Communique Number 1 - Monday April 24, 1995.
Greetings from Concepcion!
I plan to send almost daily, on weekdays, bulletins for the next two weeks. I won't be insulted if you don't have the time to wade through all of this. It is as much to be a record for us as you.
Its Monday afternoon and we have just learned that our luggage is in Santiago. We expect to see it tonight at around 7 PM. The adventure begins!
First, a puzzler. Chile is two time zones away from St. Louis, so why did we only have to set our watches ahead by one hour?
Well, we left on Saturday at about 9 AM and got to the airport REAL early so that we could check our bags all the way to Santiago. We were told we should plan on getting there about 2 hours early. As it turned out the international check in was closed and it took about 5 min to check our bags, so much for 2 hours early!
The flight to Chicago was totally uneventful and took less than 37 minutes. The wait in Chicago, marked by moderately bad Chinese fast food was fine, and we were happy not to be dragging those bags around! The flight to Miami featured the WORST vegetarian snack I have even seen- risotto with some chopped up red onions, something like salsa, a rice cake an apple and some artificially flavored, artificially colored cherry jam.
We got to Miami a little after 5:30 PM. The Miami international airport was a total trip-the UN of airlines, even airline that I had and hadn't heard of from every country imaginable. Eventually we even found the counter for Ladeco which was closed. The man who was there said that the supervisor would be there in 5 minutes. We were trying to check in so that we could have time to go to South beach before our flight at 10:40 PM. Aside from that, he said (in Spanish) the counter would open at 7 PM. The supervisor never showed up so we decided to wait until 7.
Meanwhile, a lot of people were starting to collect with incredible amounts of luggage. We struck up a conversation with an American originally from Louisiana, currently from Miami, a young man named Dan, who, it turned out was temporarily emigrating to Chile to teach English and learned Spanish and generally have an adventure. He was going on a courier flight and was waiting for some mysterious character name "Jose " to turn up with his package. All he knew about Jose was that he was supposed to be wearing a white tee shirt and blue jeans. He had no idea what Jose knew about him. . However, Dan had already spent a whole month in Chile, so we pumped him for information. The desk opened at around 7 and we got in line with everyone else. Curiously, the flight was not posted on the monitor. We soon found out why-it wasn't leaving until 6AM! I couldn't believe it, we had almost nothing with us-certainly not any clothing, although we did have toothbrushes. In my usual manner I HAD to tell other people who didn't know yet-somehow, seeing the look of shock on their faces made me feel like we were really sharing the experience. So, I'd pick on someone who looked calm an unsuspecting and ask, in Spanish, if the knew what was happening with the flight. Some didn't ...Meanwhile, Jose, who was supposed to show up at 6:30 was still MIA.
We got on line to check in-the plan was for everyone to check in at night so that in the morning we could all be ready to go. For some perverse reason or other, Ladeco decided to separate the check in and the hotel and meal voucher processes. So after we checked in there was a whole other line to wait on, and, most encouragingly, everyone we had seen check in was still on it! Dan was on line with us, and he looked at a piece of paper that the man in front of him was holding and he saw his picture on it. The man was not wearing a white tee shirt. It was Jose.anyway When asked about the white tee shirt bit, he just shrugged and said "it's the weekend." Jose was someone who gave the impression that he was always involved in some sort of shady deal . But he get Dan his ticket and handed him his package, so I guess he was legitimate that day.
It took an hour to get the hotel voucher and another 45 mins to figure out where the hotel van was supposed to meet us and for it to come. By then we were starting to recognize certain of our fellow passengers. We were sent to the Hotel Regency which I think was recently a Hyatt, but the Hyatt part had managed to escape. The hotel has the strangest energy. It was clean and not really run down but perhaps it was going down. The staff all had a very paranoid, uneasy quality and we were warned by some of our fellow passengers that it was not safe to walk outside. By the time we got there (about 9:30, I think) we had given up on South Beach. Knowing that the wake up call is coming at 4:30 AM has that effect. We had a meal voucher for up the $15 in the hotel restaurant. When we got there, we were offered a choice of 3 dishes and told that that was what was available for the Ladeco passengers. Vally objected and asked what if we wanted something else, like fish. The waiter had to consult with his boss and finally permitted us to order something else, as long as we agreed to pay the difference over $15. How much is the fish? It was $11. After that we warned our fellow passengers at they straggled in "You have more than the 3 choices."
