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stretch out over the estuary and lagoons. On stilts is the Feria Artesanal Mercado, with many stalls run by Indian women selling woolen sweaters, ponchos, hats, mittens and basketry, amongst stacks of big cheeses, bundles of seaweed and wood carvings. Nearby are popular seafood restaurants offering salmon, corvino, conger eel, oysters, clams and sea urchin dishes.

Where to have an adventure on Chiloe?

Castro is a good place to start. At nearby fishing village of Dalcahue on a Sunday is a fascinating craft market. This is a great place to buy woolen things like beanies, mittens, waistcoats and ponchos, which you will find very useful if you are planning to travel further southward into chilly fiordland. Even during the week there is much to see and EAT. Mini-eateries abound. Stop for a grilled salmon steak! Try out the half dozen varieties of empanadas ... seafood empanadas are a specialty. Mussel dishes are great too.

What mementos should one buy? Tourists can not really buy bulky things which can be a nuisance unless you manage to mail them home, which can be a risky and expensive exercise.

I have found jewelry to be an ideal solution, even for a man. At Dalcahue I found a craftsman specializing in copper and silver ware. I bought rings and a bracelet and some lapis lazuli which is Chile's national gemstone.

The countryside is rough dairy farmland interspersed with sawmills. Boundary fences are attractively marked by fiery red-flowering embothrium, or "notros". Yellow patches of gorse and broom are everywhere. In sandy roadside cuttings grows "nalca" a giant rubarb-like plant with edible stalks. The bus stopped briefly at a farm gate - a school girl leapt off and grabbed a nalca stalk and returned; next it was chopped up and chewed by all her friends.

Always you can find adventure by going fishing. This is one of my hobbies but not every tourist travels with a collapsible fishing rod in his luggage. Out of Castro I had two adventures with my travel companion (companera) into el campo to catch a trucha. I can recommend nearby Lago Tarahuin which has willing rainbow trout. At a more challenging spot I tussled with a large sea-run trout (or was it a salmon?) in the tidal section of the river at the village of Cucao on the wild Pacific Ocean coast. That fish has my name tag on it. Like General Douglas MacArthur said after his retreat from the Philippines in the Pacific during World War 2, " I may be retreating, but I shall return". Likewise I intend to return to Chiloe

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