My Brief Time on Chiloe
Island...
February 23, 2007

The weather here isn’t quite as I was picturing it. I was thinking ‘Ahhh. Islands. Beaches. Sun.’

Not really the case. I am sitting here at my hostel in at a table under a glass-covered veranda watching the rain come down. As my
brother-in-law put it to me: better to be traveling in rain than to have a good day of weather and be at work.

It is funny that he wrote that to me today since I had that
exact same thought this morning when I was out and about. It is all part
of my ‘appreciating every moment – good and bad’ that I have adopted ever since realizing how quickly this trip is going. I will
admit to even thinking this while I was on my long bus ride. I seriously said to myself ‘You are experiencing South American culture
right now and you should appreciate that you are able to be here.’ Yes, I really told myself that.

Anyway, I just checked the weather report and it is going to be like this the whole week. For that reason, I am cutting my time here
short. I definitely know I didn’t see all that the Chiloe Islands have to offer but I am extremely low on time. The only thing I really
found to do today would be to go to a penguin colony. I saw pictures on the walls. I don’t want to sound like an Antarctic snob…but
even the best pictures that they had looked pathetic. It’s just not right to me anymore to see penguins if there isn’t ice around them.

So I am leaving here in a few minutes to head to Puerto Varas after only a couple days. There just isn’t enough to do here while the
weather sucks. I need to head to a place where there are options even if the sun isn’t shining. I did wander around enough to know
that this is a very colorful town with regards to the colors of the houses and the rooftops. It is probably totally apparent when the
sun is shining. There are also some houses that I walked past on the top of the hill that are beautiful. Sadly, that is about as far as I
got.

I forgot to mention the dolphins that were flopping along in the water yesterday while we were on the car ferry. They were
following us. Half the time they were gliding through the water; the other half they were flipping around on their backs. I guess this
makes up for me not waking up while the dolphins were playing next to our boat in Antarctica...
Back to Chile.
A view while walking around.
Walking down a street in Ancud.