Chile | Chilean bucolics

Some places evoke memories. Chiloe made us miss the North Island of New Zealand. This large island off the Chilean coast was presented to us as the mythical place of palafitos, colourful houses built on stilts, Unesco-listed wooden churches, and unique culinary traditions with curanto - seafood dish cooked over hot stones in the ground - being the specialty. Its hundreds of potato varieties made us think of Poland, while its rolling green hills brought us back to New Zealand. Yet another place we did not want to leave.

That was further accentuated by our hotel, Tierra de Chiloe - a bank-breaking place we treated ourselves to in order to mark the end of our 8-months long world trip. Determined to make it worth the money, we focused the days on swimming in the pool, going to the sauna, gorging on food, and drinking wine. On second thought, we did not really need a fancy hotel to do all that.