If you're a city person you go to Europe; you go to Rome, Florence, Venice, Paris, London, Munich, Amsterdam, etc. With South America...you might have Rio de Janeiro in your radar, but South America isn't a city lover's bastion; it's a trekker's paradise. That's what I thought.
Then I met Santiago. Santiago doesn't have the image of romanticism that Buenos Aires has cultivated. It doesn't strike up a personality like Rio. People kept warning me about Chile in Argentina; Chile was supposed to be a brute, authoritarian place, a near police-state not quite recovered from Pinochet. It was more about its military than art; a Sparta if you will.
In my travels though, Santiago was the crown jewel, a city I fell in love with. For me there was always one city, Chicago, that I harbored an unhealthy longing and romance for; it was my Irene Adler. Santiago, though, is right up there with Chicago, a city that offers everything in the most accessible way.
Let me backtrack though. Why would I go to Santiago? I mean its not really on anyone's radar, travel wise.
...
I knew Chile would be special. I really did. As I mentioned previously, my journey to and throughout South America was predicated on my substantial love of this continent's, this region's literature. Whereas Argentina had Borges and Storni and Peru had Vallejo and Llosa, Chile had to me the best of the best: Pablo Neruda, who was once described as the greatest poet of any language and I absolutely agree with that. Chile also had Gabriela Mistral, Paz Molina, Maria Luisa Bombal, Violeta Parra and her brother Nicanor, among many others. It was "Nation of Poets" and as a poet I knew this would be my country. I mean, this is a country where a poet has three custom made houses. How the hell can a poet have one house, much less three?
I often described this journey to people I met as me travelling to see what my favorite writers saw. Therefore, I had an exceptional amount of anticipation because I was going to see what Pablo Neruda saw.
...
When I last left off in Mendoza I was in a bit of a layover because the system of Andesmar, the bus company from Mendoza to Santiago, went kaput. Great.
Nevertheless their system went live somewhere around 6 en la tarde so I was able to get the 10:30 AM ticket out of Mendoza to Santiago.
I should take a moment to talk about the buses in South America. Like I mentioned in my Buenos Aires post, talking about Retiro, buses are the primary mechanism of travelling cross country. It's extremely common in South America, to a point that buses often offer amenities not unlike plane travel. In the Greyhound Bus, which I took from Athens, GA to Austin, TX, the bus would usually make pit stops for you to grab something to eat. Not Andesmar or the other long distance buses I took; they provided their own food, lunch and snacks, like Delta or United would. They would provided in-bus entertainment via rather crappy American films. I almost sat through two showings of "Life as We Know It" starring Katherine Heigl. Still, all this was very common in South American buses.
Now I say sat through but I didn't watch. The true entertainment of that bus ride wasn't the hijinks of Katherine Heigl's bland character but what was outside of my window. In order to get to Santiago from Mendoza we have to go through the Andes Mountains. Notice I didn't say "go around." We have to "go through."
The views of the Andes mountains, like my trek, were equally awe-inspiring. I just sat in my seat, jaw down, taking in all the views.
Now once we got to the Chilean border we had to undergo a customs inspection. Chile is very strict about what food products you bring in from other countries to your country. Because of its relative isolation via the Andes and the Atacama desert, Chile has been able to maintain a very healthy and clean amount of vegetables and fruit. They stake a part of their economy on the exportation of fruits and veggies which means they want to ensure that nothing will harm or interfere with that. So whereas most of the time customs took no more than 30 minutes in other countries I visited, Chile took at least 1 hour. We had to sit our bags out and have a dog sniff them. There was one guy who brought salami with him and the customs agents took it away from him and gave it to the dog. Don't bring in outside food.
Afterwards we continued into Chile. For the most part going through the Andes was a pretty steady adventure, but we reached a point where we had to go down...and not in a level vertical kind of way. We had 23 steep curves we had to drive around; no rails, nothing to stop the bus. As it was a double decker it was a bit unwieldy and so any time we wrapped around a curve we were looking down and thinking "Oh SHIT!" The driver, on the other hand, was as calm as Lebron James not only driving steadily but PASSING drivers. What you learn in South America is that bus drivers just don't give a shit.
...
One thing I learned in my travels over the years was to never judge a city based on where their bus station or airport was. Regardless of where you are the bus station and airport is always going to be in a neighborhood that is strikingly sketchy.
