San Juan, Chiloé

So, let me tell you about our favourite place in Chiloé. It was called San Juan, and we almost ended up not visiting it, as it was a bit of a pain to get to. The problem being that it is down a dead-end side road, and the bus only goes down that side road around four times a day, and is perhaps not very reliable. We were trying to get there on the way back from somewhere else, and so had to get dropped at the junction to wait for the connecting bus.

The bus that goes down the side road doesn’t really connect with the bus coming from the other way, so in theory we had over an hour to wait. We figured that walking the 7km would get us there after the bus, and so therefore the best option was to wait for the bus at the bus stop, but to stick our thumb out at passing cars (hitchhiking is very common on Chiloé). We got lucky and got a lift with a farmer within 3 minutes! We asked him if he was going to San Juan, and he replied that he was – but it turned out that he wasn’t exactly, and he dropped us off at his gate, and told us that ‘it wasn’t far’, as he pointed down the road…

I asked CC if she knew how many kilometres is ‘not far’ to a Chiloé farmer, but she didn’t seem to know the answer….  it turned out to be around 1.5km by my estimate… which I guess counts as ‘not far’….

It did mean though, that we got to see San Juan from above, as the road approaches from the top of a very steep hill.

San Juan of course has a church, which is why we were visiting. It is located next to a boat-building area.

The church was nice, but it was the setting that made us really like San Juan. There was a lovely little square, and right beside the church was the sea.

We had a relaxing time sitting by the church looking at the water, and a lovely stroll around San Juan. We even got a special bonus treat…a penguin appeared!

The icing on the cake, was that even though San Juan was really, really tiny – there was still a shop! So we could have a nice cold drink while we waited for the bus out.

There you go, what more could you want in a place: scenery, a church, a penguin, swans, a boat-building area, gravel roads, a nice main square, and a shop. Yep, San Juan has it all!!! 🙂