Chiloe Island

This afternoon I sat down with my 5 year old to ask him his thoughts on the past weekend.  Here's our interview:

Mom:  Where did we go on the weekend?
Max:   To a big island in the ocean
Mom:  How did we get there?
Max:   We went on a ferry and then we drove on the island.  The ferry was a small boat - it could take 4 lines of cars.
Mom:  How long was the trip?
Max:   4 hours???
Mom:  No buddy,  it only took 30 minutes.

Mom:  Do you remember the name of the first town we stayed in?
Max:   No
Mom:  Starts with An.......
Max:   Antarctica?
Mom:  Umm no.  Ancud.  What did we do in Ancud that was pretty special?
Max:   We went to see penguins where they live.  We went on this boat ride to see them.  They were on these little rock mountains and they laid their nests on these flat surfaces.  They were standing in front of their nests.  They were cool.  
Mom:  How many did you see?
Max:   About 60 
Mom:  Ya, that sounds about right!
Max:    What kind of penguins were they again?
Mom:  We saw some Humboldt but mostly Magellan penguins.
Max:    One there was like Happy Feet.  He had a grey coat on his body and black stripes.  He was a disco party dancer!
Max:    And we saw sea otters and then we saw a sea lion sleeping on the rocks.  And we saw lots and lots of big birds.
Mom:  Those birds were called cormorants.

first windy/cloudy day we've had

playful sea otter

I love these little guys!!!

can you spot the cormorant?

standing watch outside their burrows

Mom:  After we saw the penguins we drove 100 kms down the island to a city called Castro.  What did you think of that place?
Max:   Uh.... that's where we went on some bouncy castles right?  There was a tiger one you had to go through his mouth to get in.  And we went down to the ocean and I found a little crab - he was camouflaged in the shells.

traditional 'palafito' houses & restaurants

our crab hunters hard at work

Chiloe's biggest wooden church ... there are 4 other UNESCO churches on the island.  Stella really loved the colors!

 

 

There you have it ... a short and sweet blog post thanks to Max.  I did this interview with him a few days ago but we have not had a very strong or reliable connection to the internet here in Bolivia to post it.   We arrived in La Paz yesterday and have been trying to catch our breath (literally).  I'm excited to tell you all about it in the next post!