A Fed Bear Is A Dead Bear: Chile: Part II

We hopped on the 13-hour (about 800 m????) bus ride from Santiago to Puerto Montt on December 26 at 7 AM (it was a little late, true Chilean fashion). We went ahead and took some Dramamine to help with the swaying of the bus, and between that and the lack of sleep from being with relatives the previous days, we slept most of the ride – Mel slept at least 10 hours, while I was probably close to 8 hours. The views in between sleeping consisted of tattered bus stops and towns, open fields, and ultimately to volcanoes, mountains, lakes, and the sea. We arrived in Puerto Montt and stayed at a hostel called Casa Perla that night. It was $20,000 Chilean pesos (about US $40) in total for both of us for the private bedroom (not dorm style). The hostel was an old one, with plenty of local decorations from past years, and although it was small, it was pretty cute. The host was very nice as well, and offered some help on how to catch the morning buses to our next destination.

Comfy bus ride down to Puerto Montt, upper deck style!

Free breakfast!

Leaving Casa Perla

Windy awesome morning waiting for the bus by the water

Scoped out the Puerto Montt skatepark.... looked a little rough, but gets points for that and its cooling setting by the sea

Awesome nativity set in Puerto Montt. Each figure was made from an Alerce root, a local tree. Awesome! Enlarge this one.

After the free breakfast in the morning, which consisted of tea, coffee, bread with homemade jam, and various fruits and yogurt, we headed to the bus station to catch the first one to Ancud, Chiloe. The bus fare from Puerto Montt to Ancud included the ride on the ferry. It was $3,700 pesos ($7.40 US) each for the bus ride, and it was about 80 km to the ferry, then another 30 km to Ancud after the ferry ride. We got to see the beautiful coast on the ferry ride, along with some seals playing around in the water. In Ancud we explored the city throughout that day, checking out an old fort on the northside of the town, waiting for the bus we thought would be running that afternoon at 4 PM. Turns out, the bus we were hoping to catch only runs from Ancud to Chepu on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 8:30 AM and 4:30 PM. It was Tuesday for us though, so we caught a bus in that direction and had them drop us off at the “cruces de Chepu”. This was the intersection between the main road to Castro and the dirt/gravel road that led to Chepu. Chepu was another 13 km down the gravel road so we started walking and “haciendo dedo” (making finger = hitchhiking). The first guy that picked us up took us all the way to Chepu Adventures in Chepu, where we were camping. Chepu Adventures is an eco facility with four campsites, five or six dorm style rooms, and five or six cabanas to stay at, along with different activities offered. Fernando runs it and he is legit! The facility is powered buy their own wind turbine (which I think he kept calling Hank as if he’d named it), and they have solar heated hot water and showers, and a very unique rainwater collection system! Ask him about it! He tested my Spanish in a sort of stern way, which was intimidating but fun, and we talked at length on the energy efficiency and sustainability of his facility when I told him I am in that field of work.

Riding the ferry over to Chiloe

Got a huge piece of salmon in Ancud. Neither of us could finish this and it was pretty awesome.

Cool view of a cove from a fort up on the hill in Ancud.

Exploring the coastline by Ancud

Made it to Chepu Adventures!

Tent spot at Chepu Adventures

Down by the river, soaking up some sun

Sunset over the river

Mel lookin over river

The next morning we got up at 4:45 AM and up to the main building for instructions on the kayaking at dawn! We were on the water by 5:15 AM (an hour before sunrise) and headed out towards the sunken forest, which was created by a tsunami in the 60s I think. HOLY COW! Coolest sunrise ever, and we saw a river otter! The pictures say it all! Well worth it to check this out. Fernando also told us about the local fishermen who do tours to the penguin colony nearby, where you get to trek to the penguins and be very close to them, without disturbing them obviously. It sounded awesome, but we unfortunately did not have the time to do this. After hitching a few rides back to the main road that day, we headed back up towards Puerto Montt to pick up a car we’d rented through Europcar. They sucked. We had a reservation for three days, but turns out they wouldn’t be open on the third day, so we’d have to only have it for two days, or pay more for a fourth day. So we chose to have it for four days. Then it turned out they didn’t have a car actually there for us, so we had to wait a couple hours for one to arrive. They weren’t overly helpful or sorry it seemed for these discrepancies even though it was though a reservation, but I guess the person at the front desk had nothing to do with these things really. We got the car and headed to Ensenada!
We ended up at a spot called Camping Montana, which was car camping, but right up against Lago LLanquehue, and at the base of Volcan Osorno, so it was pretty awesome! It was $5,000 pesos (US $10) for the site, fires were allowed, and would was already provided too! We ate some empanadas from a local store, which turned out pretty bad (one was beef and onion (ugh), the other was some meat with tomatoes and cheese). There weren’t horseflies here so that was pretty nice. Near the lodge at this site there was also free Wifi, so Mel was able to get her facebook fix here too.