Churchin' It in Chiloe

In the 18th century, the Jesuits arrived on the island of Chiloe. From their point of view they were there to help the locals discover the one true faith. Nowadays, it seems like incredible cultural snobbery to tell people that they should ignore the beliefs that they and their ancestors have practiced for centuries in order to practice something that people believe on the other side of the world. Nevertheless, that's basically what happened.

In order to impress the Chilotes, the Jesuits ordered the construction of a number of very impressive churches. I've attached some photos of them. The churches are all made of wood. Some of them these days have metal siding, but most of them have marvelous wooden beams and wooden walls. Most of them have been worked on by the locals to keep them up over time. The external walls are often shingled with shakes made of larch (alerce), which is supposed to be very impervious to rot. The interior has a central nave and two parallel side ones. The ceilings I saw were barrel-vaulted, looking like a ship upside down. This makes sense when you think that the chilotes had been making boats for ages. These ceilings were painted with stars. The woodwork on the interior was wonderful, with replicas of their fishing boats hanging from the ceiling.

However, the one striking feature to every church is the steeple. The steeple has two or three tiers, rising up directly from the front entrance. The second tier is frequently six-sided. When it was finished, it must have been quite a striking sight to the chilotes. Nowadays, most of the churches are used once a week, if at all, for church services.

I've been in a little town called Chonchi. I'm staying in a hostal which is about 30 feet away from the high water line with a marvelous view of the water and the island of Lemuy about 5 miles away. Today I walked to the ferry landing and took a ferry over to this little island of Lemuy. The island is made up of small farms, a couple of little towns, and 4 wonderful old wooden churches. I went to the little town of Puqueldon and had lunch.

One of the difficulties in visiting these small towns is that there is limited public transportation. On Chiloe, I had the good luck to run into a very nice American couple, Mark and Chrissa, who gave a couple of us pedestrians a ride around the countryside. On the island of Lemuy I was able to hitch rides in the back of pick-up trucks, a relatively common practice in this very rural area, where car traffic is pretty rare. It seemed like the first pick up to come along always stopped. It helped greatly that I was accompanied by two charming young Swiss girls!