Castro, Isle de Chiloe

Our second stop was the city of Castro on the Chilean island of Chiloe. Castro is Chile’s thirst oldest city, founded in 1567. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1837 but continued to grow and was up to over 1,000 residents by the early 1900’s. In 1912 the railway line reached Castro and the city’s population slowly grew. Again, in 1906 an earthquake and resulting tsunami all but destroyed the city again. Today the population exceeds 40,000.

Castro is famous for its wooden stilt houses, called palafitos. There are beautiful churches built of wood, several of which are on the UNESCO list.

View of the Zaandam

Stilted houses

Our first church. Really pretty, inside and out.

The wood ceiling inside the church

View from upstairs

Here's a map of the islands of Chiloe

Inside a typical house in Castro - this is how they heat the living room, with coal

Kitchen wood stove

This is the smoke house and winter storage area for vegetables. That big pot is for storing and using fat, as they do not have "oil" from the markets.

Bedroom

Me!

Boat building

The church - San Francisco

Inside the church

This was a bench inside the first wooden church we visited. Out of order, but....

High ceilings in the museum house

I'm practicing my photo taking skills - this is a little mirroring

Some more views of the "big" church

On our tour, our guide talked about how this seaweed is used to give to babies when they are teething. Makes their gums feel better and provides lots of vitamins