 |
| Subway Art |
 |
| German Architecture |
 |
| Santiago's Finest |
Jan. 9, 2009-Orientation
We
caught a break. The water at the hotels is drinkable. That makes lots of things
easier and avoids lugging liters of bottled water from town to town. In fact,
we've found Santiago to be a clean place by my standards. That includes lack of
litter and dog poop.
We're
at the NH Hotel in the Providencia neighborhood. It's old but nice. We have a
suite with a sitting room and bedroom. We're on the 11th floor so the view is
pretty.
We
met with Fernando Etchart, our guide, this afternoon and he filled us in on
more details of the itinerary. It will unfold daily as I try to keep you up to
speed. I won't go into it now, but he mentioned that when we get to
Brazil the custom is for servers to add a 10% tip to the tab in a restaurant.
The tip is optional to be paid or not as the diner sees fit. BTW Etchart is not
a German name as we thought. It’s Basque. That's a nice twist. He hails from
Buenos Aires, Argentina, but makes his home now in Baraloche, Argentina.
There's such a huge European influence where we'll be that we're more likely to
eat German or Italian food than anything indigenous. No guinea pig on this
trip.
There
was some talk of politics at the meeting and one couple came out as Bush and
Goldwater Republicans. They’re from Texas. I can live with Goldwater. They seem
really nice and I’m sure we’ll have many spirited conversations. We haven’t
done the big Coming Out yet. That we’ll save for a conversational lull.
Everyone knows David is a rabbi and that was enough for one day. There’s a
woman from NY who says she’s a non-practicing Jew. We invited her to our
room when we lit Shabbat candles but she turned us down. I guess she needs more
practice. Her daughter is a minister. She never did say what denomination. We’ll
delve.
Grand
Circle Tours uses a part of their profits to support schools wherever they have
trips. It's their way of giving back. Groups usually get to visit the schools
and we're encouraged to bring small gifts such as pencils and crayons. Since it's
summer here now the schools are on break. We probably will skip the visit.
Their
main industries were copper and nitrate mining and agriculture. Nitrates were
used in fertilizer and gunpowder. When Germany developed synthetic gunpowder
and the Panama Canal was opened there was little reason to sail around the Cape
and the Chilean economy suffered. They prohibit bringing in any agri-products
even raisins. There are stiff fines and the Smucker's Jams we brought as a gift
for the home hosted meal was questioned. If it was honey we'd have been in
trouble. They boast absolutely no fruit flies or mad cow disease.
It's
hard to believe this is still our first day here. There's a two hour time
difference but we've been traveling since Jan. 8 with little sleep. We took a
two hour nap then hit the streets to look for sunglasses for me. Mine broke
& I want to find some cheapies I don't have to worry about. People were
helpful when we asked for help and I now can say sunglasses in Spanish (lens de
sol). We'll keep looking. Tomorrow we go to the main market and I'm sure I can
find some from one of the vendors selling wares from a blanket spread on the
sidewalk.
Jan. 10, 2009-Hitting the Streets
Hot,
hot, hot! Ninety- five degrees. It's sunny with no chance of rain until
October. How dry is it? They don't even have botanical gardens and the
bougainvilleas aren't worth photographing. But our day was
"successful" if not inspiring. Marco, our local guide, was with us
for a half day around town. We drove through Barrio Altos, a middle class area
whose charm and panache has been overshadowed by a neighborhood higher up
(Las Condes-they used to have condors) where the homes go for a million
dollars. Housing here isn't that costly so you get a lot for a million. We stopped
at a lapis lazuli store on the way down where we learned that Chile is one of
two places in the world it is mined. The other place is Afghanistan. We
looked but didn't buy....yet.
Some
of us took the Metro orientation ride. Others drove the route on our bus. There
are several who can't walk far. The Metros are clean, decorated with art, and
don't smell of urine. All pluses. The folks from, NYC were a bit disoriented
but were thrilled to be able to hold the handrail down the steps without fear
of contagion.
We
surfaced at the Plaza de Armes where we gawked at old government buildings and
a cathedral. Tom, the Republican from Texas, asked if it was ok for a
rabbi to go into a church. I told him that if Jesus wanted entry it wouldn't be
a problem so I guess David was safe. When we came out I told him he may have
had a point. None of my photos were any good.
A
short walk from the plaza was a cafe selling "coffee with legs." My
thought was it was so strong it could get up and walk off on its own. But here
it means it's served by women wearing mini skirts thus showing a lot of leg.
