A traveler explores the remote, secretive island of Chiloé, off the coast of Chile, where she meets fishermen and entrepreneurial craftworkers on the land that once held witchcraft trials.
On the island of Chiloé (pronounced chill-olé), level with northern Patagonia, people do not talk about the rainy season; they simply say “when the waters come” because rain can happen any time, and it is never wise to go outside without protection. In fact, the weather often changes every five minutes, which has the advantage that the photo of the charming landscape you wanted to take will soon be bathed in sunshine if you just wait a while. Patience is a good idea in this remote and secretive land.
I had a faded newspaper cutting in my pocket for a campsite recommendation–supposedly one of the ten best spots in Chile–and I hoped it still existed. I was not disappointed. The location on a bluff overlooking the sea, just a short walk from the center of Ancud, Chiloé’s most northern town, was delightful. Even better, each campsite had a covered shelter from the inevitable wind and rain, which did indeed arrive at 75km an hour on my first night. Thankfully, I was prepared and had staked my tent to the ground with extra care and slept as well as you can with a howling wind and rain lashing the nylon above your head, helped by the other vital ingredient for any decent trip in these parts: a bottle of lovely Chilean wine, delicious, even out of a plastic cup.
A generous sweep of beach in a protected bay embraces the fishing village of Puñihuil, and I walked along its low-tide expanse, hopeful that someone with a boat might be persuaded to take me to the nearby penguin islets, even though the summer season was over, and the breeding season too. But I was lucky. Enough late stragglers of tourists arrived to fill a boat, and the fishermen worked hard to get us there with a wobbly metal ramp on wheels, pulled out to sea by men in waist-high rubber. Most of the season’s new generation of birds had already left and there were not even two dozen penguins to spot, but it was still fun to be bobbing on the waves just offshore, and to see a few solitary black and white parents still guarding their holes in the ground, perhaps grieving their young that hadn’t made it, and contemplating the six months at sea they were about to embark on, once more.
The harsh environment breeds an admirable hardiness in the local humans, too, and if you can overcome the natural reticence of isolated people everywhere, you can discover a warmth of spirit that never fails to inspire me. The first of these unique individuals I encountered was Marcia Mansilla. The handmade textiles in her shop next to Ancud’s cathedral were immediately notable to me, and I found myself buying a piece I simply could not resist.
“I made that one myself,” she informed me, and that was the prelude to a captivating conversation in which she shared her tale of leaving the island to study textile design and have a career in the distant capital of Santiago, only to return in 1997, because of a profound need to give back to her community and enable her children to know their island roots. Her commitment was very attractive, and her business has improved the quality of life for no less than twenty families. It made me even more glad to have spent my money in Marcia’s shop, and I shared her pride in knowing my cushion is not only unique, but part of a body of work that has won international design awards.
The entrepreneurial spirit of the island women impressed me in other parts as well, especially all along the eastern coast. Every village and port has a vibrant craft market, where you can find unique ponchos woven from the famous local wool, and an infinite variety of baskets, mats, and maritime wall hangings woven from local reeds. Of course, there is a lot of tat as well, and I squirmed to see the latest crop of Chinese cruise ship passengers buying cheap imports from as far away as Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru, instead of the more expensive but authentic products made by local people. But the difference in price is three to one, so it is indeed hard to resist the foreign scarves and hats, and no one enlightens unwary tourists as to where their souvenir was made, as long as they are willing to leave cash behind.
The other unique feature the island is famous for is its string of wood houses built over the water by a supporting forest of stilts–known as palafitos–and its myriad of historic 18th and 19th century churches, also of wood, and designed and built using the unique boatbuilding skills of the local fishermen. The inventiveness of generations of local carpenters is indeed impressive, and it is amazing to discover how many different kinds of joins are possible between the hundreds of beams that make up the individual frameworks of these sacred places. Many of them have been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and one of my favorites is the lovely church of Achao, on the island of Quinchao, which turned out to be one of the oldest churches in Chile, originally built by Jesuits in 1730.
The absolute highlight for me, however, was discovering the relatively new private nature reserve of Tepuhueico, where an excellent network of marked trails leads you to a natural cathedral of native arrayán trees (Chilean myrtle) and the churning waterfall on the Bravo River, through some of the last remaining Valdivian temperate rainforest, where the towering ecosystems of alerce cypress trees (Fitzroya cupressoides) are every bit as imposing and ancient as the famous sequoias of California. Each one was already a few thousand years old when the first Europeans arrived on the island in the 16th century, and I touched the eternally rain-soaked gnarly wood in awe. The trunks are covered in a network of ferns and creepers that are a framework for entire communities of other plants and insects, not to mention birds, which call to you from the distant canopies, high above your head. It is a dripping world of water and greenery and tangled roots that oozes life and the pungent odors of decay and regeneration.
No wonder this mighty, towering environment of moist fertility has inspired centuries of myths and legends, and a healthy fear of the unpredictable that has been translated into a belief in powerful spirits and dangerous trolls, such as Trauco, who is known for stealing away young virgins and causing unwanted pregnancies. Chiloé is a place where spells and curses are real; where sorcerers were an accepted part of life, controlled by a hierarchy known as the Recta Provincia, perhaps even to this day. The local Huilliche and Mapuche people still guard many secrets, despite centuries of persecution by European missionaries and the Spanish colonial authorities. If you understand Spanish and can stomach the horror genre, see the Chilean movie Brujería, which was launched at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023, and is inspired by a witchcraft trial that took place on the island in the late 19th century.
The unpredictable wild weather and wind-blown clouds magnify the imagination and ‘irrational’ thoughts, and I, too, found myself caught in such reveries on my last day, when I found the road suddenly blocked by a fresh accident.
“The crash only just happened, so it will be hours before cars can get through again,” said the driver in front of me.
The only other route was a complicated dirt track I struggled to find on Google Maps. But as I stood parked on a side road, contemplating my predicament, I noticed the cars back on the highway speeding in just the direction I needed, so I doubled back onto the highway, only to find no trace of the accident from just ten minutes earlier. Where had everyone gone? Where was the pileup I had seen with my own eyes? An empty road threaded off into the distance, and all I could do was give thanks and head back to my island refuge.
