THE ATACAMA VIAJERO - IN RETROSPECT

FIRST JOURNEY PART THREE:

THE LAST DAYS IN SANTIAGO

BEFORE HITTING THE ROAD FOR REAL

The above map shows that part of Santiago Centro where I spent most of my time when I was not off touring with Patricio or on some other  order of business.  The black arrow I inserted to show the exact location of the apartment Andres had given me for my first few days of acclimatization to Chile.  The address was Mosqueto 562 Apt. 102, Santiago Centro.  102 meant it was the second unit on the tenth floor.

Above the arrow is the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, which is in the midst of the Parque Forestal.  Both of which I described in Part One.  Then directly above that is an orange band which represents the toll highway Costanera Norte, which in reality now is a subterranean thoroughfare that runs under the Río Mapocho, but which was, back then in 2002, under construction.

 

To the south of the arrow, the larger green area, is the park that surrounds the historic Cerro Santa Lucia, which is notable for being the place where Conquistador of Chile, Don Pedro de Valdivia, came on December 13, 1540, the date of his arrival into the valley of the Río Mapocho.  He camped at the base of the hill, which was called Huelén by the Indians, and he re-named it Santa Lucia, in honor of the date of his arrival, which in the Catholic calendar is the día de Santa Lucia.

So, with all that said, now I will resume with a recounting of my last two days in Santiago, from my travel journals...

December 2, 2002 - 10:40 p.m. entry:  Nothing spectacular to report for today.  I took a taxi from Andres' office on Miraflores to the U.S. Embassy to register my presence - the only time I would bother with that formality - and after meeting and chatting for a few minutes with Robert Jennings, an embassy official who was a friend of Robert Runyard (the American Chile travel veteran who had given me many travel tips before my departure), I decided to set out on my own on foot to return to El Centro.  The embassy was on the banks of the Río Mapocho, east of downtown, and it seemed that it would be an appealing walk through the parkways of the extended Parque Forestal.  I walked in the full warmth of the day - it was sunny and peaceful with birds chirping and everything in bloom in the parkway.

The walk would have been more pleasant except for the fact that I'd made a mistake of not trying to find a men's room back at the embassy, and I realized I really had to pee!  All along the parkway there were beautiful public areas with kid's swings, fountains, park benches and commemorative statues, but no public bathrooms that I could discern.  It became something of an uncomfortable situation.  I would have loved to have been able to settle in on some park bench to take in all of the activity and the beauty of the parkway but I was pushed on by an ever growing urge...

I made it back to Andre's office without incident.  It was located on the ground floor of a downtown parking terrace, but all of his vehicles, including the one I was set to rent were parked up on the roof, which was his space, where Andres' man Luis was busily putting the finishing touches on making my 4x4 rental pickup truck ready for my departure.  I paid Andres the full amount of his rental fee for the three months I'd be using it and then also accepted a cell phone from him for a flat $50 USD charge for the duration.  I considered it to be an emergency-only item except for a call I was going to make to Patricio and then later on a contact call to Sonia, the lady Robert Runyard had connected me with down in Osorno, who would help me to make arrangements for my ferry trip into Chilean Patagonia.

In the late afternoon I toured Cerro Santa Lucia, which was only a few blocks away from my apartment.  I've already mentioned that it is an historical site, but it is also a botanical garden, so it was really quite charming.  And the views of the city from its summit were very nice.  Luckily there had been a gentle but steady breeze so the air was cleaner, and the views were mich clearer.  That meant that today's pictures would be clearer than they had been yesterday when Patricio had taken me up to the top of Cerro San Cristobal.

Above I've posted a good picture of the view towards the Andes from Santa Lucia, and below there's more...

The picture to the left is of a statue of Pedro de Valdivia which is on Cerro Santa Lucia, and below is another shot of the statue, taken from the top of the hill...

