Chile

Dateline – Chile – July 16 – 20, 2007

First of all, Chile was absolutely wonderful. Despite that, I am going to try to keep this short. As I write this it is actually August 5th and we are on the one day passage between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, so this journal is already very late and getting later by the minute. I really intended to finish it before we got to Costa Rica, but I got sick (and then was in bed for most of Costa Rica – more on that when I get around to writing that blog entry – but given the lack of activity, it will at least be very short...).

So, we docked in Valparaíso (Valpo, from now on) and spent most of our time there. It is a beautiful, funky port city that feels like a series of small towns. It consists of a long relatively narrow strip of mostly reclaimed land along the coast (wherein sits most of the commerce and industry), which is ringed by a large number of hills, each of which supports its own community (with separate names and unique identity). The upper and lower parts of the city are connected to each other by antique, but still heavily used, funiculars or cable-cars. Cheap and lots of fun to ride up and down!

These mostly residential areas on the hills give the city its bohemian feel. The buildings are old and mostly built without any sense of urban planning, so there are lots of crazy angles, weird, steep stairways, pocket gardens, and sudden dramatic views of other hills or the coast. Most of the houses are sided with corrugated tin that, even when it’s rusted, looks pretty cool, but more often than not people paint their places in lots of beautiful shades of pastels.

And there is tons of great graffiti in Valpo (Devon, if you’re reading this, you have to go and see it). Very little of it is tagging, though. It tends to be either activist (sometimes counter-culture) political or social commentary, or simply beautiful works of art. (The anti-meat stencil is actually from Santiago, but there were lots of similar ones in Valpo).

There are also lots of small galleries, cafes, restaurants and boutique hotels on the hillsides. One of the galleries, the Sala de Arte Wenteche, is co-owned by Soledad (pictured below with Dawn). We bought an original, abstract oil from her by a female Argentine named Winkhaus. Look for the unveiling party announcement sometime in the fall….

Just up the coast from Valpo is the more modern and tres-chic Viña del Mar. We were there for just part of a city tour, and though we intended to get back, we never quite marshaled the time. We did see there a Moai from Easter Island though….

Speaking of the coast… it is beautiful. The first photo is from north of Viña looking south towards Valpo, and the second two are sunrise views looking northeast towards the Andes directly from the ship.

We spent one long and very frustrating day on a bus-tour of the central valley, Colchagua (10 hour trip total, 8 hours on the bus…. Don’t get me started….). It was supposed to be a visit of a number of small villages to meet with artisans and makers of traditional handicrafts. At our one real stop we did meet, however, with two wonderful women, Doña Maria and Doña Juana whose family has been making chamantas (very fancy, expensive ponchos) for over 100 years. Their shop is very famous, and they have even supplied chamantas to folks like El Papa Juan Pablo II (though they still work out of their old and [by US standards] humble farmhouse).

We also went into Santiago for the day. While it is a big city, with big city problems, it also has its highlights. We started off in the Plaza de Armas, the colonial heart of the city. It’s currently the home of the Cathedral de Santiago among other period buildings (though they’ve been rebuilt a number of times after quakes and fires). Here you see the Cathedral refracted in a nearby glass/steel tower, and an interior shot…

One of Santiago’s problems (and Valpo’s too) are stray dogs. They’re everywhere…. (an estimated 50-75,000 in Valpo). Here’s a fine example, sprawling across a bronze model of the colonial city smack-dab in the middle of Plaza de Armas. But dogs aren’t the only homeless in the city. And sometimes the homeless dogs and the homeless humans adopt one another…

After we had lunch in the lovely Bella Vista neighborhood (where the shot of the fruit stall was taken), we ran into Mario and Doug (two good friends and Resident Directors on the ship) in the subway. It is a very small world, after all….

We then went to the Plaza de la Constitucion where the coup against democratically-elected socialist President Salvadore Allende (by the US backed military under the leadership of long-time CIA affiliate Augusto Pinochet) reached its nadir with the bombing of the Palacio Gobierno (now rebuilt, see below) while Allende was inside.

But the whole point of the day was to visit with Chilean playwright and actor Alejandro Sieveking and his wife Bélgica Castro (who our guide, Chair of the UVA Drama Department Bob Chapel, describes as the Helen Hayes of Chile). We had a collective chat with him and then the group broke out for dinner and we were lucky enough to wind up at a wonderful café with (from L to R) Maria Chapel, Belgique, Bob, our dear friend Tania Israel, and Alejandro (Dawn and another friend Alicia are not pictured). It was a magical moment being warm, filled with good food, surrounded by friends and entertained by these world-class talents. The play we all went to afterwards was described as great fun by us neophytes, but Bélgica said it was “horrible!” (and she would know!).

Finally, on our last day we took a tour that meant a great deal to us. We visited two of the Chilean homes of one of our favorite poets, Pablo Neruda. If you don’t know his work, you ought to read some. One that we like is La Noche en la Isla. We first went to his beloved Isla Negra (see also the official Neruda Foundation site [in Spanish] but with more pictures). He had it built over many years, growing it organically, as a person’s life grows. The result is a very eccentric, but entirely human home, that emanates his presence still. You just have to go there… If you do, try to make sure your tour is with Priscilla. Her descriptions of the home were poetic. And look for Ernistina outside. She is a lovely woman that makes fantastic chocolate!

After returning to Valpo to visit his second home, La Sebastiana,

we had one last glorious sunset dinner with friends in the hills overlooking the harbor. We finally, reluctantly boarded the ship, and sailed for Peru. We shall return...