Cucao,Chiloé

We spent the past couple of days in El Manzano (the apple tree) campground in the village of Cucao on the western side of Chiloé Island, and of the two days one was rainy and the second was, as you can see here, picture perfect. Highs in the mid 60s, a light breeze and an empty campground most of the day.

I have been in a strange mood for a few days, partly the weather so changeable and unpredictable, partly feeling a lack of forward motion and partly I fear,  worried about the political turmoil that is sweeping the planet, not just in the US but all over the place. We seem to be in a revolutionary phase and my reading of history says revolutions usually lead to bloodletting. I don’t fear for us so much as South America is, weirdly, largely peaceful at the moment and it feels like we are in a bubble while Europe and North America are waving sabers around and China and Russia do what they always do best which is not generally good for us. 

So we carry on probably much the way you do, wondering what storms may come but focusing more on the day day of, in our case, filling our water tank, emptying our trash and dumping our toilet. Pretty basic stuff  even as the US government is being shut down and turned on its head, every day a new counter order. 

The campground was gloomy on Monday, cold and wet with heavy rain pounding GANNET2 so much so Rusty spent most of the day on his bed snoring and peering out of the back windows from time to time. 

We watched a British crime drama, and I managed the 37th consecutive day of my Wordle and together we moaned about the restrictions of Chilean (and Argentine) national parks. 

Unable to even enter the parks with a dog we find ourselves shut out. We. Annoy even park the van inside and take a walk for a couple of hours as we have in the States. Down here dogs may not enter at all so in Cucao, a collection of houses and campgrounds who survive on park traffic our tourist options are pretty much zero. 

So we spent our time tearing open our lockers and sorting the contents. We decided that our most winter clothes that we used in Tierra Del Fuego could be given away as we won’t use them as we travel north. 

We won’t be going back to Patagonia probably and certainly not to the frigid regions of Ushuaia so we have retained our lighter puffy jackets and scarves and gloves and wool hats and gave the campground owner our heavy gear. That in turn opened up more room so we shuffled stuff around figuring where things could go. 

It helps to open lockers and take inventory and debate where to put things and consolidate storage. There isn’t enough room for extravagance but we keep figuring out improvements to in storage, what we need close to hand and what can be buried under the bed. 

Our plan is to drive slowly north into warmer areas of Argentina and eventually reach Brazil, a vast country largely tropical with Amazonian jungles and palm covered beaches where puffy jackets happily have no place. 

Our 400 watt solar panels have been cranking electricity on sunny days putting seventy or eighty amps into our batteries which helps but with our reliance on 110 volt systems and a 3000 watt inverter we duck up electricity through our fridge our induction cooktop, air fryer, microwave and Starlink. 

We haven’t been driving huge distances so our second alternator has been helping but not filling our 500 amp lithium batteries. It’s been a balancing act of running our motor as a generator while we cook and unplugging our Starlink at night and occasionally turning off the fridge for a few hours while we sleep. 

The reality of living in a van is you never have enough energy. This is Cucao village as we drove in under a promise of rain: 

This is still the land of monkey puzzle trees as you have identified them. We had them in our garden in England when I was a child and I never really wondered where they came from so to see them here is a reminder of a very distant time and place. 

I cannot imagine life here in winter, not much snow they say but lots of wind and rain and cold. 

Tourism rules here. 

This is our route rather poorly traced by my finger. From Chaitén to Castro by six hour ferry ride on Sunday. Then on Monday we drive an hour across the island to Cucao and as you read this we will be planning a cross island drive to spend tonight, Wednesday in Ancud at the top of the island. Tomorrow we take the ferry to the mainland and drive an hour back to Puerto Montt. 

These Pudú deer are back. Unlike Key Deer they are rarer harder to see in real life than they are near ing signs but we keep looking. 

This coast of Chile is all fjords and inlets and mountains but this is actually a fresh water lake, Lago Huillinco which almost reaches the Pacific but falls slightly short. Even in the rain it looks quite spectacular in its own modest way. 

A Monday afternoon in summer saw lots of people shopping and strolling around in the village of Huillinco. 

After hundred of miles of mountains on the Carretera Austral I enjoy the pastoral views across this island dotted with small holdings. 

Oh, and don’t forget the roadworks. 

An easy relaxing ride…

Which we deserved after we took this crazy escalator of a street out of Castro. Straight up and straight down and we’ve driven it both ways and never quite forgotten. 

One of the more banal aspects of Chile but just as unforgettable as the more overwhelming places.