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

They grow a lot of potatoes and a lot of garlic

Quiet streets in Castro

 A view of Castro from the ship

Relaxing at the end of the day with a bottle of wine I bought in Santiago on my wine tour to the Casablanca Valley

More salmon farms

View from my balcony

Landscape just outside of town, in Castro

This was the second church we visited - near the museum of the house

More stilt houses

Puerto Montt Chile

Our first three ports this trip are all tender ports. No, that does not mean they are sweet and loving, nor delicate. Rather, it means in order to step on land we need to first step on a lifeboat and motor away towards the pier, away from our anchored ship, which will sit in the bay awaiting our return at the end of the day like a devoted canine companion waits for its master's return. 

Puerto Montt is an active fishing port located at the end of the line of Chile's beautiful Lake District.

Puerto Montt was founded in the mid 19th century during the German colonization of southern Chile.  It is the gateway to the Chiloe Archipelago and Western Patagonia.

It is best known today as the second largest salmon producer of the world, although agriculture, cattle and forestry are also huge contributors to this area’s growing and strong economy.

I was on the first tender out this morning as I had booked an all

Day tour out to the Lakes and Volcano area. It was a really pretty day. Sunshine abounded and we were lucky to be able to see clear

Views of the famous Osorno volcano. We drove past Lago

Llanquihue (yawn key way) one our left and then soon after the Petrohue River on our right. 

We took a nice boat ride on the lake and then visited Petrohue Falls. The weather was perfect. 

For lunch we heard back toward the port and stopped off in Puerto Varas. Lunch was yummy. We started with Pisco Sours a popular drink here. Then there was soup (salad in my case) followed by a nicely prepared salmon with new potatoes. 

After lunch we had about an hour to wander about the town. I always enjoy the central plaza and this one was small but cute. Two men were playing flutes and that was enjoyable. 

All too soon our day was done. Now here I am in the port terminal taking advantage of the free wifi to post this and upload pictures.

This was our first view of Osorno as we drove around the Lake in the morning.

Getting closer!

Getting ready for our boat ride across/around the lake.  Snapped this little group of kayakers getting ready to go for a paddle.

 Look!  Here's our boat!  Not.

A bee photobombed my picture!!  And a big-ass bee it was!!

After our boat ride, we drove to Petrohue Falls which made for some very picturesque shots of both the river, falls and Osorno.

Small but mighty!

It's me!  Sans the bee!!

Below the falls.  The water is such a pretty color.

Some "from the road" shots of the countryside.

That clouded-top mountain over there is the volcano that erupted last year.

Lots of country roads leading out to farmhouses in the distance.  These properties all have gorgeous views of the Lake across the road.

Cows!

 Hay bales! (along with rain, I'm a big fan of hay bales)

Local plaza musician.