The Emerald Isle and around

Hi All

Over the last two days we have been travelling around in a hire car, which made a nice change to being in the minivan. We had both been engaged by the sound of an island nearby, Chiloe. An island full of churches, penguins and a climate like Ireland! Maybe that wouldn't do it for you, but in Chile its quite refreshing. So off we pottered in the car mindful of the fact that we had to drive on the wrong side of the road!! The little ferry across was pretty painless & then what should we see immediately as we left the ferry,but our first of the many churches. As you can see on the left.
We then went on a bit of wild goosechase down a single dirt track to see if we could find some of the Magellan penguins, but they had just left the week before - typical. The views were amazing still so all was not lost as you can see at the top.

We then drove down through a pretty town called Ancud down to Castro the capital of Chiloe, which again had loads of churches and thanks to its salmon industry a host of cute little multicoloured stilt houses called palafitos a testiment to its humble beginnings. That evening we spent the night in one of the nicest room we have been to date overlooking the bay.
 The following day we took the ferry back to the mainland and as the weather was so good we decided to drive to volcano Orsorno to check it out at closer quarters as you can see drive quite a way up to a ski lodge and take the ski lift up to near the top - although it was a bit cloudy once we got there so we had to skip it.  Tomorrow we have to take a 32 hour bus ride down through Argentina to get to our next stop Punta Arenas in Pategonia - Wish us luck!