On the basis that I will return to Santiago at the end of my travels around South America I will refrain from going into too much detail here of my brief visit. Indeed the day or so I spent in Santiago was mainly passed attending to the administrative tasks that build up as one tries to leave responsibility and the real world behind...
However I did make time to indulge in a couple of activities - one of which was to take an almost compulsory photo of little ol' me stood outside Cumming underground station, on the corner of Avenida Frederico Cumming. Apparently one of my forefathers (I have no doubts the lineage is strong) was a pretty big queso in these parts - how proud he would be to see the impact I have had upon London...
The other activity of the day was taking a trip to Santiago city zoo - perhaps the most depressing visit of my travels so far. In a city where certain cars are banned from the roads on certain days should the air be deemed too toxic (isn’t toxic, too toxic?) it seems slightly sadistic to situate a zoo on a hill in the midst of the toxic funk. Further limiting the animals to areas in no way proportionate to their needs only compounded the misery that was tangibly etched on the inhabitants (read inmates) faces. The polar bears were a particularly sad sight, their coats dulled by pollution and their vigour robbed by captivity.
The one lighter moment the zoo did present however was the sight of a little black cat walking nonchantly through a cage of over 20 Condors. The little blighters supreme indifference to the watchful gaze of the numerous killing machines that stalked his (or her) every move was quite something to behold - are Condors superstitious?
Back to Argentina methinks...
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Monday, 2 June 2008
Valparaiso, Chile
And thus following on in quick succession from Vina del Mar a brief summary of my time in Valparaiso.
Valparaiso is very much Chiles second city surpassed in almost all respects by its close and far larger neighbour Santiago. Recent attempts to enliven the city have included locating the new Chilean parliament building there and naming the city a capital of culture (think Liverpool, apologies in advance). However these, at best notional, acts have done little to change the fortunes of a resolutely working class city which remains off limits for the more discerning Santiagan (again, not sure).
However, undeterred we decided to spend a night and day seeing what Valparaiso had to offer and after securing accommodation and a rather pricey dinner - the guidebook says the seafood in Valparaiso is to die for (to use such unfortunate parlance) but on the basis of my experience I really couldn’t comment - we ventured for a drink in the local bar - helpfully if a little miserably owned by an English man:
...Its Ok here but I am stuck because the wife won’t let me take the kids back the UK...
Despite Senor Englishman’s misgivings over his adoptive home he supplied us with a sheet entitled - What to do with three days in Valparaiso - ambitious to say the least given the content (Day 2 was weak and Day 3 practically blank - go to a cafe, drink a coffee) and the fact we competed the first day in circa an hour. The author of the itinerary is also worthy of a mention for a rather apparent predilection for the Village People and the world of high camp and homosexual stereotypes they embraced. To give a flavour of what it is that I mean two highlights of day 1 were eating lunch in the fire station canteen where no less than two troops were based (heaven forefend, be still my beating heart) and visiting the nearby naval outfitters for a little twirl in a sailors togs...I shall refrain from mentioning the bar known as being - an off duty sailors hang out...
Unfortunately we were too late for lunch and the outfitters were closed - by which I mean the building in which they were housed was now but rubble. However the port is still there (it’s a UNESCO world heritage site don’t you know? What the criterion for such an award is I am unsure as it seems remarkably easy in this part of the world to secure such status) and we completed the obligatory tourist tick in a box of a boat tour around the harbour without incident or if I am honest a great deal of interest...
Further our walking tour for a while became a riding the funiculars tour. These quite severely angled railroads provide access to the city’s cerros and the differing communities to whom they provide refuge. The angles of the houses which cling limp like to a land surely never really intended for mass settlement produce a confusion of angles usually only witnessed when really quite inebriated. This element of the itinerary was also curtailed somewhat as the advice given by the trusted (if increasingly wholly inaccurate) sheet was - not to linger to long, for this is the poor party of town - sound advice indeed but also saying where the poor part of town was would have helped. However, such knowledge was provided by a local police officer which rather kindly if a little bluntly pointed out - its not safe for you here...
