Black-necked swans off the shore of Quinchao
We took a ferry from the east coast of the main island of Chiloé to the
much smaller island of Quinchao. This is a view (big image;
small) from a high point on Quinchao over
the Gulf of Ancud. In the distance, out in the bay, you can see floats
that are used in salmon farming.
In the foreground, the yellow-flowered plant is
gorse.
Up to this time, I had avoided taking pictures that would include
this plant, a tough and thorny
member of the pea family, which must
be one of the world’s worst environmental disasters wherever it’s
introduced. Avoiding gorse in your pictures is hard to do in the Chilean Lakes
District, though, because you
see it everywhere there, in addition to another introduced weed, the dandelion.
I saw there in the woods one other invasive European plant, Planetree Maple, which we also had in
Providence, and which our lawns and gardens were full of every spring.
The German settlers planted gorse as a natural fence, to keep their sheep
from wandering, but they had no way of keeping the gorse itself from
spreading throughout the area.
In this picture (big image;
small), we’re walking downward along
the road you see in the foreground of the previous picture. Gorse on
both sides! You get a better view of the floats for salmon farming in
this picture, too.
In the left picture (big image;
small), Mark, Sandy, and Johan are prominent in the
foreground, while a very vigorous monkeypuzzle tree takes the background. In the
right (big image;
small), we’re walking through the streets
of Achao, the main town of Quinchao, with a tall but
sparser tree in the background.
Two views (first: big, small;
second: big, small) from
the ferry, as we were going back from Quinchao to the mainland of Chiloé.
Then two sky shots (third: big, small;
fourth: big, small)
from Chiloé after we had landed. We wound up in the town of Castro, which
had plenty of things to photograph, but mostly I didn’t. There was a
covered market that Mark and I wandered through, but didn’t buy anything
at, even though there were some really interesting sweaters for sale there.
It was here in Castro, in the town square, that Ingrid Schönherr bought a stalk
of Gunnera for us to try.
I’ll close this page with a shot of a historical marker in the town
square of Castro that commemorates the founder of the town.
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