We ate with Dan, got to know him better-turns out has worked in exercise physiology, wellness and stress management. Somehow acupuncture and the chakra system got covered too. We invited him to my talk in Santiago, and I think he'll come. The fish was a little bit tough but fresh.
Four thirty AM came pretty quickly, but we didn't have to pack anything and after making sure that there really was going to be a flight, we took the van to the airport and sat around for an hour. Finally we were on the plane, a 757. This was my first international flight, so the three sections of the passenger area, smoking non and first were novel. Also everyone had a pillow and a blanket and they gave us little bags with tooth brush, tooth paste, comb and eye shade. Our seat was about in the middle of the cabin so that the flight attendant who served the people in the front half got to us last, and the people right behind us got served first. Breakfast was cooked fruit, a crouton with cheese, a muffin which I traded for a yogurt and orange juice which hadn't quite defrosted. In addition the flight attendants severed chilean juice, orange and pineapple which were the best I have ever had! We also noticed (this was true on both flights) that ALL of the chilean flight attendants had long braided hair. Anyway the rest of the flight was just fine. Our seat mate moved and we had some room. I got a couple of hours of sleep. Vally watched a dumb movie-a comedy western which I can't remember. The sound track was available in both English and Spanish. Later, when I got up and walked around, I realized the entire plane was zonked out, even though it was probably 9 AM.
Later, while Vally rested, I had a conversation with the woman behind me. I understood about half of what she said. She had mentioned that her family was vegetarian and I notice that she was reading a spanish language book about therapeutic touch. I asked her if she had heard of Reiki and it turned out that she was a first degree practitioner. We had a good time. She is from Montevideo, Uruguay, as were several others. Her youngest is 3, so she is still a full time mother but wants to go into something involving healing once the youngest is in school.
After lunch, in which Vally finished 3 portions of fish that somehow had been served to the vegetarians, we saw another dumb movie (A Simple Twist of Fate with Steve Martin) and by the time it was over, we only had an hour to go and soon we were looking out the window at the Andes. (The flight to Florida we were on the wrong side of the plane to see the Kennedy Space Center). The passengers applauded when it was over. It was a very good flight. Vally said that in India people applaud also. Going through immigration was very quick and simple and we sat down to wait for our bags. It was 2 PM Santiago time. After another 20 minutes we realized they weren't coming. We were curiously calm about it, although I think the next time I fly and take several planes, I will definitely pack a change of clothes and enough vitamins for a few days. We filled out the report and Arnoldo our host was allowed to come and help us with the negotiations. Poor Arnoldo didn't know that our flight had been delayed until he tried to pick us up at 7 AM!
I thinks its time for a paragraph break...
Arnoldo took us, via bus ride (29 min), metro ride (20 min) and cab ride (10 min) to a shopping mall (think Galleria) so that I could get a change of clothes. On the way he lost his briefcase, probably by leaving it on the bus. We learned about Bernardo O'Higgins who is the Chilean George Washington. We wound up at the Santiago version of Famous-Barr ( think Macy's) where I got a sweater, some sweat pants, underwear, a night gown, socks and a shirt. We also got some vitamin C, but the only form we could find was 500 mg chewables. Vitamin C is clearly not used very much here. Some impressions from the mall: Chileans dont look very different from Americans-this isn't like pictures I had seen from Mexico. I have seen no blacks here and only a few people with Indian features. They also don't dress very differently from Americans., at least in Santiago, and at least in this mall. Their energy is different however. They look more relaxed and less lonely. Children were everywhere and I never saw anyone yelling at a child or hitting one. A lot of them were being carried. I saw a lot a couples with a small child whom them obviously adored. There are an incredible number of salespeople in the store. It made me very conscious of how much the US has focused on technology and eliminating people. All of the salespeople were incredibly helpful and willing to go out of their way (at least at falabella). The food court at the Chilean mall was virtually identical to one you'd would find in an American mall.
One note from the Chilean ladies room-you get your toilet paper from a roll outside the stall and bring it in with you. The air in Santiago at this time of the year is bad, so bad that the mountains, which are right there, are barely visible through the smog. Its like LA, surrounded by mountains, temperature inversion, that sort of thing. The subway runs on solid rubber tires. Someone said it was designed by the French. There are a lot of busses in Santiago, all privately owned. We left the mall with barely time to get back to the airport for our flight to Concepcion.