I had taken this journey alongside a New Zealander couple I had met at my hostel in Mendoza. We got out, witnessing a foggy Santiago setting for the day and in a not touristy neighborhood we realized we needed to bail and find a Metro station. They had been in Santiago before and they knew the Metro was the best way to get around. Their hostel was in Bellavista and my hostel was in Providencia. To get where they needed they just needed to get off at Baquedano, which is this huge station, where I would also get off to get on the Vincente Valdes line. My station was Santa Isabel.
I got off and got on the Vincente Valdes line, but what I didn't realize is that during rush hour the trains that normally hit Santa Isabel change. I needed to get on a train that had a green light, but I didn't realize this so I got on the one that said Vincente Valdes. Turns out it had a red light and having not realized it was the wrong train once we came upon Santa Isabel the train passed and I thought "what the shit?" Instead it landed on the Irarrazaval (which I still can't pronounce) station. From there I GPS'ed my directions and saw that it was a 20 minute walk. Ok, fine. It was dark now. Ok. There were no street lights where I was. The United Statesian in me had a "Oh, shit" moment.
When you read a travel guide or two under the "Stay Safe" section it usually says to avoid walking into the areas of Santiago where the windows had bars on them. All the buildings in the neighborhood I was at had bars on their windows. Whoops.
What I would realize is that I was in a communa, a residential neighborhood. Providencia isn't a nightlife hub a la Bellavista, or a tourist hub a la Santa Lucia or Plaza de Armas. I would also realize that I was in a fairly safe communa and developed a confidence walking around the area. At the time, however, I was alone at night not familiar with this territory with very little lighting so I was consequently being a wimp. Eventually I found the hostel, got settled in, and went out and ate a ton of grilled meats and peppers. Not so bad.
...
The next day was tourist day, for me. There was a free tour of Santiago offered but I decided to not do it because it would interfere with a specific goal I had, which was to have paila marina.
Before coming to Chile I had read up on dishes common in Chile and discovered paila marina. For me any organism that has to breathe in water in order to survive is delicious. Paila marina is a dish that is sort of a soup, with a spicy broth in cilantro with assorted seafood. Whatever the restaurant had, they put in. Shrimp, scallops, oysters, mussels, clams, etc. I was giddy.
The front desk gentlemen at my hostel told me that if I wanted seafood I needed to go to Mercado Central. This was off of Plaza de Armas so I figured I'd start there.
When you imagine Latin America you sort of imagine something like Plaza de Armas in Santiago. Wonderfully beautiful, colorful Old Spanish buildings mixed with green life and people trying to solicit and sell you any and everything they have from art to tourist brochures and seeing retired old men in flat caps read the newspapers. One of the cathedrals had a bookstore where I got a Spanish collection of Neruda's "24 Poems about Love and One Song of Despair."
The most delightful thing I saw on Plaza de Armas, though, was a ballet company practicing. In the middle of the plaza, with ballet music playing, a substantial group of dancers decided this was their place for practice. Awesome.
The reason I didn't do the free tour was because I wanted to be able to break away and hit Mercado Central and see if I can find paila marina. After a moment of not knowing where the hell I was going I eventually found my way to el mercado. I walked in and could whiff at a specific, pungent stench that I knew could only belong to fresh fish and oceanic creatures. I was drawn in.
My senses did not fail me for I was beholden by the spectacular sight of fish, fish everywhere! For me it was a paradise. To my right I saw food stands run by the market individuals, and on their signs I saw the magic words "paila marina." It was around 12 so, like I was floating on air, I was led into a no name place for paila marina. I was sat down, given bread with salsa, a coke, and waited as the dish came to me. It was like seeing a Seurat painting in person it was so beautiful. The deep pot with shrimp and seafood in an orange broth that smelled so...screw it. I didn't take it all in like some pretentious wine drinker. I ate it, taking much joy in each bite. Paila marina was helping me fall in love with Chile.
...
At the hostel I stayed at we were given information about a free tour of Santiago along with a map. Because the times didn't really work with my schedule of eating paila marina I decided to take the free tour myself. The main sight I really wanted to see was La Chascona, one of the three (freaking three) houses of poet Pablo Neruda. It was the last stop on the our so what the hell I'll follow the path on the map.