Now something a bit more mundane.  I found a laundry around the corner from the apartment and Decided that it would be in my best interests to drop off what I had that was dirty in the morning so that I could get everything washed before my departure on the 4th. 

December 3, 2002 - 10:45 p.m. entry:  I walked into Andres' office in the afternoon to check on the truck, but everybody was either busy or gone, except for Consuela, the office secretary who brightens things up in that otherwise drab car rental office with her youthful charm and beauty.  She seems to be the one who manages the day-to-day workings of all of Andres' business ventures.

I was somewhat surprised to find out that she actually can speak some English - but this only came out when she perceived how stressed my brain was becoming from the virtual assault it was taking from the sudden Spanish immersion I'd been dealing with since my arrival and found myself at a loss for words and unable to communicate.  

At that moment Consuela asked me in English, "John, why did you come to Chile?"  And even with sensing the sudden opportunity to mix the languages with her in reply, I found it difficult to give her an answer.  I think that was because my brain was still in a state of language overload.  But that's okay.  I've found her to be a pretty cool head.  I think she's figured it out, because following that, we got into a good discussion about deserts - she was saying that I ought to go north instead of south when I left in the morning because she thought that the Atacama Desert  was blooming right at that time, which is truly a rare thing to behold.

Now here's my soliloquy from that night's post:

 "I will be glad to get on the road at last and leave Santiago behind.  It is time to escape from the big metropolis.  No, I'm not going to Valparaiso or Viña del Mar now, nor am I going to Zapallar or Papudo - oh, I want to get out to the latter two later on, but right now I want to start heading south.  First to the ocean yes, but also south...bearing in mind that I need to get to El Rincón [a hosteria outside of Los Angeles in the Río Bío Bío valley] where I have reservations and am scheduled to begin a weeklong Spanish class on Sunday, December 8."

"I've opted to drive to Pichilemu, a place that's noted in the tour guides for its' faded grandeur and which is usually quiet on weekdays, but with some decent beaches.  And that most who do come there do so to surf, but it is no mecca.  And you know, Andres wouldn't really understand my reasons for going there [likely he does now, after five visits to Chile] but I think Consuela would."

"And that kind of gets me back to her question of, why Chile?"

"In a way, I'm a bit disappointed in myself for not at least giving my hosts a better idea of who I really am.  I've been trying too hard to accomodate my being [unsuccessfully] into their culture - by wearing all my new, nice clothes and all..."

"Oh, all that will continue, I am sure, because I do not want to come across as an ungracious or unkept guest.  So I suppose that I really shouldn't be making an issue about that and should rather just accept that as being a part of something bigger, and thus, rather trivial."

"It all gets down to my basic desire to get out there - to see and hear and feel all the power of this natural world alive and in action - like it will be on that beach when I get there, and like it will be when I am alone in the empty interior of the Argentine Patagonia, and also when I am baking by day and freezing by night alone out in the Atacama Desert."

"That's why I came here - it's all spiritual in a not-religious existential sense...surrounded by it all in this place of my choosing - a place which has always fascinated me and drawn me closer from the first days when I could start to read maps...."

For the record, I had a nice lunch with Patricio in the afternoon at another restaurant in Bellavista called Ahi Grande.  I had Cazuela de Ave, or Chilean chicken soup, notable because it has the chicken meat still on the bone and all of the vegetables are whole, not cut up - like a whole potato, a whole carrot, a section of corn - still on the cob, and a big slice of squash.  Patricio is a great fellow, and I am very grateful to him for taking me under his wing.  He taught me much about his country in our two meetings, and I am very grateful for it.

[Note: I'd planned to re-connect with Patrick again later on during my journey, but the reality was that when I came back to Santiago, he was out of town.  I later on tried to re-connect with him on my 2nd South America trip, but my contact info was out of date and it never came to pass.  I simply couldn't find him.  That's sad.]

Now in closing for today, here are a couple more views from Cerro Santa Lucia: