The distant cousin

We crossed the border from Argentina to Chile by taking the night bus. Our tickets said we would be boarding in Mendoza at 11pm and arriving in Santiago at 6am. Can anyone guess what time we DID arrive in Santiago?

9am…. Gotta love Andesmar! Although I guess I should be fair and say it was not entirely their fault this time. We had to go through customs at the border, high up on the Andes cordillera. We’d been told that this procedure is taken into account in the bus travel time and that, under normal circumstances, it takes about an hour to clear customs. In our case it took four. Our bus arrived at the border around 2am only to find that there was a 7 or 8 bus line queue already! So we sat in our seats and waited for 3 hours while we slowly moved up the line until finally it was our turn to get off the bus, stand in line at the Argentinean customs counter waiting to be stamped “out” of the country, then go stand in line at the Chilean customs counter waiting to be stamped “in” to the country, then go stand in line at the Chilean Baggage counter waiting for our stuff to be loaded off the bus, passed through the X ray machine, loaded back on to the bus and have the guy doing all of this come around and collect a “propina” from all of us, one by one. Man, did that bring back memories of Mexico and made me homesick! :-)


So we finally arrived in Chile’s capital, the fascinating city of Santiago. I had really, really, really been looking forward to this part of our trip. Ever since I began reading all the Gringas living in Chile blogs a few years ago I knew I wanted to go there one day. And during our travels in Argentina I had casually picked up Isabelle Allende’s “Inés, del alma mía” (or Inés of my Soul as it's called in English) in a bookstore to read on one of the bus rides and that only made my impatience to get to Santiago grow even more. If you haven’t read this book btw, I cannot recommend it enough. It takes place during the Spanish colonization of Latin America and specifically during the Conquest and Foundation of what today is Chile. The main characters, Pedro de Valdivia and Inés de Suárez, were real life people that founded the city of Santiago and Isabelle Allende has written a marvelous story, based on true life events, around them.

You know how most countries have stereotypes and cliché reputations that in an (unfair) way characterizes them and sort of prepares the tourists to what they might expect from the culture, the people, the food, etc? When it came to Argentina, I have to admit, all my life I’d heard the expression “Argentinians have egos the size of their country” so before leaving on our trip I fervently made myself push this idea aside so as not influence my impressions once I was there. And it worked too because once I had been in the country for a while, I was openminded enough to understand where this preconceived notion comes from and in what way it is flawed…. But that’s a topic for another blog post I’ve got leisurely zooming around in my head.

In the case of Chile, strangely enough, I had no preconceived notions of what to expect of Chileans. Growing up I had never heard a single sentence begin with the words “Chileans are…..”. As ignorant as this may sound, all I could associate to the country were the words Pinochet and Blogging gringas. So for Chile there was no preliminary “elimination of clichés” work to be done and I set out on the trip with my mind a blank sheet of paper when it came to Chile.

The first thing to hit me was how geographically isolated the country is. Chile is a tiny strip of land wedged in between the Pacific Ocean to the west, the humongous Andes mountain range to the east, the harsh and vast Atacama Dessert to the north and the freezing Patagonian Glaciers in the south. In a weird way it made me think of Japan and how I found the Japanese culture to be so luscious and beautiful and amazing… and preserved from any external influences. That’s kindda the feeling I got in Chile. In Argentina, everywhere we went we could see and feel the influence of past immigration waves and the evidence of political, social, economical, and geographical interactions with other cultures was everywhere, from the cuisine to the architecture to the language…

Chile on the other hand had very little of this. Of course the Spanish influence was ever-present but it felt as though there was little else in terms of external influence in Santiago capital. No mini Chinatown or Italian Barrio to explore. No invasion of Japanese sushi restaurants or cheapo Tex-Mex joints to roll our eyes at.

I realize that we were only in Chile for four days and in no way can I claim to have become an expert in Chilean culture during that brief time. But Hubby and I spent those four days waking up early every morning and spending the entire day walking up and down streets all over town, both in the touristy barrios as well as in the “no mention of them in Lonely Planet” neigborhoods (mainly because we kept getting our butts lost all the time!) so I am only recounting my personal feeling at what I saw around me as I pounded the pavement.

I loved the food because it reminded me of home. Argentina’s pizzas and pastas were nice but hey, Italy is just a train ride away from us… and their parillas, as incredibly mouthwatering as they are, can get monotonous after a while. But in Chile I rekindled with my beloved Maíz. I missed that smoky yummy flavor of corn, or choclo as they call it (none of that awful sweet-tasting, fake-yellow-colored corn on the cob they sell in Europe for me, thank you very much!). Their Pastel de Choclo reminded me of a freshly out of the tortilleria Tortilla filled with yummy grilled meat and their Palta was as delicious as our adored Aguacate and equally omnipresent. For the first time in years I came across a decent Torta (although they call it a Completo) and their street vendors selling empanadas made me long for our “puestos de molotes”. It felt as if the mix between our Spanish and Aztec/Mayan cuisine was a distant cousin of their mix between Spanish and Mapuche (?) cuisine.

That’s how I felt in Chile. Like a distant cousin.

As I walked the streets, I got flashbacks of Mexico City. Some of the streets in Santiago literally took me back to barrios like Polanco and La Zona Rosa. The plain, cement-y, outdated constructions, legacy of the military government I suppose, reminded me of ISSTE buildings and SEP offices. When we walked into the Post Office on Plaza de las Armas, I literally felt as if I’d been transported back to Correos on the Zócalo in Puebla, standing in line for 45 minutes just to buy stamps.

Even our day trip to Valaparaiso (Valpo for the buddies) made me feel like a fish in the water. Walking out of the bus station to the chaos that is always present around any big train/bus station, I instinctively went into “walking in a tiaguis” mode and kept alert but not really feeling afraid of anything and simply enjoying my surroundings. Valpo is a lovely port-town that in a way felt like a harmonious contradiction. El Plano (the flat area) as they call it (meaning the strip of land that is wedged between the sea and the nearby hills – kindda like a miniature Chile) was all that a bustling port should be: noisy, chaotic, dirty, jumpy, lively. The nearby hills with the breathtaking views over the bay and out into the sea were everything that an unpretentious beach town should be: colorful houses perched high up on cliffs, homes and mom’n’pop “tienditas” alike making it obvious that this is not a touristy vacation town. That the people that live in the lovely hills with the amazing views are the same that come down to the port every day to work in the chaotic town below.

Chile was a refreshing return to my sources. I did feel the “less poetic” aspects of the culture that is often described in blogs, websites and even guidebooks (the evident mistrust in foreigners, specially blond ones, the strong machismo that rules, the lack of quality customer service, the evident classicism, the ikky obsession with mayonnaise and mullets, etc) but that too reminded me of home in a way… and so I absorbed it all as well……and with a smile on my face.






*** OoO ***


Here's a list of some of the amazing Gringa Bloggers living in Chile (but careful because it's easy to get hooked and pretty soon you'll be swapping your Hawaii summer vacations for a back-pack trip in South America instead! lol)

Just Married Chilean Sytle

Don't call me gringa

Musings from inside, outside and underneath

La Chilengüita

La Gringuita Diaries

Al fin de la Tierra

Just smile and nod


And stay tuned for tomorrow's post where I recount what it's like meeting a couple of these amazing ladies!!! *wink*


Fned.

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