Camping Paredes, Isla Quinchao

Overall: 2 stars
Ambience: 3 stars
Facilities: 3 stars

After a long day touring around Isla Quinchao and the historic churches off the coast of Chiloe we headed to the remote township of Palqui on the north of the island and a campsite Camping Paredes was as empty as the town of Palqui in which it is located. We waited like the beached boats in the harbour for the tide to turn.

Unable to find any campground owner we setup camp for the night a little uneasy not knowing if we were in a working campground or just someone’s front yard! In the morning just as we were preparing to leave a man showed up and casually mentioned he was the owner. Let’s just say things work differently in this

The good

Well we certainly had the place to ourselves! The colourfully painted boats beached in the harbour had a very rustic feel about them. The toilets were quite clean and the campsites had a table and chair setup with a shelter for each.

The bad

The one bit of human interaction we had was with a neighbour to the campground who we eventually discovered was in search of a cigarette. While he was harmless it did add a sense of uncertainty to the whole situation.

The awesome

Just on nightfall the tide began to come in. And come in it did! The dry empty bay filled within an hour and all the previously beached boats were brought back to life bobbing upright in the swirling current. The Chiloe tides have a reputation of being big and this was certainly a demonstration of their power!