We flew to Conception on National Airlines. Luckily for us the flight left 10 min late. We flew on a 737 and were served a piece of candy as we left. En route (50 minute flight) we were served cheese and crackers, literally, about 4 ounces of cheese of different kinds and 3 small crackers, also the ubiquitous juice (or coffee or wine).
The flight was uneventful, but the landing was dramatic! I think the pilot was a bit of a cowboy. We took off fast and we decelerated so fast that Vally said, for the first time he needed my seat belt. I managed to leave my fanny pack on the plane but remembered before we left the airport. By the way, on both Chilean flights we climbed up and down from the planes. In Santiago there was a bus to the terminal.
Arnoldo's wife Anita Marie and stepson Juan were there to meet us. They drove us to our hotel, the name of which I cannot remember, in a car which was probably 20 years old and is unlikely to have passed inspection in the US. Most of the traffic we saw in Santiago looked like traffic you would see in any US city, except for the license plates and the occasional Lada. (We even saw a Lada dealership in Concepcion).
The hotel is very nice-the colors are surreal, Daiquiri green, turquoise, purple-I can't quite describe it, except to say that somehow it works. We had dinner in the hotel cafeteria )which means coffee shop. It was brightly lit, like a classroom, and the same green and, I think mauve. I had the vegetarian plate which consisted of some cooked vegetables like corn, peas and green beans and probably 3 oz of quesillo (fresh cheese) and a hard boiled egg. The cheese was delicious, but I was astounded at the amount of protein that they seem to think we need. The hot chocolate was incredible! It was essentially unsweetened and tasted like dark chocolate. Vally is enjoying the coffee-starting on the plane and continuing. I think if he can figure out how to make coffee that good at home, he will be a totally contented man! So, we got to sleep-not before fixing the connection to our cable TV and finding out that Yes, we can get CNN in English in our room. Oh yes, and the water in the toilet really DOES swirl the other way here in the Southern hemisphere.
We slept well and didn't really get going until 11:30. Arnoldo came and took us to a men's shop where Vally go pants, a shirt, a belt, underwear and socks so that he would be decent for his first lecture. Then he took us to a restaurant for a fabulous lunch (Chileans don't eat breakfast). Once again we were drowned in protein and since we had appetizers (scallops in various forms) none of us could finish the main course (fish), although Vally and I ate our 3 different kinds of rolls. Then we waddled on to the university.
I think the climate here is kind of like Charleston, South Carolina. It is protected enough from the cold so that palm trees and bougainvillea can survive, but there is vegetation from more moderate climates too. The tree are starting to turn and we should get the whole show. It is very strange to go from the spring energy of St. Louis, people looking forward to summer, to the fall energy here. The university grounds are very beautiful in a run down sort of way. I was reminded a little bit of Brooklyn college, especially on the inside. The mountains are not visible from here, only hills. Some of the yards are just incredibly lush. We saw a plant in someone's yard that looked like an Aloe plant, only it was about 5 feet tall! Vally says this place reminds him a lot of India. I just know it feels very good here. I am having no trouble with Chilean Spanish and Vally is catching on. He can say "Buenas Tardes" pretty well- actually the Indian "r" is rolled also and that is the hardest thing for Americans.
Arnoldo is the perfect host and we are being totally spoiled. We have has office and his computer for the duration of our stay. We haven't changed any money yet and dividing everything by 400 is tiring. Store prices are similar to the US, but food is cheaper.
Well that's enough for now.
More tomorrow
Love
Phyllis and Vally
Communique Number 2- Tuesday April 25, 1995
Hi everyone
We got a few replies to letter number one and I think they're as good as the letter. I am seriously tempted to bundle them up and send copies of them to everyone. Well, we picked up our luggage (all of it!) at 7:30 last night. I have never been so happy to see a suitcase in my life! Finding places for all of our "stuff" in our hotel room is another matter.
