24/1-1/2/12 Puerto Montt and Chiloe Island

Dear All,

The first half of our travel is coming to the end, the Carrettera Austral with its wilderness is behind us, 2500 km whom 1500 km of ripio are in our legs...  is definitely time for a new story, a different story! 

This story talks about the biggest city of the south of Chile, Puerto Montt, and the magic island laying just in front of it, Chiloè.

Would you say that the jungle is just on the other side of the bay?

The big city grows mostly around the sea products like fishes and muscles...  

Just arrived from the port...

and people can profit of the freshness of the produts eating in the very popular and good "cocinerias" of the port Angelmo.

 ...and directly in our plate!

The island is really close to the continent, but it protected by feroces sea lyon...

...which take care of keeping intact its isolation and, consequently, preserve its strong poplular traditions...

 ...like the harvesting of algae which will finish in the japanese Sushi...

The story of this place is very special and unique (link) as well as the churches built by the Jesuites to create the "Jardin de Dio" and which, now, are part of Patrimonio dell'Unesco. Therefore we decide to visit some of the 60 ones scattered between the main island and those of its archipelago...

The idea was to make the tour of the island by bike. so we start from the north bay of Ancud...

  ...ending sleeping on a lovely beach just at the extreme limit of the peninsula...

 The next day, when we wake up we realize that we, actually, need a REAL break... 

...WITHOUT the bike... 

But the lazy life riding a bike is not always so easy... 

...we discover that the ripio road are not an hard lesson only for cyclist...

...and that even if you are in a car, here we are not the only owner of the road...  

While travelling in this island we discover as well what does it means having up to 5 meters of tide variation...

...and that there are still people which built their own boat to go fishing in the sea...

And while travelling here and there, we enjoyed everywhere the amazingly rich and variegate traditional Chilota kitchen!

 Sante!

And buon appetito!