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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