We are being pursued by sliced tomatoes, sliced avocados and protein! I forgot to mention that the vegetarian platter also had the tomatoes and avocados, as did our lunch and as did our dinner. Dinner was a surprise. Arnoldo mentioned that it was his mother-in-laws birthday and Vally said "Oh, can we come along?" So we did. First we went to Arnoldo's house, which is about 6 km from the universidad. His house is very small-concrete slab house, small living room dining room combination (about 12 X 20), small kitchen, three small bedrooms, two small bathrooms and a flat roof. The ceiling is wooden tongue and groove and I think the walls are wooden also. It felt cozy, but musty.
We drove (!) literally a half a block to his mother-in-law's house which was similar in construction but maybe a little larger and not musty. His mother in law Eliana and his father in law "Lucho" were very gracious and friendly. I am learning how to do the peck-on- the-cheek greeting, but dont exactly know the protocol. Are you actually supposed to touch the cheek with your lips or make a smacking sound in the air? Have to ask someone. In addition to us, Arnoldo, his second wife Anita Marie and her son Juan, there were two other couples who were friends of the hosts. I don't remember their names. We sat around the living room and talked at first. Champagne was served and there were potato chips, black olives (acietunas), quesillo (again!) and cookies on the big round coffee table. Sometimes we were part of the conversation and sometimes we weren't. When someone was speaking directly to me I could follow it, but in general conversation I understood every third word. Some of the people spoke some English and one would occasionally remember a word or phrase and say it. The first one he remembered was "very good." So, everytime he said anything else in English, we would all say "very good" and laugh. I asked about the cost of houses in Chile and they told me that the house we were in was $45,000 and the average house about $80,000 (in Concepcion). It seemed similar to St. Louis, except that salaries are so much lower. We asked Arnoldo about the minimum wage and he didn't know, but guessed it was about $200 per month, but more by custom than by law. I was told that physicians in the National Health Service earn about $10,000 per year ( and are not very happy about it). We talked about homelessness in the US, which is incomprehensible here, except in terms of the mentally ill homeless, whom they have here, who want to live in the street. We talked about Oklahoma and I said it appeared to be the work of right wing extremists, which led to a discussion of whether right wing meant the same thing here as in the US (opinion was divided).
I don't yet have any understanding of Pinochet and what that was about for the individuals here, but while we were at Arnoldo's he turned on the TV (cable) and there was a puppet show in which there was a Pinochet puppet and the audience was laughing at him. It felt like play therapy .
After a couple of glasses of champagne and about an hour of conversation we sat down to dinner. The first course was a slice of cold tongue, a slice of what looked like corned beef, and slices of tomato and avocado. The main course was roast beef with gravy (one thick slice) , baked potatoes (which are baked without the skin-by the way nothing has skin on it, the sliced tomatoes are de-skinned, the avocados, of course, and a sandwich Vally ordered in the cafeteria had the crusts cut off). Anyway, for vegetables we had cauliflower, cold beets with onions, lettuce with a light dressing and cooked sliced red peppers. The assembled company went through about 3 bottles of wine. We didn't have any. Bread was a kind of white bread. It looked like french bread but a much flatter and wider loaf and was pleasantly heavy and chewy but the crust was totally soft. Everyone put a lot of "mayonesa" on their vegetables. The meal seemed very European. Yes, I skipped all of the meat. Although I cant say that I really followed the conversation at the table, but I remember that they talked about flights their sons had been in, the dismal Chilean soccer team (lost to Peru 6-0, the humiliation still smarts!), Pinochet and the people who are political chameleons and I don't know what else. We learned that telephone conversations begin with "Alo" and end with "Ciao."
After about 1 1/2 hours, the birthday cake was brought out, with four tall slender candles, the lights were turned off, the birthday person blew out the candles, pictures were taken and we all sang Happy Birthday to You in Spanish (same tune). The cake was absolutely unreal. It is called a Torte Amor. It was about 18" in diameter and covered in whipped cream. It consisted of about six layers of a cookielike cake-buttery and crunchy and in between was a combination of red raspberries and more whipped cream. I am not sure I have ever eaten anything better in my life.
