Friday, September 14, 2007 All of Chile by bus...

Friday, September 14, 2007

I awoke to southern sunlight streaming through the deep blue curtains as the bus peacefully rumbled by sheep grazing the green pastures with a snowcapped volcano in the background. The scenery was really beautiful, but I wasn’t too keen to wake up after a fitful night of sleep on the bus. After a cookies and apples for breakfast, Calli and Sam and I talked and impatiently waited to finally get to Puerto Montt. Around 8:30 (fourteen hours after we left Santiago) we arrived and gleefully got our bags and left the bus station. We decided to wait for our friends that left a few hours after us before getting back on another bus to take us to Chiloé. So while we waited we went to Anglemó, the famous artisan market and fish market. It was just beginning to open while we walked around and we watched the fisherman unload their boats with the freshest fish from the ocean and veggies from the north. My favorite was watching the men clean the fish. In about 15 seconds they went from entire fish that looked like they’d just jumped out of the ocean to beautiful white filets ready for the grill. The men worked like machines while they other guys goofed off and made fun of each other.

At 10:30 the other bus arrived and our group of 10 united. Just imaged a huge blob of gringos with backpacks standing on the corner deciding where to go next. That was us the entire trip! But after a pit of discussion, 7 of us decided to head straight to Chiloé and 3 decided to check out Puerto Montt a bit and follow us later that night. So the 7 of us bought the $8.50 tickets for the 4 hour trip to the beautiful, huge island off the coast of southern Chile. We took a bus about 1 hour to the western coast and to my surprise we boarded a ferry, which took us to the island. While we were on the ferry we got out and walked around and admired the incredible view. The day was absolutely beautiful warm spring day with uncharacteristically clear skies for the south. Once on the island we drove about 2 hours till we reached the capital of Chiloé, Castro. We found a hostel and despite the fact that it was 4:30 pm (a very strange time to eat for Chileans), we were all starving so we found a restaurant to eat dinner. We were the only ones in the restaurant which stood on pillars out over the water with an incredible view of the mountains and we turned our dinner into a seafood feast. Chiloé is famous for its mariscos (any type of seafood other than fish) so we took advantage of that and ate like kings. I ate pastel de loco, which is loco (a huge sea snail that my friend described as something with the flavor of chicken with the texture of a thick tofu) in a casserole type mixture with bread, cheese, onions and other seasonings. It was good but ridiculously rich and after about 5 bites I was full. But everyone had tons of seafood: mussels, clams, scallops, crab, and tons of other stuff that I’d never heard of. It ended up being $20 a person, the most expensive meal I’ve had in South America, but the amount of seafood we consumed was incredible.

After our 2 hour dinner we walked around Castro and through the markets. When the sun went down everyone decided we would celebrate our friend Matt’s 21st birthday, which was the next day, that night. Everyone wanted to start drinking early so we could go to bed early so we could wake up early and explore Chiloé. Way to plan ahead, right? Castro is a small, fishing/tourist town with not much of a night life, but we managed to have fun on our own. We found the grocery store and bought enough alcohol to properly celebrate a 21st birthday. We headed back to the hostel, crammed the 7 of us in one of the double rooms and began celebrating. We played card games, joked around and had some good clean fun (honestly! I’ve found good friends!). Around 10:30 our 3 friends arrived and joined us. By midnight I wished Matt a happy 21st, swore I would never drink again and went to bed.