I followed most of the free tour areas which were primarily government buildings, such as the Presidential Palace, the Palace of Justice (their Supreme Court). I also saw the old congress building which bore a striking resemblance to the US White House. What made it fascinating (marginally) was that it was the "old congress" building; the new congress building was in Valparaiso, wouldn't you know? I would find this out in Valparaiso (where I would see the new congress building) but sometime in the 1960s/1970s Chileans really had a demand for government branches in more than just Santiago because why just Santiago. They decided to put the new congress in Valparaiso. It's like if the US people decided they wanted a government branch in Omaha, Nebraska.
Still all the buildings were pretty neat. On the way I'd take pictures of the buildings, walk around them, etc. I walked into two buildings; one a cathedral because mass was going on and I wanted to see what it was like. As an anthropologist-sorta I found it fascinating because it was 2 or 3 in the afternoon and there was an exceptional amount of people inside. Anytime a person walked by a cathedral or iglesia they always crossed oneself. Another building I went into was the National Library which was, frankly, infinitely more interesting looking than the National Library of Argentina. I walked around, people watching because I'm a creep, trying to sneak into digital archives but not being able to because the doors were locked. The library also had a bookstore inside and a freakin' cafe. I thought it was neat, but I was being tourist so maybe not I don't know screw you. All this was leading to something truly transcendent, however: Cerro Santa Lucia.
I followed most of the free tour areas which were primarily government buildings, such as the Presidential Palace, the Palace of Justice (their Supreme Court). I also saw the old congress building which bore a striking resemblance to the US White House. What made it fascinating (marginally) was that it was the "old congress" building; the new congress building was in Valparaiso, wouldn't you know? I would find this out in Valparaiso (where I would see the new congress building) but sometime in the 1960s/1970s Chileans really had a demand for government branches in more than just Santiago because why just Santiago. They decided to put the new congress in Valparaiso. It's like if the US people decided they wanted a government branch in Omaha, Nebraska.
Still all the buildings were pretty neat. On the way I'd take pictures of the buildings, walk around them, etc. I walked into two buildings; one a cathedral because mass was going on and I wanted to see what it was like. As an anthropologist-sorta I found it fascinating because it was 2 or 3 in the afternoon and there was an exceptional amount of people inside. Anytime a person walked by a cathedral or iglesia they always crossed oneself. Another building I went into was the National Library which was, frankly, infinitely more interesting looking than the National Library of Argentina. I walked around, people watching because I'm a creep, trying to sneak into digital archives but not being able to because the doors were locked. The library also had a bookstore inside and a freakin' cafe. I thought it was neat, but I was being tourist so maybe not I don't know screw you. All this was leading to something truly transcendent, however: Cerro Santa Lucia.
If you do a lonely planet, wikitravel, or tripadvisor search on Santiago Cerro Santa Lucia is always going to come up. It's a main tourist attraction for Santiago and rightfully so. It's a park that at the ground level doesn't seem to awe inspiring until you hit the ornate, yellow painted first building. I started walking up and as I walked up I got better and better views of Santiago. It was a layer cake of ornate buildings atop ornate buildings with gardens such as Jardin Darwin or "Darwin's Garden." As one walks up, like I did, the views become more and more impressive until you reach the old fort set up by the Spanish, a red brick mammoth. The city was laid out with its mixture of plain high rises and old Spanish colonial buildings. The very top, however, was at the top of the old fort looking towards the east with the city laid out underneath the clouds and the snow capped Andes peaking above the clouds like the clouds were a blanket. The words I give you to describe this view barely conjure the experience that felt almost, dare I say, divine. Cerro Santa Lucia also has a nickname, "Lover's Hill," and I understood why because most of the individuals at the top were couples and they took Samsung Galaxy photos of themselves kissing with the clouds in the background. I couldn't help but feel a tad uneasy at my status of being partner-less, and frankly I missed P (whom I mentioned in the Buenos Aires post). Even alone the view still left you threadbare.
It was hard to beat this climax but I figured a good denouement would be finishing up the walk to La Chascona. To get to La Chascona I had to make my way through Bellavista. As I mentioned before, the individuals I met in Argentina had a tendency to pin the Chileans as more brute and less artistic. Bellavista was where I saw how truly wrong they were.