Coffee was served (instant!) and I requested herbal tea so the hostess went out and picked some mint and put it into some boiling water for me. It was very good, similar to using fresh herbs in pasta sauce instead of dried. The conversation went on utili after midnight, at which time I told Vally i was ready to go and the party broke up. One of the couples drove us back to the hotel (La Alborada-means, according to my dictionary, twilight, dawn or reveille) in their late model small pick up with king cab. In each direction we crossed the Biobio river, Chile's Mississippi- once on the old bridge (100 yrs), once on the new. On the way home we talked about the effect of shopping malls. Concepcion and its sister city Telcahuano are getting their first mall this coming weekend. Everyone is very exited. The anchor store is a Falabella and it has a MacDonald's, a Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken. The people who drove us home were sophisticated enough to realize the downside of this mall. When the evening ended we were struck again by how close the couples seemed-how much they seemed to like each other (within couples as well as between). Once again, it seems like a lot of Chileans have the human relationship things down a little better than we do in the US.
As I type this I am sitting in Arnoldo's office. Yesterday we asked him what his job is. Arnoldo is a chemistry profess and teaches one section of general chemistry, but also he is the Dean of Student Affairs. In this school that comes out to be the financial aid office. Most of the students here !15,000) live at home and are relatively poor. They are totally dependent on financial aid. At the same time, of course, the budget is limited. Also students are very politically active. I asked Arnoldo if his basic job was to prevent a riot among the students and he agreed that was the bottom line. They have rock and roll piped outdoors on the campus every day until 3 PM, by the way.
Another things I forgot to mention was the signs here. There are all sorts of signs telling you what not to do- probably fewer than in the past: Don't talk to the conductor while the bus is moving, don't step on the grass, don't let your children play on the escalator, don't pick the flowers, don't ignore the traffic lights. These signs are professionally hand painted and really stand out.
Today we slept late and went out on our own for the first time. To me it felt like escaping our ever generous hosts. We changed some money into Chilean money for the first time($20 into 7800 and some pesos) and found the natural foods restaurant (La Naturista) where we had lunch. It was served cafeteria style and we paid about $7 for both of us. I'm not sure exactly what we ate-a vegetable soup and some whole wheat bread sticks-about 1 foot long and rolled in sesame seed), also something like a whole wheat chapati and various cold dishes with grains and potatoes and lentils. Vally had fresh carrot juice and I had fresh grape. It was very good. The woman at the checkout was Australian and most helpful. Not an avocado or fresh tomato or slab of quesillo in sight! I am getting used to skipping breakfast- Vally never eats it anyway. Went to the bathroom at the Naturista and there was NO paper. Fortunately, Vally was carrying some. I am starting to understand all the tales I have heard about the first second and third world and the toilet paper availability criterion.
Then we walked to the universidad. It is a beautiful day today, sunny and probably high 60s- If we take a slightly different route every time we walk here (under a mile) we will see a lot of the city. Today we saw a lot of school kids in uniforms-girls in the blue skirts and blue vests and white shirts, boys in blue blazers, etc. The girlsskirts are all hemmed about an inch above the knee,
which sounds like a nightmare to me. Right now Vally is teaching his class. He is concerned that some of the 15 students are having trouble following because their English is not very good. He just had a call from someone at the University of Santiago, a woman who speaks English and teaches bioorganic chemistry. She is wildly excited that he is going to come there and seems to know something about cyclodextrins which is one of Vallys research interests. We are having a very good time here.
Well, enough for today, I am going to see if I can get a little bit of work done before Vally comes back. I'll write again tomorrow.
Love
Phyllis and Vally
Communication Number 3 Wednesday, April 26, 1995
Well, some corrections and a morsel of food for thought. The skirts on the school girls are actually 2-4 inches, sometimes even 6 inches above the knee, which is even worse. The dessert is called Torta Amor (I misspelled that) and the sister city is Telchuano which I also misspelled. Consider the meaning of
the spanish word chapsui.
Some more observations on Chile. First, the power lines are not, in general, underground, so they are visible everywhere, although not at the universidad. Today we bought a 220 to 110 converter (for a little over $4). We went into the store, and there were about eight salesmen, spaced about 2 feet apart at the counter. We approached one of them who quickly showed us what whe wanted. This was similar, except for the density of salesman to buying something at an auto parts store in the US. Our salesman filled out a sales slip. He then led us to another person, perhaps 10 feet away and gave him the sales slip and the converter. The second man took the converter out of the box, tested it and then gave us the yellow copy of the sales slip which we carried another six feet to a woman in a glass booth who took our money. We paid the money, and she gave us back the slip with a stamp on it. Then we returned to the second man who took the yellow slip back and gave us the converter and the original white slip. That was typical.
