We’ve had a wonderful time in and around Pucón and in particular, at our wooden cabin buried deep in the forest and facing the imposing Volcán Villarrica – the photo below was taken right in front of the cabin at sunset the other day. We both woke up in the middle of the night…

Another venture into the wilderness this morning using Rutas Secundarias as much as we could but occasionally forced to take the corrugated dirt-track option of a Ruta de Tierra. I tell you, it’s a good job we don’t have false teeth or anything metallic attached bone-wise as the rattling you endure along these tracks is…

  The drive up to the volcano starts off rather understated, a nice smooth dual carriageway, a couple of genteel roundabouts, beautiful lake-side homes trimmed with colourful hydrangeas and then a very gradual climb away from town, past new condo show homes extolling the wonders of living in this lake-side paradise – underneath one of…

Pucón has to be the adventure capital of Chile, with perhaps more bat-shit crazy adventurous things to do here than you can poke a stick at. The snow-capped Volcán Villarrica towers over everything with a constant wisp of grey curling smoke pluming out of the top. It’s quite threatening really when you understand it is…

We left our rustic cabin in Chiloé at 7.30am in cold and overcast conditions, the complete opposite of the past few days, but I guess more typical of summer here. It takes around an hour and half to reach the ferry point at Chacao and just a 20-minute crossing over the grey choppy channel to…

  What is so surprising about driving around the island is the stunning views across the Golfo de Ancud, over to the mainland and beyond towards Argentina, where the towering snow-capped Andes almost reach down to the sea and snowy volcanoes loom large. This has to be one of Chile’s narrowest points as here the…

A truly stunning summer’s day dawned on Sunday, quite the contrast to the previous week’s cold, wet and overcast days, so we took full advantage of this apparently rare fine weather and hit the Circuito Iglesias de Chiloé (the Circuit of the Churches) which is confined to the central eastern side of the island on…

Despite it being high summer here in Chiloe it can still act and feel like winter, with extremely changeable weather turning around in a matter of hours. The days are long with sunrise at 6am and sunset pushing 10pm so yesterday’s cold, wet and windy conditions felt unrelenting, especially with the added inconveniences the day…

Not a lot of people know this, but over 90% of the modern world’s potatoes are actually descended from specific varieties native to Chiloé. There are some 400 varieties of spud here known locally as papas nativas or papas chilotas and they come in all shapes, sizes and colours with mixed bags of them sold…

What a gorgeous summer’s day here in Chiloé, though a chilly start at just zero degrees first thing this morning! Not a cloud in the sky but a breath of chilled wind drew some tendrils of fog across the sound, just enough for Ants to claim that he could hear music coming across the bay…or…