Bellavista earns scores of accolades among travelers thanks to Lonely Planet (or if you're an amateur and read Frommers) so it has a reputation among the locals, like the people in my hostel, as a touristy barrio or neighborhood. In reality Bellavista does attract tourists and it has a few gentrified areas, but for the most part it's not the most touristy area. It's an area that for Atlantans would approximate to Inman Park or Decatur with the Baquedano/Plaza Italia area nearby as Midtown. Due to the proximity of three universities including the University of Chile, Bellavista is a college town within the city. Walking around there was definitely an alternative vibe as college students and sandwich and hot dog stands were everywhere. I got myself on Constitucion to find La Chascona and on my way saw colorful buildings with graffiti bordering on Basquiat-esque artwork. La Chascona was seemingly anticlimactic as one such as myself couldn't go in but being around this neighborhood led me to hatch up some plans for the next day.
Speaking of plans for the next day I realized I wasn't experiencing a good portion of nightlife. Granted, this was due in part to my schedule (I was in Santiago on Wednesday this day) but I felt especially bad after primarily staying in the hostel that night to stream a hockey game and eat leftovers. I figured this needed to change.
...
By the way I should note I didn't like this particular hostel. I mean it's hard to like any hostels but this hostel never gave me a comfortable vibe.
In Santiago, the temperature was quite low. At night it was no higher than 5 C and from there it could be as low as -2 C. Most hostels didn't have heating, which I was used to. I slept in layers and snuggled in the blankets. With this hostel, however, blankets cost. They charged for freakin' blankets. You, my reader, may think "well it's a hostel, what do you expect, 'Holiday Inn?'" Most of the hostels I stayed at, even the most run down ones, offered free blankets.
It was also in Santiago I came to appreciate hot showers. This hostel promised hot water but rarely delivered; at best the water could be lukewarm. Now, I could scratch this to the "it doesn't pay to be cheap" part of my trip as I chose this place due to its low price of $14/night compared to the others that were $18/night. When I got back from Valparaiso I picked another hostel that was in fact $18/night and in Bellavista no less and the showers...were still cold. There was a point in this Bellavista hostel where I was standing naked, waiting for the water to warm up, putting my hand in the water to see if it would get warm. Sometimes it might feel lukewarm and I would get excited that it was going to be hot then a second or two later it would turn back to ice cold. I did this for 20 minutes and gave up.
As nasty as this sounds I decided to not take a shower if it was a cold shower. No way. I didn't care if it wasn't hygienic, forget cold showers. On the opposite end the key word for any hostel I found online was "hot shower." I didn't care if they put me in the open park and made me take a shower in front of hot ladies laughing at me I would be gracious enough to do it so long as it was a hot shower.
...
On another tangent before I go into my second day I want to mention a few things about Chile. Chile, of all the countries I went to in South America, was the safest, stablest country.
Now, I never felt unsafe in Peru and Argentina, but in Chile there was always a police presence. These police, the Carabiners, were not like US police. They were not part of a separate civil service branch; they were a branch of the military. This mean they were wearing fatigue green, they were fit, and they were scattered in enough areas to where so long as you didn't veer away from heavily populated areas and communas safety was never an issue. There was also a fair gender equality in the Carabiners; nearly half if not 1/3rd of all the police were females. The police are also pretty reliable and if you try to bribe one of them you'll end up going to jail.
Another part of this stability was transportation. Transportation never felt sketchy. In Buenos Aires, the city was fairly walkable and safe but the rapid transit, the Subte, wasn't so friendly. This wasn't the case with the Metro in Santiago, which was rapid, efficient, and incredibly clean. So Santiago was fairly walkable but if you started feeling the blisters you had the Metro. Cool.
With this stability there is a price for tourists...literally. Whereas Argentina and Peru might spoil one with low prices, Chile was kind of expensive. By expensive I don't mean the country overcharged any specific group but the prices were similar to the US or Europe even. This is good for Chile because it means their economy was stable but as a traveler I wanted to whine.
There were homeless but it wasn't as severe as Buenos Aires and there weren't any homeless children in the areas I walked around. If there was anything that might turn off a tourist, particularly a United States one, it would be the amount of stray dogs. I'll talk about that in my Valparaiso post because it was more severe there but stray dogs were everywhere in Chile.
