I would not go even if they paid me. They stole our land. And it is a lie that they invented Pisco. And anyway, Chileans are so full of themselves. The Delta checking attendant had much more to say but I do not remember most of it. She was an American of Peruvian origin and past wrongs were obviously still animating her as if she were a Boston Irishman talking about the Brits. I vaguely figured out that the land she was talking about must be what is today northern Chile, most of which Chile took from Bolivia (thus depriving it of an access to the sea). Even though the original motivator were the rich deposits of saltpeter – a very valuable nitrate fertilizer until Germans invented a synthetic substitute. But then the Chileans discovered rich copper deposits (today still responsible for 50% of Chilean exports). So the War of the Pacific worked out well for Chile, not so well for Peru and Bolivia. Pisco I knew nothing about until I actually arrived in Chile. It is basically a distilled wine spirit which is produced by both Peru and Chile and both claim to have invented it. Recently Argentina started to make it too and Peru threatened to take them to the international court. Pisco does not strike me as a really valuable brand – especially in English. Pisco sour (the most popular cocktail it is used for) does not sound too marketable and piscola (pisco mixed with coca cola) is downright awful as a name for a drink. But in any case, I got my first taste of South America even before I got on the plane.

Chile is actually quite far. After a flight to Atlanta I boarded a 10 p.m. flight to arrive in Santiago the next morning at 8 a.m. Luckily, there is only a 3 hour time difference and so the jet lag problems usually associated with such long range travel were absent. In fact because Chileans internal clock runs much later than mine, there was no time difference at all. While I usually eat at 7 they do not start supper until 10. Restaurant advertise happy hour until 11 p.m.

I partially followed the script of my previous trips to Latin America: sign up at a Spanish language school and stay with a local family. But rather than spending most of the time in school and throwing in a little bit of travel on the weekends this time I decided to turn it around. One week in school followed by two weeks on the road., and it worked out very well.

The school was a little bit different from the ones I attended in Guatemala and Ecuador which had a one to one system. Here I was in a class of four. But it worked out quite well. The other three students were in their early 20: a Russian linguist on a semester abroad form the University of Düsseldorf, a young lawyer from Boston who felt Spanish was indispensable in her profession and spent the last 6 months hopping around language schools throughout South America. This was her last week and considering that she apparently did not know any Spanish when she started she did very well. The last student was from Austin and her plan was to stay in Chile or Argentina for a few years and work as an English teacher. On Monday, we introduced ourselves and explained why we are there. On Tuesday, the Boston lawyer asked me to explain again why I was there – it did not make any sense to her that I would be doing something like this if it were not related to my work. So I explained. More and more people are into eco-tourism. Well, I am the first in a new trend: lingo-tourism. Visit a country and listen to how people speak, local accents, country specific words and expressions. It is a lot of fun. And Chile is particularly good for this because they are a little bit isolated and so their Spanish has a distinct flavor.

(Click on the picture to see it full size, use a back button to return to this spot.) The family I stayed with was middle class and so I lived in much more comfortable conditions than during my previous trips south of the border. My host was a few years older than me and an owner of a printing business. We had interesting discussions about life under Pinochet and particularly life under Allende – which was no walk in the park (as I suspected). He told me he was tired of foreigners coming and telling him how it was – apparently lot of people arrive already preloaded with left leaning interpretation of Chilean history. I must add, however, that while he was not the only one with this view, not everybody in Chile shared it. My impression was that the country was split, maybe half and half, just like during the years of Allende government. It is clear, however, that the economic reform process started under Pinochet has produced results. Most of Santiago does not feel like a third world city, more like a much larger version of Calgary with a more pleasant climate. I have seen other parts of the country, where it is clear they still have a way to go. The current projections are that maybe around 2020 they may loose their third world status, even though some question whether it will be possible given the penchant of the present leftish government for wealth re-distribution rather than creation and the resulting decrease in economic growth rate.

After little bit less than a week in Santiago I started the traveling part of my trip by heading north. I decide to start by going as far north as I was planning to go and then turn around and go little bit more slowly to the south. The first leg was a 22 hour bus trip to San Pedro de Atacama. Before you start feeling too sorry for me, I must explain. I took what they call the bed bus: a double decker with seat little bit wider than a business class on a transatlantic flight, but a seat that goes almost completely horizontal. No problem sleeping at all, much easier than on a plane. In fact I liked it so much that I decided to save time and money and substituted several overnight bus rides for a night in a hotel. The Atacama desert is the driest spot on the earth. Much of it looks like west Texas but in the central part it is totally dead – not a single plant of any kind visible anywhere. And then, all of a sudden a little patch of green – the oasis of San Pedro, which looks like it fell out of a Hollywood rendition of a town in the Sonora desert. Except there are lot of tourists and the little quaint houses hide travel agencies, good restaurants and souvenir shops. This was my first stop. I visited the salar of Atacama, a huge salt plain, but because it never rains (all the water comes by rivers from the mountains) the surface is not smooth like in the salars in Bolivia, but all churned up, like a plowed field. The few patches of open water provide food for several species of flamingos.





