There are seven species of swan worldwide, and all are completely white
except for the black swans of Australia and these, the black-necked
swans of Chile. More pictures of them on
the next page.
Map of Chiloé, detail of northern end below
This day started out with us packing our stuff up and leaving the Cabañas
del Lago, and piling into the bus for a trip via ferry to Chiloé. It was cold
standing out in the breeze on the ferry in the hope of seeing some marine life; but
this morning there was nothing to be seen. We landed in Chacao after a half-hour’s
ride. The three thumbnails here show pictures of the central square of this little
town. Apparently, the bright colors of the houses are typical of Chiloé.
In the left picture (big image;
small) Russ is looking like it was still cold
that early in the morning; the middle one (big image;
small) shows how nicely planted the central
square (“Plaza de Armas”) is, even as early in the spring as this
was; the right one (big image;
small) is of houses right on the square.
At the lower right, you can see signs of the improvements being made to
the Plaza.
Coming from the U.S. East Coast, I tend to think of islands as necessarily low-lying;
but Charlie Gauntt pointed out to us that Chiloé and the archipelago to the
south of it are the mountains of the Coast Range that sank till only their tops
are above water. Chiloé is very hilly, and all our walks on the island involved
a lot of up and down. This is one of the earliest-settled parts of Chile, and the
farmlands have been cultivated for, in some cases, four hundred years. These pictures
show parts of the road between Chacao, our landing place, and Caulín,
on the north coast of Chiloé, where we had a wonderful seafood lunch.
(Left thumbnail: big image,
small; center: big image,
small; right: big image,
small.)
In the left picture (big image,
small), Mark and all the others ahead of him walk
to the little church in Caulín. I took the right-hand picture
(big image, small)to show
the strong German influence in this part of Chile: notice that from right to left,
the names are Selma Stolpe, Tilly Kühl, and Joaquín (but not Joachim)
Hannig.
We ate at the Restaurant Ostras Caulín, where we each started the meal
with a dozen oysters if we wished, and I have to say they were the best
oysters I’ve had in a long long time. In the front of the restaurant
was a small Monkeypuzzle tree, and this was our first meeting with this
Chilean specialty. Here (big image;
small) you see Mark examining the tree in amazement.
We saw lots more of these trees later on, some very robust; but this was one
you could walk right up to and examine in detail.
Botanical note: I personally find the name “Monkeypuzzle” a bit whimsical, a Victorian fantasy, especially since there are no monkeys in this part of the world, west of the Andes. Some of the books refer to this tree as “Chile pine”, less whimsical, but not much more accurate, since it certainly isn’t any kind of pine, though it is a conifer. The Chileans call it “araucaria”, which is much better, since the scientific name is Araucaria araucana. The genus Araucaria was, in previous epochs, much more widely distributed, but now it’s restricted to the southern hemisphere, and has only about twenty species, almost all of these endemic to New Caledonia. The member of the genus that’s most familiar to people in the U.S. is the Norfolk Island Pine, Araucaria heterophylla, grown in the East as a pot plant, and in the West as a garden specimen. There’s a nice big Bunya tree (Araucaria bidwillii, from Australia) growing in the Huntington Gardens not far from our Pasadena house, and I suppose that this tree must be easy enough to grow elsewhere. I've never seen any monkeypuzzles growing in Southern California, though, and I suppose that it’s just too hot here for them.
After lunch, we walked along the beach, which faces north and is on the Chacao
Channel. Chile skies! (Big image;
small)
It was here that we saw a few dozen flamingos. Naturally I couldn’t get
very close, but I asked my camera to do its best.
(Left: big, small;
middle: big, small;
right: big, small.)
We walked further along the beach, and then went by bus to the west coast of
Chiloé, and did a long and strenuous walk, with lots of ups and downs,
to the Pingüinera Islotes de Punihuil,
a penguin preserve. In many ways, this was one of the most interesting
and memorable parts of our two-week vacation, but I’m afraid that I took few
pictures, and of those, none are interesting. The weather got cold, gray, windy, and raw,
and for the first time I took out my woolen watch cap to help me keep warm. I packed
my camera into my back pack, and took it out for only a few shots. We walked down a long
scenic path to the beach, where most of us got into Zodiacs to go out to a few of the
islands where penguins of two species were to be seen, as well as geese and other
marine birds. We even saw some sea otters on the ride back in to shore. But I didn’t
take my camera with me onto the Zodiac, since I was afraid it might get splashed with
salt water. Mark’s camera fit nicely into his pocket for the climb into the
Zodiac, however, and he managed to get some pretty good pictures of penguins and other
birds. You should go
to his web page
to see these.
Previous day’s pictures; next day’s pictures
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