...
My second day had a bit more of a tight itinerary. First and foremost I intended to walk up Cerro San Cristobal, a 800 or so meter hill in the Bellavista neighborhood that I got a glimpse of the day before. Secondly, I intended to visit Centro Cultural de Gabriela Mistral. Then I intended to find some food at a place I heard good things about called Ciudad Vieja. Lastly, I intended to do something that night, but I was uncertain.
Originally I wanted to trek but despite what my hostel said in their signs they were not much help, particularly with Radal Siete Tazas. In fact I couldn't find anything on how to get to Radal Siete Tazas so I ended up scratching that idea despite how beautiful it looked.
Looking online I wanted to see what theatrical events were going on and found very little aside from "The Barber of Seville" at Teatro Municipal. When I say very little I mean there wasn't much to intrigue me but I also realized looking for stage shows was a bad idea as my comprehension of spoken Spanish was...lento, or slow. So I looked into ballet performances and discovered the National Ballet was in Baquedano near Bellavista and had a show going on for CH$2000 or $4 (student price).
I started off on San Cristobal which wasn't the stacked layers of ornate buildings that Santa Lucia was. It was steep, arduous, and despite being a measly 800m I found myself in a difficult position, almost giving up. Most people when they want to go to San Cristobal take the ascensors or funiculars. I decided to walk because I'm hardcore like that. Or cheap; I'll say hardcore. Out of breath I made it to the top or so I thought but no just a road. I had to walk to get to the very, very top, which is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. Consequently once I was at the top I started to hear Gregorian chant and other holy music, seeing walls of people's written prayers, finally making it to the statue of the Virgin Mary, where I sat and gazed upon Santiago. I was pretty exhausted but it was worth the view for I could see more up there than Cerro Santa Lucia.
Going down I decided it was time for lunch but the restaurants in the area didn't feel the same as me. Even though it was after 11:30 most of the restaurants weren't opening until 12:30PM. Fine. I'll just go to the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center.
I talked about how the conception of Chile as anything other than a lover of arts was bullshit. This was the day that proved it more than anything because for me a good city that loves art not only has a lot of arts going around but it has it in an accessible format. Instead of the arts community being in a sketchy area you need a taxi to go to the arts community here is omnipresent. This was Santiago. Baquedano is the biggest metro station so it is the most accessible place, relatively speaking. Around the area was Plaza Italia, Parque Forestal, and the two neighborhoods Lastarria and Bellavista.
Within this area was a good portion of the arts life but there was others in Barrio Brasil and Barrio Nunoa. The Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center was on my radar, honestly, because of my affection for Gabriela Mistral's poetry (she was the first female Latin American to win a Nobel Prize by the way). From I read it seemed like primarily a shopping area and there was a shopping area component to it alongside a cafe. Fair enough. It was also an arts center and it showcased the artwork of the faculty of the University of Chile as well as a special exhibition on Japan, with a photography showcase and a series of short, experimental films by Japanese directors. I sat down and watched at least four of the short films and took in that a) this kind of place was here which was awesome and b) it was all free. I didn't have to pay a cover charge to get in; I could just walk around and enjoy the art. There was also a performance space and cinema on the other side of the center.
Since it was nearly 1 in the afternoon I decided to make my way to Ciudad Vieja. Most of the sandwiches were lomo sandwiches except one called the "Olympico" which grabbed my fancy, particularly because it was only CH$3900. I thought being cheap wouldn't pay off but oh did it ever. I didn't really know what to expect but they brought out the sandwich and it was covered in melted cheese. When I say covered I mean there was a toasted ham and tomato sandwich and the entire plate including the sandwich was covered in melted cheese and oregano. Holy crap it was tasty. This day would lead me to forever discuss Santiago as the city where you could hike a 800 m hill, come down and watch experimental Japanese films for free and then eat a sandwich covered in melted, gooey cheese. For me that was kind of sublime.
That evening I would go and see the dance show, which was quite fantastic. It also led me to a revelation about dance and the nature of art. I realized that great art, even in the most brute mistranslation of oral or written language, can still have a pathos understood by anyone. Even though I barely understood Spanish I understand the language of this performance, immersing myself in the mood of the music and movement of the performers. The dance was about a woman leaving in a relationship but its depiction was quite striking. There was a moment when her lover wanted her to stay, with a literal visual representation of him holding her and her breaking away. When broken away she doesn't dance but walks slowly as if in hesitation about not knowing she made the right decision; she knew it was truly right to leave but was fearful of the loneliness. As someone who has done this, many times, I felt her pain and her loneliness.
