10 March, Tren Central train to Chillan
Pick-pocket mop-up operations continued through most of
yesterday with a morning visit to the airport. The extremely helpful lady who
looked after us at the Australian Embassy clued us up to the chaos that ruled
at the downtown office of the International Police, the issuing authority and
suggested the airport as a more favourable option.
Luckily, Santiago International Airport is fairly small,
because we were directed to every corner of it by several helpful bystanders.
We hadn’t realised that the International Police were in fact the PDI, probably
best known as Immigration Officers. Their centre of operations was not the dinted
grey steel door in the bowels of the terminal where we were directed, but the
large immigration processing area emblazoned with the 2 metre high initials
PDI.
So that, we thought, was the end to the drama for this trip.
Well, not quite. A warning to travellers - the hits can keep coming if you
aren’t constantly on guard and even when you are. On our way back into the city
we were the target of one of the more popular scams - the “bird poop sting”. As
we descended the subway steps, we were hit from above and behind with what
seemed to be the poop of a large bird (actually a mix of mustard, some sort of
liquid and who knows what else!). A helpful gent pointed out the bird poop on
our backs and bag. By happy circumstance he just happened to have a large
tissue at hand. To be honest, we didn’t cotton on to the scam immediately,
however our natural suspicion of helpful strangers cut in and we just kept
walking rather than follow him to somewhere where he could complete his charitable
endeavours and grab our bag - or worse. He and one or two co-conspirators had
lain in wait for tourists at this particular station where many change from the
airport bus to the subway. One sprays the victims from above with various
concoctions while a couple of other charmers perform the cleaning, snatching
and mugging part of the operation. They had given us a fair dose of “poop”, so
we abandoned our intended sight-seeing, preferring a shower and a visit to the
laundry.
So here we are, under-way on the more serious part of our
journey. The train trip from Santiago to Chillan is one of the very few long-distance
passenger services still operating in South America. Chile once had a fairly
extensive rail network, courtesy of early British influences. This line is very
popular with both tourists and locals and many trains are booked out. We were
able to book our tickets online and pay by PayPal. Online credit card payments
aren’t widely available in Chile. At $25 AUD each, the fares are extremely
reasonable. But bring your own food! We paid $20 AUD for a couple of milk-powdered
coffees and two sandwiches.
The areas south of Santiago are far more attractive than the
north of the country that we travelled through on our previous trip in 2015 and
the further south we get, the more interesting the scenery becomes.
The small city of Chillan was to be just a rest stop for us
on our long journey down the coast to Patagonia, but today we lucked out. It
was folk festival weekend in Chillan and the city’s central plaza was the focus
of foodie heaven. We did a wander through on our way to inspect the local
markets, one of the “things” we do. These markets are just amazing, in South
America and Asia in particular. Prices are just unbelievably cheap and the
produce is just out of the field. We bought some fish in Santiago at the
enormous city market. A whole Robolo (or something like that) filleted with
much ceremony, was $7 AUD for about 1kg. Sadly we are in a hotel tonight so
home cooking was not on. Instead, we joined the throng at the festival and
after a very nice cerveza rustica, we lined up with the local families for the
local sausage in a roll, followed by delicious BBQ pollo (chicken) on a stick.
We did come across one person who spoke English, a wine merchant, but all our
other conversations were conducted in Spanglish, with the emphasis on ‘glish’.
Great fun.
12 March Hotel Apart Colon, Puerto Montt
Our 10 hour bus trip yesterday was comfortable enough in
salon cama class, (read first class}, but we almost starved to death! On our
many other trips on long-haul buses in South America, meals were provided, so
we assumed we would be treated to all sorts of desiccated delights. Not
happening! A quick dash off the bus at a terminal along the way produced a
packet of chips and some water. By the time we arrived in Puerto Montt we were
thirsty (it was past beer o’clock) and ravenous. We positively sprinted the 1km
to our hotel, which was a good thing because it was after 9:00pm and the
waterfront area was a little spooky.
The locals refer to their town as Muerto Montt (“Dead” Montt
in Spanish) and they are dead right. To be fair it is Sunday today, but it was
Saturday night when we arrived. With the words of John Denver’s “Saturday Night
in Toledo Ohio” playing in our heads, we finally sated our thirst and quieted
the tummy rumbles at a very average restaurant in the almost deserted city
centre.
13 March, Esmeralda Hotel, Castro, Chile
Today we enjoyed another very comfortable 3 hour bus trip
through some lush, New Zealand-like countryside, to the island of Chiloe, said
to be somewhat of a remnant of pre-revolution Chile. The Spanish sympathisers
held out here during the Revolution of Independence and that, combined with the
isolation of the island, created the interesting mix of old and new Chile to be
found here today.
In stark contrast to Puerto Montt, the streets of this
vibrant little town are alive with activity. There are people everywhere going
about their business, street stalls selling all sorts of strange sea creatures,
fruit, beautiful vegetables and the usual modern trinkets, jugglers at
intersections, buses, taxis and private cars competing with pedestrians for
control of the crossings - it’s all GO!. We took a walk out of town to get a
look at the stilt houses – palafitos - that are unique to this part of Chile.
There aren’t a large number remaining, but in the bright sunshine that followed
the lifting of the fog that had greeted us on our arrival, they were a
photographer’s dream.
Fronting the Plaza de Armas (every town has one) is one of
the oddest churches we have ever seen. The Iglesia San Francisco de Castro is
clad in corrugated iron, painted yellow and lavender. While the external
appearance of the church is somewhat gauche, the timber interior is amazing. The church was built between 1910 and 1912,
replacing two previous edifices that, not surprisingly, were burnt down. The
structure recently narrowly escaped a similar fate when a large building across
the road was destroyed by fire.
Castro has a certain earthy, gritty feel to it that we have
instantly loved. Everybody seems to know everybody else, which makes progress
on the street extremely slow as we all greet, chat and part with a kiss or
handshake.
14 March, Esmeralda Hotel, Castro
After all the recent mindless statements from various Trump
staff, we have imagined that the town of Castro may well be the target of some
of those “microwaves that turn into cameras” (Kellyanne Conway) spying on the
town because Breitbart News told the President that Raoul Castro lived here. In
fact, Castro derives its name from the Ancient Roman word for a fort or
military camp, “castrum” as Chiloe was the site of several defensive forts in
colonial times.
The town still retains many traditional houses clad with
wooden shingles as well as the colourful palafitos, which are best viewed on
high tide as the shallow waters of the inlet drain to rather unattractive mud
banks on low tide.
We had investigated a tour of the Chiloe National Park
today, but a little online research steered us towards the local buses. For the
return fare of AUD $7 each for the 3 hour round trip, plus the park entry fee
of AUD $8 each we saved ourselves AUD $147 each over the tour price. Sure we
missed the swank lunch but we enjoyed our cheese and crackers from the
supermarket.
The National Park was interesting enough, but not
spectacular. The beach was, as usual, not a patch on Australian beaches, but
the forest walks were pleasant and easy going in the mild sunny weather.
Tourists and travellers are still thin on the ground. We
have had no problems booking bus tickets, even just a day ahead. Seems we are
just on the tail end of the “season”.
