while, artisans markets, fish markets, etc.
We decided to eat lunch near the fish market, fresh seafoood right? So one of my friends says "let's get erizoz and locos because they are tipical food here! yay!" Mistake #1. didn't ask what erizos were, Mistake #2. said yes anyways. Erizos, for all of you who don't know are in fact sea urchins, raw, with some lemon and salt. disgusting. I ate one and then had to gulp down some bread and pisco sour just to get the extremely nasty flavor OUT. But yea, the locos were pretty good.
After this adventure, we got on a bus to Castro, a little town in Chiloé which is famous for it's palfitos (houses on stilts in the water..they are probably the coolest things I saw in Chiloé!) Stayed there two nights, visited the Parque Nacional Chiloé...it was pourings, but nice. We stayed one night in Ancud at the best hostal ever! visited the Fuerte San Francisco there....ate some Curanto which is again, typical food of the region. And after all this we made our way inland to Puerto Varas, and Frutillar- a cute little german town...literally, the cute little children go to cute little german school and everything is tiny and cute.

Conclusions:
1) People from the south of Chile are kinda like the southern states...really hospitable and nice. Some man invited us on a journey to the island Quinchau simply because he had room in his jeep. We could have been a band of young, seemingly feminine murderers for all he knew. good thing we weren't.
2) Curanto is actually good despite it's somewhat strange and disgusting sounding presentation (all forms of meat cooked in a pot...chicken, pork, beef, clams, muscles, other stuff)
3) I must go back!!

pictures to follow, however as a result of this trip I have a mountain of homework the size of volcán Osorno...entonces, nos vemos más rato.


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