My Trip to the Lake Region
As I mentioned, my one true travel experience in Chile came in April when I spent a week and a half traveling around the south of Chile in the Lake Region with two of my friends. I was supposed end up traveling north to the Atacama and then Peru with those two again at the end of the semester, but when they decided to extend their stay and I decided to come home a little early, those planes unfortunately fell through. Fortunately, though, my time down south produced some of my absolute favorite memories of being in Chile and truly gave me exposure to Chilean culture outside of the central region around the capital that is fairly Americanized. We stayed in hostels at every location, which ended up being great because we met people from all over the world who were on their own travel adventures.
We visited a total of six cities: Castro and Ancud on the main island of the Chiloé archipelago, Puerto Montt, Puerto Varas, Valdivia, and finally Pucón. It took us 21 hours and three buses to travel from Viña to Castro, our first stop, something I would never wish upon anyone. We spent three days in Castro. On the first day, we went island hopping through the Chiloé archipelago to visit some of the 14 churches protected by UNESCO as being heritage sites and spent time at some of the local markets. We spent our second and third days visiting El Parque Nacional de Chiloé and kayaking around the inlet, respectively.
From Castro we traveled to Ancud, where we spent one day visiting the downtown. Looking back on things, I wish we’d spent one more day in Ancud and one less in Castro, especially because our hostel there was fantastic, but you live and you learn. This was also the only place in Chile I was ever able to find a restaurant that served a dish called cangato that was made with fresh salmon that was simply delicious. No one outside of Ancud had ever seemed to have heard of it, but one of Rio’s professors insisted we try and find it, and I’m definitely glad we did. Ancud was also the place that began our random bonding with animals. While visiting some of the old Spanish forts on the northwest side of the city, a neighborhood dog decided to become our afternoon companion. My friend Rio managed to take a couple pictures of me standing at the corner of fort with the dog looking out over the ocean that look like they could be movie posters.
After Ancud, we briefly stopped in Puerto Montt before moving on to Puerto Varas. This area of Chile surprisingly has a very rich English and particularly German heritage, which is evident in both the names of the towns and in the food. We spent most of our time in Puerto Varas walking around the city and its national park areas. Again, a neighborhood dog decided to become our traveling partner, and took a particular liking to me. I dubbed him “Dog” after John Wayne’s dog in the movie Big Jake. Neither Sarah nor Rio could ever maintain his attention for long, but if I called out to him and clapped, he’d come running. Sarah even told me at one point that when we were in an area of longer grass, Dog would pop up on his hind legs to scan over the grass to try to find me. Unfortunately, when we stopped at a grocery store to buy food to make dinner and something for him, he lost his patience and went home.
Our next stop, Valdivia, was probably my favorite. Valdivia was a fun city with its own style and mix of German, Spanish, and Chilean culture. The food was unbelievably good, which is saying a lot because I found most Chilean food to be rather bland, but one restaurant was so good that we went back a second night in a row. In Valdivia we visited the Kunstmann brewery, home of probably the most well-known and popular beer company in all of Chile that was founded by German immigrants in the 19th century. We also spent a day off the coast visiting some of the Spanish forts on the islands there. It was on these islands that I had my most memorable experience of all my time in Chile, and it’s worth telling.
While stopping by the town center on one of the islands, I rounded a corner to see a group of three teenagers coming down the hill about a block ahead of me. One girl saw me and said to her friends, “¡Mira! Un gringo. (Look! A gringo.)” It’s worth noting that gringo is not a derogatory term in Chile like it can be in other parts of Latin America. I don’t think she was expecting me to respond because after I turned and told Sarah and Rio, who were still behind a building and out of sight to her, I turned and waved back. She got really excited, grabbed her two friends by the arms and came hurtling down the hill towards us. Within seconds we were surrounded by over 20 teenagers. Their guide approached us and said in beautiful English, which is exceptionally rare outside of the central region, that they were all students from a school in a small town on the main island of Chiloé (which we had already visited, though we’d never heard of their town) and that they were visiting Valdivia (which is across the bay from Ancud) on a school trip. He went on to tell us that for almost all of them, it was the first time they’d ever left the island and that he was pretty sure none of them had ever seen a white person before. The students then asked if they could take pictures with us, so we took a large group photo, and then the three of us took small group and individual photos with most all of them. Sarah is of Scandinavian descent and is quite pale and blonde, so she definitely sticks out in Chile, even though most people there are lighter skinned. It was hilarious to watch the boys sheepishly approach her and ask to take a picture together. The whole experience was incredibly moving and eye-opening. Trying to imagine what it would be like to live your whole life in such a small town and never get to see the world to me is so scary it’s mind-blowing. The fact they were all so excited to see us was really cool, too.
Pucón was our last stop as we made our way back north. Pucón is a little smaller in population, but it is a tourist hotspot due to its seemingly limitless amount of outdoor activities and beautiful scenery. It is located right at the base of the Andes, so we spent a day biking through the rivers and farms in the mountains where Rio unfortunately broke her wrist in an accident trying to avoid a car coming around a blind corner. Let me tell you, the hospitals in Viña and Valparaíso might be fine, but visiting a small hospital in a little town in the south of Chile will inspire you to never get injured. Thank God Sarah was a nursing student. Unfortunately then for Rio, she had to sit out as we left early the next morning to hike Mt. Villarrica, one of the most active volcanoes in all of Latin America. We were able to summit because of the high winds, but the view from the base of the glacier was simply breathtaking. One last interesting thing to note was that in our hostel in Pucón, at one point we had a conversation with close to a dozen distinct dialects of English composed of people from various parts of the U.S., Canada, Ireland, England, Germany, and Australia. As a language students who is particularly interested in phonology, those conversations were fascinating to me. It’s probably safe to say I’ll never get such a diverse group of English speakers together in the same room again.