Perhaps Valparaiso’s most interesting side is in the artistic creativity that a city past its heyday (I am assuming it had one once) has bred in its inhabitants. Surrounded on all sides by hills, or cerros to give their Spanish name, the hill, or cerro (next time I will just put cerro) on which we stayed has become a centre for an alternative community of artists, designers and other bohemian types that us traveller types just love to be associated with. Let us be honest the centre of cities are for tourists, not for the likes of us, we want edge, we desire dirt, need grit and a large dollop of the underbelly. And in this cerro there was plenty to be had. Not a wall remains which hasn’t felt the touch of a spray can nor a cafe that doesn’t offer at least one product that is at least probably fair-trade. The bars remain in that odd state where one is unsure if they are open, closed or safe to be inside - issues over hygiene are to be left well behind. In this vein the remains of the day were spent wandering the streets taking pictures of said graffiti (a complement of theft?), drinking (potentially fair-trade) coffee, visiting the boutiques (the friend more than I, men’s clothes were hard to find - apparently we just aren’t interesting enough for the bohemians).
And onto Santiago...
Valparaiso is very much Chiles second city surpassed in almost all respects by its close and far larger neighbour Santiago. Recent attempts to enliven the city have included locating the new Chilean parliament building there and naming the city a capital of culture (think Liverpool, apologies in advance). However these, at best notional, acts have done little to change the fortunes of a resolutely working class city which remains off limits for the more discerning Santiagan (again, not sure).
However, undeterred we decided to spend a night and day seeing what Valparaiso had to offer and after securing accommodation and a rather pricey dinner - the guidebook says the seafood in Valparaiso is to die for (to use such unfortunate parlance) but on the basis of my experience I really couldn’t comment - we ventured for a drink in the local bar - helpfully if a little miserably owned by an English man:
...Its Ok here but I am stuck because the wife won’t let me take the kids back the UK...
Despite Senor Englishman’s misgivings over his adoptive home he supplied us with a sheet entitled - What to do with three days in Valparaiso - ambitious to say the least given the content (Day 2 was weak and Day 3 practically blank - go to a cafe, drink a coffee) and the fact we competed the first day in circa an hour. The author of the itinerary is also worthy of a mention for a rather apparent predilection for the Village People and the world of high camp and homosexual stereotypes they embraced. To give a flavour of what it is that I mean two highlights of day 1 were eating lunch in the fire station canteen where no less than two troops were based (heaven forefend, be still my beating heart) and visiting the nearby naval outfitters for a little twirl in a sailors togs...I shall refrain from mentioning the bar known as being - an off duty sailors hang out...
Unfortunately we were too late for lunch and the outfitters were closed - by which I mean the building in which they were housed was now but rubble. However the port is still there (it’s a UNESCO world heritage site don’t you know? What the criterion for such an award is I am unsure as it seems remarkably easy in this part of the world to secure such status) and we completed the obligatory tourist tick in a box of a boat tour around the harbour without incident or if I am honest a great deal of interest...
Further our walking tour for a while became a riding the funiculars tour. These quite severely angled railroads provide access to the city’s cerros and the differing communities to whom they provide refuge. The angles of the houses which cling limp like to a land surely never really intended for mass settlement produce a confusion of angles usually only witnessed when really quite inebriated. This element of the itinerary was also curtailed somewhat as the advice given by the trusted (if increasingly wholly inaccurate) sheet was - not to linger to long, for this is the poor party of town - sound advice indeed but also saying where the poor part of town was would have helped. However, such knowledge was provided by a local police officer which rather kindly if a little bluntly pointed out - its not safe for you here...
