Woke up to no electricity, which meant no wifi…which meant we had no idea what our plans were going to be for the next couple of days since the volcano was still affecting our previous plans.

So instead of sitting around waiting for something or someone to tell us what to do we went to a cafe, bought some coffee, and started researching some places we could go. Luckily, we had a contact in Santiago that had been to majority of places in Chile, we had a couple in mind Cholchagua or Chiloé, Chol. is the wine country so other than doing wine tours for four days straight there wasn’t a whole lot else to do, we could go horseback riding and find some trails but it didn’t feel like a big enough leap for our adventurous souls, we needed something daring and exotic, which is why we started looking into Chiloé and it was the best decision we could’ve made all trip. Unfortunately, we had to make the financial burden of renting a car, luckily we received the down payment back so that’ll loosen some tension while you read the rest of this. But it was a huge step in letting this small local business have a large sum of my bank account and while all of this happened I sat there listening while josh talked with them in Spanish.

Lesson: Learn words in the language that they most commonly speak where you’re traveling to, even the simple phrases come in handy.

Obviously he’s a Spanish major so it wasn’t a huge deal if I didn’t know how to have a full on conversation, but it would’ve been nice to know what was going on more. Anyways, we drove the four hours south to Chiloé, which numerous Chileans haven’t even been! It is an island off the southern tip of Chile, and while you are leaving the mainland you can see the end of the Andes mountain range. Josh and I had never driven onto a ferry so that in itself was an experience, mainly because we just didn’t know what to expect…I mean come on, we’re from Kansas! No ocean or large lakes for miles… We stayed in Castro, which is the capital, and checked into our Hostel: Hostel Entretenido, which was located near the town’s center. Castro is about a little less than half way down and took us about two hours to drive after getting off the ferry. (Ferries come very frequently, took about 30 minutes to get across the bay) They also have palafitos, which are houses on stilts, and we stayed in one during one of the nights. 

**some of the best seafood I’ve ever had, their main seafood dish is called Curanto, which is a massive plate of shellfish, meats, potatoes, and vegetables served with a cilantro broth on the side, definitely a full hearty meal after hiking all day**