The other popular sight is the Taito geyser field – the highest geyser field in the world (there are not that many anyway). The geysers look most impressive early in the morning (around 6) when the air is cold and vapor condenses in high columns. That meant getting up at 4 a.m. and putting on all the clothes I had – I was traveling light and going to high altitudes was an afterthought. The other problem was the elevation – 4500 m above sea level. It is a pretty long drive and most of us slept. I woke up with a very bad headache – altitude adjustment problem. They had breakfast for us and one of the teas offered consisted of dried coca leaves (this place is essentially on the Bolivian border). That is supposed to help. I made a cup of coca tea and then ate the leaves but the headache did not stop until we got back to 2000 m. I suspect you have to drink the stuff for several days – it certainly did not provide instant relief.

Even though I could have gone north for about another 20 hours, it was clear that the scenery was not going to change very much and so I turned around and took s southbound night bus to La Serena (about 6 hours north of Santiago). On the way we had to pull over because they were transporting one of the antennas for the new international radio observatory being built near San Pedro. In fact the whole Chilean north is full of astronomical observatories due to the ideal conditions provided by high elevation and dry air. Many of them have nightly tours but I did not feel like missing another good night’s sleep.

La Serena was the prettiest town I visited in Chile. Built in Spanish colonial style short walk from the beach – it was very pleasant. The beach was fabulous. While sand going on forever, but very few people in the water – due to the Humboldt current flowing from the Antarctic water is very cold. Around La Serena – around 15 degrees C. Probably O.K. for children and German tourists but not for someone spoiled by the Gulf of Mexico. I got in up to my ankles. From La Serena back to Santiago and there I changed to another night bus headed for Pucon. Pucon is like Banff, except it sits at the foot of an active volcano. Unfortunately, when I arrived the weather turned bad (this often happens in southern Chile which seems to get the water allocation that northern Chile does not). As a result I could not see the volcano and so I got on another but and headed to the port city of Valdivia. My guide book described it as the nicest of the South Chile cities. Well, I was not impressed and probably did not miss much by not visiting the other southern cities. Not much to see, felt like a town in Newfoundland with a third world flavor blended in.

Next day I headed back north, this time to the town of Talca. Talca lies in the central valley – climatically similar to the central valley of California. Apparently the locals like to say: Paris-London-Talca. I do not see why. Nothing terribly wrong with the town but nothing impressive either. Debated a little bit whether I should stay one more night and try my luck attempting a side trip to some of the surrounding villages and vineyards but decided to push on. This time I took the train – there is only one train line left in Chile and it goes south from Santiago through Talca to Temuco. A pleasant ride, even though someone must have decided to increase the number of seats in the car and so seats and windows did not match – very strange layout. Sat next to an elderly professor and even though I did not aggressively pursue the topic, she was clearly more of an Allende fan than my host in Santiago. But I found her thinking rather confused. On arrival at Santiago I switched to a bus again and headed to Vina del Mar. Chile, like a one foot ruler, is divided, north to south into 12 regions. In less than a week I visited 8 of the 12 and by outlining a figure 8 I passed trough most of them twice. It was time to rest a little.

Vina de Mar sits on the same bay as Valparaiso. I was not sure which town to pick to stay in and at the end picked Vina. At this point a modern, comfortable city appealed to me more than the more picturesque but also faded and Valparaiso. Nice place to visit, but like most Chileans I prefer to stay in Vina. So these were to be my few days of rest before heading back to work. However, once I am on the road I find it hard to stay in one place and so I compromised. I stayed in the same bed and breakfast place but went on daytrips.









First one was to the north to a little town of Zapallar. Beautiful green bay, fantastic beach (water still cold though), and very nice houses – lots of money around. The next day I headed south to Isla Negra to see Pablo Neruda’s house. Why did I go to see a house of a communist poet (his Ode to Stalin is these days left out of anthologies), winner of the Stalin and Nobel Prize? Simply because when I was in grade 10 in Prague during a class in Czech literature our teacher pointed out that a south American poet like the Czech writer Vladimir Neruda so much that he chose his name as his pseudonym. (By the way that still does not make any sense to me). At the time, of course I never dreamt of ever being in Chile and so now that I was I had to go. It turns out that B. Neruda had not one, but 3 houses (the old fashioned communist: we will share what you have and I will keep what I have, not much into redistributing wealth apparently, or sharing houses with the poor). But I really liked his house. Quite large, fabulous collection of antiques, and best of all bedroom on the second floor with a bed in front of a large window facing the Pacific Ocean. And I had a very good crab dish at the attached restaurant.

I spent the last day in Santiago – my flight was leaving at 10 p.m. This gave me the opportunity to tie up some loose ends and try a few things I was not too sure about. I went to the fish market and ordered steamed barnacles – apparently eaten only in Chile. Not particularly good, more of a survival food if I even get stranded on a small island. And then I headed over to a nearby bar to try the Terremoto, that is Earthquake. This is a drink consisting of ice cream, wine and some other alcoholic ingredients. I was not quite sure what form the Earthquake was going to take and so I did not want to try it while I was still spending lot of time on buses. I tasted about as good as it sounds, but everybody was ordering it – maybe it is an acquired taste.