Driving in Chile keeps the traveler in the widely known experience of road tripping anywhere in the first world. I once had an acquaintance tell me, while traveling through Bolivia ten years ago, a local saying … “if you own a car you are a capitalist!” To see Chile from a car is to note that gas stations, mini-marts and McDonald’s are the institutions of the road in all western global market countries. The freedom to turn onto any road and stop at any interest is the appeal of the car to everyone in the world. It is an intensely individualistic and wealthy expression.
The automobile as central tool of transport has been fully embraced here and the roads in Chile, unlike it’s northern neighbors Peru and Bolivia, are of a very high quality. They are equipped with emergency phones every 5km. Much like Europe or New England there are modest tolls every 100Km or so. While many Chileans do not have cars it is busses rather than trains that move everyone around and the busses are very plush. They serve food, show movies and have large reclining seats for overnight rides. It is no Greyhound experience to travel by bus here. One more thing impossible not to notice in leaving North America for almost anywhere else in the world is the impossible number of car types not available in The States, many bearing the mark of our own manufacturers. Diesels and mini cars abound are surely reflective of the cost of petrol here.
The 5.8 million person city of Santiago is coated in a thin coat of black dust. It makes the beautiful architecture of the city fade and seem dingy and run down. Like Los Angeles, Santiago sprawls over a huge valley wrung by mountains. Similar to the her North American sister city, in many more ways than just this, the air doesn’t flow and fills the valley with some of the worst smog on the South American continent much less the world. The brown haze that clings to the air, especially in winter months here, brings to wonder the value of this trade we make; of the environment for first world affluence. The car is the totem of the 1st world. “To own a car is to be a capitalist!” An extreme sentiment possibly, but it rings with a certain undeniable truth.