Sept 11 - The Infamous Holiday We arrived to Santiago, Chile on Sunday without my fellow travelers’, Erin and Greg, bags. Any plans to ski on our first day dashed. Little did we know we would run right into a history lesson before getting the opportunity to encounter the snows of the Andes and bare witness to the majestic peaks that look over a world of equally great cultural history.
After escaping the airport in our rental car with obligations to return the following morning for the luggage we drove smack into an anarchist-communist demonstration that held el centro (downtown) near gridlock. While one must recognize the obvious incongruity of these two communities. They at least share a common enemy, the modern free trade state. It is the day before the anniversary of the General Pinochet’s coup removing President Salvador Allende from power on September 11, 1973 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973. The coup, still debated as to it’s consequences, is a watershed moment in the political rivalry between the right and left in the Americas. Democracy restored itself through several elections in the late Eighties and early Nineties.
The riot police skirted the demonstrators and shuffled traffic in a continuous circle around our intended pension, Hotel Francais, situated in the heart of the city. We circled the marches catching glimpses of their red and black flags, hearing slices of their chants and seeing the prolific remains of their ideas in the graffiti covering many of the walls after their passing.
Our first day also brought an abrupt lesson in driving South American style. The frustrations of reconnoitering our position, slipping through the honking busses, taxis and private cars in this capitol city of five million built the tension in our vehicle. To make matters worse at every turn we needed to make we encountered more riot police redirecting traffic. Fortunately, at least, it was a Sunday and the number of commuters was a quarter of what it would be any other day of the week.
“We’re in South America guys,” Erin noted gleefully to break the building road rage.
“We’re in traffic!” Greg responded. It was to be a typical driving dialog between my friends, 13 year aficionados (partners in love and life), during our week together here.
Sundays here most everything is closed, but the extensive downtown pedestrian district fills with a flea market. Se vende (they sell) books, antiques, crafts, chachkis, and various artifacts of Chilean life. There is a great national pride on display in most all Chilean activities. Whether marching in the streets to condemn the government or to praise the saving of the country from becoming a member of the communist block of the Seventies everyone is above all Chilean.
“Yo soy Chileano (I am a Chilean)!” one will exclaim if asked. The churches swell with attendees, gawkers and beggars as the Sunday masses churn on through the day in this intensely Catholic country. A country that while so deeply tied to the Vatican, an estimated 70% of Chileans are Catholic, this year elected a divorced, atheist and moderate socialist woman for president, Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria.
Today, Monday, is my first morning waking here and ordered my first coffee in months. I quite drinking it for my stomach and I’ve renewed my habit here. I sip the local brew at the counter of a walk up cafe in the pedestrian district. It resides in the first floor of one of the many high rise office buildings in the financial district and swells with businessmen smoking and reading noticias (newspapers) at the long and winding marble topped bar.
They wear the classic uniform of any broker or agent of capitalism found at the gates to all the financial capitals of the world; a dark suit and shoes with only a tie and maybe a scarf to express anything more contradictory than grey in color. A fine wool winter overcoat, and hat to break the brisk morning air. The coffee servers sport tight fitting and revealingly short and low cut red dresses with short black blazers and four inch black stilettos as they pass along caffeine cocktails and conversation to the clientele. There are a smattering of the women of power in this exchange. They stand along side the men at the bar in sharp women’s business suits and flats.
Perhaps it is the time of year, the final gasp of winter confronting the cherry blossoms that are sprouting all over town, or perhaps it is my romantic memories of this place, or even just my getting adjusted to being out of North America for the first time in six years and my first time in South America in ten years nearly to the day, but este ciudad (this city) seems more gritty than I remember. The shanties surrounding the airport tell a more honest story of the deal struck for capitalist affluence than the not so clearly visible poverty of my home town, Seattle. While very western and affluent Santiago seems isolated onto itself - the center of nothing but it’s own identity, un rincon del mundo – a corner of the world. It is also a glorious place set at the foot of 20K foot snow covered Andean peaks and full of pride in the land and itself.
After tracking down the lost luggage and taking an afternoon ski at Valle Nevado, a ski area perched just outside the city, in the clouds just above the city. We decide the white out is so complete in this treeless almost vegitationless landscape of rock and snow that we should head for Portillo, the pass to Argentina, and hope for better weather. It was so difficult to make out the slopes in the flat light that when I would pull up to a stop I could not get my vertical bearing to the fall line and kept falling over. The moment of sitting, however, calmed my exasperation with the conditions and provided some exceptional comic relief. Portillo is about a four hour drive from the parking lot of Valle Navado.
