FIRST JOURNEY PART TWO:
MEETING PATRICIO SCHMIDT CORREA
MY FIRST GUIDE TO THE SIGHTS OF CHILE
December 2, 2002, Santiago - Yesterday (Sunday, December 1) I met up with Patricio Schmidt Correa for the first time. My cowboy friends Ron Kane and Meghan Merker had suggested to me that I look him up once I got to Santiago. Patricio is a very well-known and successful architect in Chile who also happens to be in love with the life of the cowboy in the old American West.
If you can imagine a man whose life is defined by twin passions, in his case the genius of architect Frank Lloyd Wright on one hand and the legendary cowboy writers Will James and Bruce Kiskaddon on the other, you might be able to appreciate Patricio Schmidt.
That's him, in the above picture, on the patio of the riding stables he brought me to see on that sunny and warm Sunday morning - a stable which happens to be located on the skirt of the Andes Mountains overlooking the valley of Santiago.
Anyway, I was lucky enough to get ahold of Patricio immediately following my arrival in Santiago and he had already made plans to show me as much as he could in a day. He picked me up early on that morning at my apartment in Santiago Centro and took me out to see some of the city. First he took me to the Parque Metropolitano, which is located just northeast of the Barrio Bellavista, where Andres had taken me to lunch after my arrival. This park's dominant feature is the Cerro San Cristobal, essentally a foothill spur of the Andes Cordillera which rises up directly to the east. On the summit of the ridge is an outdoor church, and it happend that at the time of our visit, many of the faithful were there celebrating Sunday Mass, and right alongside of the open air ampitheater there is an impressive large statue of the Virgin Mary, pictured above.
But Patricio had not taken me up Cerro San Cristobal to attend Mass, but rather, to give me a chance to take in the marvelous view of Santiago, and especially of the city's barrios of El Centro, Bellavista and Providencia, which extended out from the base of the hill. The view was great except for the certain amount of haze which often occupies the valley. The picture on the left shows part of that view - looking directly at Santiago Centro with Barrio Bellavista in the foreground.
From there Patricio took me to see the compact campus of the Escuela de Archetectura (School of Architecture), which was closed up for the weekend. Since Patricio was one of the principal faculty members, he had a key to open up the locked gate so that I could see the courtyard and some of the buildings there. It was a calm and peaceful compound, and Patricio had said that before urban expansion had surrounded the school, it's principal buildings had been the living quarters and working offices of an "estancia'" or large ranch. Here is a glimpse inside the compound, on a quiet sunday... Patricio says that on weekdays, the courtyard is usually filled with students.
We left the schoolgrounds after our short visit and Patricio then took me to visit his own home, which is located over in the next valley, I think into the neighborhood on the bench known as La Dehesa, nestled against the foothills. His home was secluded and gated in front, but in back it had a charming yard which overlooked a small creek that flowed out of the canyon to the left. There I met his wife and daughter and two of their sons, all very charming, and quite good English speakers, as of course Patricio was as well.
They had a marvelous almuerzo (lunch) prepared for me, with fresh fruit and a seafood salad and plenty of vegetables, which was really appreciated by yours truly. Unfortunately, before we sat down to eat, I had a run-in with their dog, who had just given birth to a litter of puppies five days before. Patricio had brought me over to see the little pups, and we were all caught by surprise when the mom lunged at me and bit me! Of course Patricio and his wife and daughter were all horrified that their special guest had been bitten (on the back of my right leg), but thankfully it was not a serious bite, and I could understand why the mom dog had done it - since I was a total stranger, she just wanted to protect her brood.
Inside his house, Patricio showed me his basement, where he had many items he had collected from his numerous trips to the U.S., where he often went during the Chilean winter to be a working cowboy on various American ranches. It was on one of those working trips when he had gotten to know my friends Ron Kane and Meghan Merker. He had racks of books by the aforementioned Will James and Bruce Kiskaddon, as well as by numerous other western writers. The walls of his basement were righly adorned with artwork by the likes of western artists like Maynard Dixon and Frederic Remington plus all sorts of relics from the old west and vintage trappings of cowboy ranch life. In a way, it was kind of hard to imagine I was in Chile, and not in Tuscarora, Nevada...
Afterwards, Patricio took me to visit his riding stables, which are located above the 1,000 meter elevation on the skirt of the Andes, and which are thus outside of the area designated for urban development. It was quite a picturesque spot, but surprisingly, there were no people around when we arrived - siesta time, Patricio told me. The picture above shows the setting, and Patricio told me that he has taken one of his horses from the stables and ridden way up above and across the ridgeline and peaks in the distance. The picture to the right shows Patricio comforting one of his horses in its stall."Okay Smokey, let me take you up into the mountains," he said, adding "I think you'll like what you see. We just keep driving on the road that brought us to these stables, right up into the Andes. It's the road that leads to some of the famous Chilean ski resorts."
Well, I wasn't going to refuse that offer. Patricio drove me up on the spectacular drive that leads up through the canyon of the Río Mapocho and cuts across the Santuario de la Naturaleza Yerba Loca and eventually, after something like 32 numbered switchbacks, arrives at the ski resort country, of which one can access several via this route. Patricio opted to take me to the one known as La Parva, although once up in the mountans there are a number of options. The view in the picture to the left presents the view back towards Santiago (as defined by the haze), and also illustrates some of the narrow switchbacks on this road into the mountains.
Eventually we got to La Parva which was basically all closed up since the ski season was long over and the slopes only displayed patches of snow. There were plenty of ski lodges at the base of the lifts, but again, no people. The picture to the right shows La Parva as seen from a short distance away. 
From La Parva we turned to drive back down the mountain, following the same route back. Up there the air was cool, almost chilly, because the clouds were blocking the intense rays of the sun. When we got to a certain ridgeline before starting the switchbacks again, Patricio stopped the car. "Smokey, this ridge is known as La Loma del Viento. It is quite a notable place where you can see off into both canyons on either side. Take a minute to appreciate it." The picture to the right shows the view to the south from the ridge of La Loma del Viento into the next canyon, I think of the Río Molina and Valle Nevado, another ski resort off in the distance.
From that vista point we turned and headed back down the mountain. I remember being so in awe of the depth of the canyons, but maybe it was more the displacement vertically from the bottom of those deep canyons and on up the steep slopes to the summits lost in the clouds. I said to myself, "THESE are mountains! Such incredible dimensions! They test the ability of any and all to take it all in, and cameras can do them no justice!
In the evening after Patricio had dropped me off back at my apartment, I went off and had a sandwich at a nearby cyber cafe. I tried accessing my emails online. I could do so, but I couldn't get their computer to send anything. I wanted so much to tell friends about my big day but was only able to spend a frustrating hour laboring away with nothing to show for it.
Anyway, here's one more image taken from my first drive into the Andes, east of Santiago...
Incidentally, in case you didn't know...you can click on any one of the images I've posted to see a larger version.
I'll be posting more here really soon, so stay tuned!
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