Day Twenty-two - Castro Chile

 

Today we visited Castro, the capital of the Chiloe Archipelago.  Founded in 1537 by the Spanish, it was destroyed in 1837 by an earthquake.  The town is the residence of fishermen with brightly painted wooden structures unique to the Chiloe region.

In Castro, we visited the Church of San Francisco, an all wooden structure with a bright yellow exterior. The church dates to 1771, though it has been rebuilt several times after fires damaged the building. 

The striking interior is entirely of varnished native wood.  The presbytery is 100' high and its towers stand 130'.  

From Castro we journeyed by coach to Dalcahue.  The local craft market captured Jan's eye.

Another historic church, the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de Dalcahue (in English, Church of Our Lady of Sorrows, was our next stop.  This church, also completely wooden, was built in the 19th century.

The wooden columns were painted white with gray marbling to resemble stone.   Apparently the local parishioners wanted "the ambiance"  of a great stone cathedral (in Spain), but were without the budget or natural stone to build it.

Every building in Dalcahue is of wooden construction with brightly painted larch shingles.  

From Dalcahu a ferry transported us to Quinchao Island where we visited our third historic church. The Church of Santa María de Loreto de Achao was built of wood with 3 naves in 1730. It is one of the oldest churches in Chile.

Once again, the interior is entirely constructed of local wood.  The structure is connected using wooden dowels and the floor boards were hewn using hand axes. 

Returning to the ship, we passed numerous monkey puzzle trees.  There are numerous myths about them including,  speaking while passing a monkey puzzle tree will bring bad luck or cause you to grow a monkey's tail. There is an old Fenland belief that planting a monkey puzzle on the edge of a graveyard would prevent the Devil from entering during a burial.