Perhaps Valparaiso’s most interesting side is in the artistic creativity that a city past its heyday (I am assuming it had one once) has bred in its inhabitants. Surrounded on all sides by hills, or cerros to give their Spanish name, the hill, or cerro (next time I will just put cerro) on which we stayed has become a centre for an alternative community of artists, designers and other bohemian types that us traveller types just love to be associated with. Let us be honest the centre of cities are for tourists, not for the likes of us, we want edge, we desire dirt, need grit and a large dollop of the underbelly. And in this cerro there was plenty to be had. Not a wall remains which hasn’t felt the touch of a spray can nor a cafe that doesn’t offer at least one product that is at least probably fair-trade. The bars remain in that odd state where one is unsure if they are open, closed or safe to be inside - issues over hygiene are to be left well behind. In this vein the remains of the day were spent wandering the streets taking pictures of said graffiti (a complement of theft?), drinking (potentially fair-trade) coffee, visiting the boutiques (the friend more than I, men’s clothes were hard to find - apparently we just aren’t interesting enough for the bohemians).
And onto Santiago...
Sunday, 1 June 2008
Vina Del Mar, Chile
Aware that I am slipping slightly behind in my blogging activities I will try to keep the following three entries uncharacteristically short! It is also 10:30pm, I have a bus to catch in two hours and I am currently sat in a petrol station as I scribe my musings - three factors which necessitate some haste...
And thus on a whim I found myself taking, er myself, on a whirlwind tour of Chile.
Following some backwards and forwards communication (really the best kind) I decided to head to Chile to meet up with a friend from my Milhouse days back in good old BsAs. Originally intending to meet in Mendoza for a day around the Bodegas such plans were first altered to meeting in Santiago and then (around five minutes before boarding the bus) were altered again to meeting in Santiago’s summertime beach resort - Vina Del Mar.
Quite surprisingly I was met at the bus station (as arranged in Plan C or was it D?) by my friend, who is a girl, but isn’t a girlfriend (clear?) and her friend’s friend - a native Chilean. Following my pick up we made our way swiftly to my friend’s friend’s friend’s aunt and uncle’s house cum mansion perched on a hillside over looking the beach. Said house proved more than a suitable location for the excessive consumption of pizza, vodka and coke in varying quantities and combinations. With thirst and hunger suitably sated we headed out into the evening - first to my friend’s friend’s friend’s friend’s flat where a rather depressing party was taking place. Bad Chilean music, little or no alcohol and a male to female ratio of 8 to 1 a good time rarely do make and thus we made our polite excuses and left to find where Vina Del Mareans (not sure if that is right) let loose.
Alas, all I can confirm is that it isn’t in a 7 floor super club called El Huevo (The Egg) where the only music which invoked any passion in an otherwise dormant crowd (perhaps 7 floors of utter sonic sodomy is too much for anyone) was the live band in the basement where a group of 7 or 8 Chileans ran at each other full pelt in complete disregard for the tone or tempo of the music (it seems an insult to other practitioners of the art form to call it such) but in some imitation of a Nirvana video just out on Chilean MTV.
Thus we tried another bar notable only for the insistence that I needed ID to enter (an insistence which relented after about 5 minutes of reasoning in broken Spanish) and for displaying a similar penchant to the Argentineans for any music as long as it was created in the eighties - it really is possible to hear too much of Jimmy Sommerville squealing at the top of his already high vocal range...
And thus absolutely defeated we retreated to the mansion for further pizza, vodka and coke (perhaps less than before though) and a mammoth sleep which was broken late the next afternoon.
My curiosity as to who would open their home to just about anyone was satisfied the next day when my friend's friend's friend's aunt and uncle returned to find me in the dining room. Their facial expressions belied a mix of fear and surprise, the former greatly increased as I turned around slowly wielding the knife I had been using to cut the last of the pizza. I am not sure what the Spanish for - the money is in the biscuit tin, third cupboard on the left behind the homemade salsa - is but if I cold lip read I would probably know. Ok, so the last bit is a lie, pure fiction one might say - rather, on meeting the aunt and uncle I tried to explain (through a fog of alcohol, pizza, excess sleep and lack of language) that I was a friend of the friend of their nephew. Far from clear I had the distinct feeling said nephew’s parents would be getting a call in the not too distant future regarding just who could and should be invited to stay.
Not all was lost in Vina del Mar though and in the last moments of my time there the setting sun sank slowly into the sea creating the warmth of colour and sort of vista only nature can. Sitting watching from the sandy beach provided a pleasant end to an otherwise really rather odd visit...
On to Valparaiso...
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