Another one of our day-excursions while we were in southern Chile was to visit the island of Chiloé. Even within Chile, the Chiloé archipelago has its own unique culture, and a history of independence.
First, let me put up a map showing the island and its relation to Puerto Montt, where Machi lives, and Calbuco, where Machi grew up.
Chiloé
(Map from Google maps, set on “terrain”.)
I got the impression from Machi that Calbuco, while not officially part of Chiloé, was still pretty chileto (the word used to describe those of Chiloé). After all, Calbuco too was one of the nearby islands and its proximity to Chiloé allowed a lot of the culture to seep in.
When Chile was fighting for independence from Spain in the early 1800s, that was more broadly focused on Santiago nearly 600 miles to the north. The area around Chiloé remained pretty loyalist for quite a while, and remained royalist, fighting to remain so, until 1826.
We visited Ancud, a city on the north end.
Puerto Montt to Ancud
As you can see from the map, Route 5 does not have a bridge to the island. Instead, they rely on ferries, which run day and night. It’s an interesting solution that works just fine.
Here we have Alan just as we are pulling away from the ramp.
Leaving the Ramp
Then we can see me with a view in the other direction as the ferry heads to the terminal on the other end.
En Route
[Photo credit: Alan Bruens.]
And of course, what trip would be complete without Machi, looking very bit a sailor, complete with bare feet.
♫ He’s Machi the Sailor Man ♫
Naturally, we weren’t bothered about our bare feet at all. After all, this is Chile, and even more so, Chiloé.
As we approached the other end we saw another of the ferries loading up for the trip in the other direction.
The Chiloé Terminus
These ferries handle not only car and vans, but full-sized rigs. They fit one or two of them in the middle of the ferry, which is three lanes wide.
Ancud was bustling. It has a long seafaring tradition that went into decline after the Panama Canal was built, but the town was still active. Like all the other places we visited, it was centered about a very nice town square or plaza.
Fun on the Square
[Photo credit: Alan Bruens.]
And of course, the city also thrives on its tourism.
More Plaza
[Photo credit: Alan Bruens.]
Chiloé also has a very rich mythology and folklore, one of which is El Trauco, with his very own statute in the Ancud plaza.
El Trauco
You can’t see his feet, but of course he was barefoot, as can be seen in this other drawing.
El Trauco Sketch
[I haven’t managed to find the original source of the drawing, but it does seem to be one of the older ones out there.]
The Ancud plaza also has plaques (one in Spanish, on in English) describing El Trauco.
Plaque
The Trauco
Seducer of maidens, is a deformed and repugnant dwarf, with coarse figures and very strong.
His clothing is made of vines from the trees, and he carries a wooden staff – the pahueldún, and a stone axe. If someone bothers him, he is capable of killing them by merely looking at them, or he could sentence them to death within a year.
He appears to young women in erotic dream, bewitching them and attracting them into the forest, to stimulate them to the point of sexually possessing them.
Women who have been seduced by him assure us that he is undeniably attractive.
Unsurprisingly, an awful lot of suspicious pregnancies were blamed on El Trauco.
We spent quite a bit of time in Ancud visiting its rich heritage, but I’m going to save that for another posting. Afterwards, we ended up eating at El Trauco de Guañaca, which was along the road from the ferry to Ancud.
El Trauco de Guañaca
[Photo from their website.]
I thought the food was only so-so, but that may have been because I’d been spoiled by all the great food on Easter Island (and the even better food cooked by Machi’s wife Virginia and their housekeeper).
We ended up leaving the island quite late, and it took even longer to get on the ferry. There was a long line (it was a Friday night) that was exacerbated by a very low tide.
But that did let me get a rather cool picture, I thought, of one of the ferries just after it unloaded.
Nighttime Ferry
The trip back was uneventful—just more barefooted goodness.
Heading Back
Ahcuah 
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