Santiago

We got into Santiago around 3a and I got settled in my anonymous yet free Holiday Inn room at the airport hotel. It was almost 4a before I went to sleep, I think. I was able to get a late check out at noon and had 7 hours to kill in Santiago. I stored my luggage at the airport - you can't store luggage at the airport hotel thanks to 9/11 - and grabbed a cab into town. I talked the driver down from 20K to 11K pesos. I should have taken the bus but I was short on time. I really only had 2 goals: a bowl of caldillo de congrio (soup) and a visit to the great poet Pablo Neruda's Santiago house.

The Mercado Central is an impressive Victorian building, designed & fabricated in England and shipped & reassembled in Santiago. It's a good deal smaller than St. Lawrence market in Toronto but it has a lot of intricate cast iron filigree work with the star of Chile theme running throughout.

It is mostly a fish market with equal if not more space dedicated to seafood restaurants. The restaurants are a real hard sell. One guy came and opened my cab door for me, chatted me up and practically dragged me into his restaurant. I passed and had a look around the market first. I ended up back at the pushy dudes place. There seemed to be more locals there that the other places so it seemed the right choice. I had the "Pablo Neruda Congrio" featuring a wider range of seafood than the basic sopa.

It came to the table bubbling away in a cast iron bowl; a nice lite fish broth with a touch of tomato, corriander and, I beleive, fennel, not onion. They were also some boiled potatoes, camarones, scallops, mussels and 3 big slices of eel. This is a common Chilean comfort food dish not haute cusine.

The complimentary pisco sour (sin huevo blanca) and recommended wine made me sleepy so I wandered el centro for a bit looking for interesting grafitti. A street vendor indicated that I should be more careful with my (Sherree's) camera as there were snatch thieves. In general the downtown was cleaner looking than Toronto and had less shady malingering types but I took his advice anyway and tucked it in my pocket and clipped the strap off to my knapsack.

About 4p I found my way to Chascona, Neruda's Santiago house that he shared with his mistress/3rd wife. I just caught the 4p tour in english with a dozen Americans. This is most I've encountered in one spot on my trip - I think that the recent economic unpleasantness has taken it's toll on US travellers - it used to be they were *everywhere*.

I didn't really know much about Neruda the person but I was familiar with some of his poetry. I have a fond memory of listening to a CD of poetry readings, compliments of Noreen, one night at the G.G.'s cottage weekend. And Noreen was kind enough to lend me a book of his poems in english and spanish before my trip.

Neruda served as a diplomat as a young man, was exiled for being a communist and later held a senate position in the Allende government. He was, of course, targeted by the Pinochet thugs.

This house was trashed and flooded after the coup in '73. Neruda passed away from prostrate cancer 12 days after and his funeral became the 1st public protest against the Pinochet regime. Over 2000 people attended - an overwhelming crowd at this compact little property.

A couple items of interest were a lamp designed specifically for the house by Oscar Niemeyer, the Brazilian architect who designed Brazil's planned capital city, Brazillia. As well, there was a two headed portrait of his wife Matilde Urrutia aka La Chascona (“the uncombed”) complete with wild hair by Diego Rivera.

I had a cold drink at the coffee shop and watched the variety of people who appeared. All ages, all walks of life, most in awe of being there. I can't think of anywhere else in the world where a poet would command so much respect.

Then it was time to go and 14 hours later here I am rolling down the Gardiner on the Airport Express bus in the very grey morning light will a touch of snow falling. I can't believe that my adventure is over...except for the slide show!