It was only in Santiago I would have an artistic experience this transcendent.
...
I would leave for Valparaiso the next day but I came back to Santiago because of a flight. That Tuesday evening and Wednesday afternoon weren't too eventful so I'll be reasonably brief.
The main event for me was going to the International Documentary Film Festival, or FI Docs. There weren't many documentaries in English or with English subtitles but I saw that it was showing a documentary called "No Habra Revolucion sin Cancion," which dealt with how music influenced the revolutions of Chile in the 1970s and the 1980s. Even though I didn't understand any of the interviewees I understood the movie and the pathos of the music. I understood the movie enough to be inspired to do two things: 1) I wanted to see live music before I left Chile and 2) I wanted to visit Museo de la Memoria.
The first wasn't easily accomplished because most of the places around Bellavista (where I was now staying) were discotheques. Around 10PM I was walking and found a place with an acoustic folk singer playing. The club was decorated with images of Violeta Parra and Victor Jara and since I had watched a documentary about the influence of folk I figured this was the place. I sat down, drank coffee, enjoyed myself until a comedian came on. He was asking people where they were from and most were from Brazil, France etc. He was into his bit when he saw me. He stopped mid-routine and starting looking at me. Then in his microphone "de donde eres?" "Estado Unidos." He smiled with excitement and said in his mike "gringo en la vista." I knew he would involve me in his routine so like a poon I bailed.
The next day I took care of number two before I went to the airport. First and foremost everyone in the United States needs to understand something about what happened in Chile, September 11, 1973. With US logistical and technical support a democratically elected president named Salvador Allende was overthrown in a military coup. Allende, under pressure by the military, committed suicide and the military installed a dictatorship with Gen. Augusto Pinochet at the helm. Unlike most South American and Latin American nations, which had a history of caudillos or "big, tough guy" military authoritarians, Chile had remained a primarily Democratic nation. Allende, a Socialist, was seen as a threat to the economic prosperity of the nation. Some, Conservatives, in Chile actually don't view Allende as a martyr and talk about bread lines and economic despair during his brief presidency. Regardless, after Allende and during Pinochet's regime many leftists and anti-dictatorship people were imprisoned, executed, including the aforementioned singer Victor Jara. Over 3,000 people "disappeared." For more information I'd highly recommend going on wikipedia or googling this information.
No less, Museo de la Memoria was a museum dedicated to remembering these events, the "disappeared," and the struggle for bringing back democracy to Chile via the Si/No vote of 1988. The museum including a Declaration of Human Rights, pictures from protests during the Pinochet government, among others. There was a special exhibition of clothes on the steps of the museum representing the different types of people affected by the dictatorship via empty shirts and pants, dresses, suits. The exhibitions included documentation of arrests, propaganda posters, video clips of the leaders, etc. The most special exhibit was a candlelit vigil of sorts with pictures on the wall of various "disappeared." You could see in their faces a special humanity and feel the full weight of what this dictatorship did to the innocent. This isn't fun, but it's transcendent and important, especially as an American. It's important to understand the tangible effects of our foreign policy and there's a bittersweet feeling of both guilt for our contribution to this horrific regime but happiness that Chile has moved on to become a great nation.
...
Santiago has moved on with a modern sensibility unique in how it embraces its history and art. Many will tell you Chile isn't an artistic place, but Santiago proves them wrong. You learn by being around its history and art that it was through artistic expression that Chile brought back democracy. As a writer I found it transcendent that it is through artistic expression via both individuality and due process that democracy is created and maintained.
More importantly Santiago is the kind of city you dream of. It's on par with Chicago.
I couldn't help, though, feeling lonely as I missed P, as I didn't make a lot of friends here, but even alone the city will treat you will with its gargantuan pork sandwiches and heaping bowls of paila marina.
Never neglect Santiago in your itinerary.
In between my four day stay in Santiago I made my way to Valparaiso, which would prove to me how wonderful Chile truly is.
No comments:
Post a Comment