Actually, the coffee was both strong and the servers sexy, but it's a strictly
hands off proposition. Eventually women asked for cafes with male servers but
that flopped. Unlike the men, the women couldn't keep their hands to
themselves.I asked Marco if they had artificial sweetener and he said they did.
When I asked him how to ask for it he said it's called "Nutra Sweet."
It was hard to believe that real brewed coffee is hard to come by in Chile for
lack of beans. I guess they're on the outs with Colombia. Most people drink
instant at home.
We
continued on to Plaza de Constitucion where on Sept. 11, 1973 there was a
coup. On our 9/11 Chileans were incredulous. Their coup ended
Allende's socialist rule and Pinochet took power lasting seventeen years.
The rumor was that Allende committed suicide but many thought he was murdered.
Recently proof was uncovered to indicate that he did kill himself.
Unfortunately gossip is sometimes true. It was also corroborated that the CIA
had a hand in the revolution. Surprise! Many feel that Pinochet created
democracy in Chile and improved the economy by encouraging free markets. Others
don't think his human rights violations were worth it. During his reign several
young men went to Chicago to study economics with Milton Friedman. They're
still fondly called the "Chicago boys." Economic success only lasts
so long. Unemployment is 8% now. The president is now a woman, Michelle
Bachelet. She's an agnostic and a divorced single mother. The government
separated from the Church in 1925 but divorce only became legal in 2003. The
turning point for legalizing divorce was the courts were more and more
uncomfortable categorizing children as "legal or natural."
Another social issue we asked about was the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bi-sexual,
transgender) status in Chile. It's a conservative country but advances have
been made in the last six years. We'll learn more tomorrow.
We're
having a full lecture on the history tomorrow evening but in a nutshell, which
may be all you want, the skinny is (ha, ha-Chile is about 3,000 miles long to
the East along the Andes and 140 wide max) that Peruvians moved into the North
in the 1500’s and the Spanish ruled from there until the early
1800’s. Of course the Spaniards weren't alone when they arrived in
Chile. Some Incas and Mapucha tribes had beaten them by centuries.
Mapuchas didn't have as developed a civilization as the Incas and were
downright warlike.
We
were dropped for lunch at a large market that had multiple restaurants serving
fish. Despite the fact we were sitting with our guide who explicitly asked if
there was shellfish in the fish soup it arrived full of mussels. He'd
asked about shrimp, lobster, crab, oysters, etc. He hadn't specifically
mentioned mussels. We walked around the market for a bit but it was
uninspiring. Laura Lee cabbed it back to the hotel and we took off for the
funicular up the side of San Cristobal. We had a map and kept asking for directions.
It was always "dos mas" (two more) blocks. I think it ended up being
1 1/2 miles. The view was ok. This isn’t the most beautiful part of the Andes
at only 9000 feet. Santiago is a city of 6 million people and looks it.
The Andes help the scene but it's not a “Wow” experience. Since I basically had
broth for lunch I treated myself to an ice-cream bar. But the afternoon wasn’t
without its rewards. I found sunglasses for $2.
We'd
been told about the Museo de Neruda and were nearby. It was 5 PM when we
got there and although we were proud to have found it we took a pass. Neruda
was a Nobel Prize winning poet. I'll go on line to see the details. My brain
just couldn't handle more information. I was very proud of myself having
just asked for directions to our hotel using a complete Spanish sentence.
Evidently I made myself clear because the man I asked answered in detail. My
achievement began to pale when I turned to David and said, "What did he
say?"
This
afternoon and evening is an optional group trip to a winery including
dinner. I'm sure it will be lovely but we've seen wineries and can spend
$75 x 2 in better places. Instead we had dinner with Laura Lee at an
Italian pizzeria around the corner from our hotel. The owner is from Long
Island (Babylon/Oyster Bay), had a restaurant there but fell in love with a
woman from here. The pasta Bolognese was delicious and David's dish had four
huge meatballs. The garlic bread twists were to die for. Unfortunately he's
closed tomorrow. Most places around here close Sunday so it may mean hotel
food for us. We leave for Valparaiso at 8 AM and return at 5 PM. Dinner is on
our own. We just checked and the weather in Valparaiso will be cooler with a
high of 75 degrees. Brrr!
Oh,
not to worry about dinner tomorrow. David just checked the list of suggested
restaurants and those in Bella Vista are open on Sunday.
Toby
