CHILE: PART II- Magic!!

Puerto Varas and Chiloe

I couldn´t decide weather to call this section Magic or Marmite, but since marmite was a magical part of these cold december days, I decided to go with the fomer. And yes, marmite meant visitors from home!! I picked up two sun-starved gnomes from the airport in Puerto Montt (my brother and my aunty for those who don´t know) and took them back to the German settlement town of Puerto Varas, which looks a lot like an imaginary village from a Hans Christian Anderson fairytale. The wood-slat homes are the picture of winter cosiness painted in bright colours with little smoking chimneys . In the town tiny shops sell home made knit wear and big slabs of creamy cakes . It is a novelty to be back in a place where its absolutely necessary to wear coats and hats, although something about it reminds me a bit of the Truman Show, and I keep expecting to turn a corner to find people waiting in position for their cue. The backdrop of two snow capped volcanoes behind a gigantic lake makes the scene even more magical, and the shore line is decorated with tiny villages that have suitably cute names such as Frutilla (which translates to Strawberry!). At night their evening lamps and windows make it looks as though there were a string of fairy-lights hung around the lake.

We spend Christmas day eating cheese sandwiches and opening presents at the top of volcanoe Osorno which is shown in the picture. What a view! We did cheat by getting the ski-lift but walked the last bit so still felt that we deserved our picnic. It was nice to have some parts of home on top of the world in a land far away!

The next stop was Chiloe, a huge island further south. The ocean divide between it and the mainland is like a castle moat, as though to keep all of the myth and history safely contained inside. The traditional houses stand at the shore edge on long wooden stilts like angular spiders, slanting against each other in a precarious fashion. This is like a land from a different type of story, the kind that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, but that you love to read just before bed anyway. The islands mythical figures are certainly fit for such a tale; Trauco is a deformed dwarf with course and swollen features, stumps for feet and a wooden club called "Pahueldún"; The ghost ship CALEUCHE sails the misty waters with a crew of drowned sailors playing a soft and enchanting music.

(http://www.chiloeweb.com/chwb/chiloeisland/english/tem_gen_mitologia.html for more enchanting characters).

As we arrive on the small ferry a light rain is falling over the grey water. On the cobbled street that slopes down to our hostel pirate-style accordion music is drifting from an open door way. We eat at a pier side restaurant where the tables are set for 200 peope but we are the only ones there..

Upon taking a tour to the remoter part of the island we are graced with a very excited tour guide who insists that we call out ´Magic!!´at various points during the trip. The churches and sites are indeed pretty magical in a rather sinister, unsettling way. They are the kind of places you might expect to see a ghost if you had a certain type of disposition.

We visit the national park where dense, mossy trees morph together and totally cover the land beneath. The Palo Mayor plant found here was used by medicine men as a potion to cure fear. I imagine that you might need such a thing journeying through this thicket of forest, where creatures and unknown things are sure to lurk in the deep clots of moss underfoot.