It turns out that our hotel is the best hotel in Concepcion, considered a luxury hotel. We get the two chocolates at night. When we leave, we leave our key at the desk-it is on a sort of elongated wooden block that fits into a rack. Today, I asked for a "planchadora" which I think may mean an iron but instead I got a motherly looking woman who took my shirt and brought it back pressed about 20 min later. I suspect we are not permitted to iron our own clothing.
We are learning our way around. Last night we got a chauffeured ride back to the hotel from a university chauffeur. We would have walked but Vally didn't have a jacket and it was getting cool. We went out walking at about 7 and found that the whole town seemed to be out there with us. We also found out that my ATM card works in the bank machines here, which is amazing. The machine asks if you want to do the transaction in English or Spanish. I have no idea exactly how much money I actually withdrew since it was in pesos, but the money we got from the machine was certainly crisper than what we got from the money changer!
Chile observes the two hour lunch break, so people work 4 hours in the morning and 4 in the afternoon, which means they leave work somewhat late. The street was full of shoppers and school children of junior high age and up. I think it must be like the Spanish tradition where the whole town shows up at the plaza every evening.
We went looking for a restaurant and found mostly sort of luncheonettes. There is a spanish restaurant, also one that is described as creole, but was sort of major meat, like huge steaks with sausage on the side. We bought some popcorn from one of the many popcorn vendors. Its costs about 25 cents a bag and is cooked over an open flame on the middle of the cart. It is sweetened somehow and is very good. We wandered all over downtown, totally unable to decide where to eat. Part of the street was blocked off for shoppers, which was wonderful. Another street was the bus street and was unbearable. I have never seen so many busses as once and its never-ending. Finally, we went to a place which would have fit in fine in the US and had Chilean pizza-two varieties. One had crust (similar to their white bread but not as soft), cheese and, in different quadrants, palm hearts, sliced black olives, a few stray pimentos and a thick pile of mushrooms. The other one had the crust, under the cheese a layer of corn, cheese and baby shrimp. There was no seasoning and no tomato sauce. We had to make do with "Aji" or chili sauce which tasted like the sort of thing you dip shrimp in for shrimp cocktail. Anyway, been there, done that. I had pineapple juice (not exactly cold and no ice) and Vally had mineral water (with a chemical analysis in gm/ml on the back). Water is not routinely served, probably because wine is.
While we were eating, there was a group of kids outside that I guess you would have to call street urchins. There were maybe 4 or 5 boys ranging in age from maybe 9 to 13 and one little girl who appeared to be about 5. They would run into the restaurant and hustle the patrons for a few seconds and then get thrown out. Or they would hustle people who were passing by or had stopped to call at the phone booths. We watched the little girl a lot (and gave her some money). On the one hand she was a very joyous 5 year old who went skipping down the street, but when she wasn't doing her joyous little girl thing, when her face relaxed, she looked so old and you could see that she had been through a lot. Most of the other beggars were very elderly women who stayed in one place. We had walked a lot before choosing this restaurant and about midway through dinner we were amazed to realize that we were, literally across the street from our hotel! We went back with our clothing reeking of tobacco smoke. Many Chilenos smoke and there is no such thing as a non-smoking section in a restaurant.
Today is overcast and rainy. It wasn't raining when we left the hotel so we walked again. First we went to a coffee shop. We haven't quite mastered this, but Vally got an espresso and I had a hot chocolate. The steamed milk espresso machine is absolutely de rigueur here. I think the other choice, called "Nescafe" is, as far as we have been able to determine, instant coffee, premixed in a coffee pot. The bill was about $1.50. Then we chose the local Vietnamese restaurant. Lunch was about $12 and consisted of a bamboo sprout-based vegetable dish, bad fried rice and corvina which a local fish (enormous portion) and white rice. Vally had "Turkish" coffee. Been there done that. Actually, the restaurant was very beautiful, but the food was only average. There is no sign of an indian restaurant in Concepcion. Something else I forgot to mention about the food is the pastries, they are incredible looking and there are bakery/pastry shops every where. We will try some, also we'll try the ice cream which appears to have some amazing flavors and colors.
A couple more facts. Concepcion has a population of about 300,000. The universidad is one of 3 here and is organized into 15 or so "faculties." The chemistry faculty has about 50 member and 1000 students. The medical school and the dental school are two other faculties. Students enter medical school as college freshman here and study for 6 years to get their M.D. Then they do a year of internship and they are finished.
Well, not much more to report. Vally is teaching right now and I will get some work done when I finish this. My one frustration is that my dictionary is nearly USELESS when it comes to food words.
We're still having fun!!!
Love
Phyllis and Vally
Thursday, April 27, 1995 Communique Number 4
Well, today we actually RODE in a Lada. It was raining hard and our driver was going fast and dodging other cars, so I didn't get much of a sense of the Lada part, except that when Vally opened the back window, it took two hands and some adjusting to get it closed again. Ladas are popular here because they are the cheapest new car you can buy. The cheapest Lada costs about $4500, and the one we rode in costs about $6000. It was roomy, roomier than a small Japanses car. We have seen some other cars that I did not recognize as well as some new species of Citroens and Renaults, both very old and new.
As mentioned, it is raining again today-the ground is not taking up the water very fast and there are puddles everywhere. No Chilean I have asked bothers to listen to the weather report so I have no idea when the rain is "supposed" to end. The weather report seems to have the credibility of a horoscope here.
Today has been a networking day. I met with Professor Marchinelli who is the head of the Biological Sciences faculty. He told me the detailed history of his school, which I will spare you. He told me that the universidad is funded by three sources, tuition (about $2000/yr but varies with the school), the government and the lottery, each providing about a third. Concepcion is one of three universities that is funded by the lottery, which was started for that purpose and still has the political clout to get the lions share. Also he told me that 50% of the faculty are supposed to retire in the next 8 years and they have no real way to replace them. In some cases this is good, and they are trying to work out a system for early retirement and in other cases emeritus status. Anyway, I will be giving my HRV talk next Tuesday at 11 and may give a separate talk to the cardiologists in town (or maybe not since there is no interest in research in the medical school).
After that I met with a woman named Maria heresa Chiang (yes, chinese origin but chilean) and talked with her about her research into the effect of an exercise program intervention on lipids in chilean children with bad lipid profiles. She was very excited to talk with me because there is no one here besides her mentor who has any interest in the topic. I think I was able to give her some usable ideas. Vally spent the morning with Dr. Jaime Baeza's group. They are five chemists, including Jaimes wife Juanita who have a major, state of the art lab which does research into wood pulp processes. They are in another league from the rest of the department, as symbolized by the fact that they have 486 machines running all of their equipment while the rest of the department has a total of 3 computers. Jaime and Juanita were in Detroit just before Vally was, and Jaime got his Ph.D. from the same mentor as Vally did. They are super gung ho to collaborate and Jaime is a real hustler.
That is how we wound up in the Lada. I am getting an appreciation for how important collaborative research is here. I don't know if it is because chileans simply like to collaborate for because americans bring so much with them. Also, almost everyone I have met who does research here has spent some time in the US. In two weeks Baeza's group is headed for a month in France and Spain.
We went to lunch at an Argentine restaurant with Jaime and his group. They were utterly delightful and most of the conversation was in English. I had gnocchi con pesto, although I didnt figure out that that was what it was until it came (I can't even remember how it is spelled in Spanish). Also had fresh kiwi juice which I believe you can achieve at home by putting some kiwis in the blender. Everyone else had HUGE steaks and, except for Vally, wine. They were quick to explain to me that they don't usually have wine with lunch on the weekdays but do on weekends. I also had ensalada, which consisted of another sliced avocado, more deskinned tomato and some cold cooked vegetables like canned peas, string beans, corn and cauliflower. Most of the people at the table did not have any vegatables at all except for french fries.
Herbal tea is very common here and I plan to bring some back. Both in Dr. Marcinellis office and at lunch I had one called "Boldo." One does not expect to find a list of ingredients on the teas, so I have no idea what it is. Speaking of herbs and such, farmacias are very plentiful and according to Arnoldo, you can get many drugs, especially antibiotics, without a prescription. Also we have seen a homeopathic pharmacy in downtown Concepcion.
It is kind of cold in here. There is a space heater on, but the university has not turned on the heat yet. Last night we wound up eating at a chinese restaurant. It was rainly and we didnt want to go very far from the hotel. There were NO FORTUNE COOKIES!!! Oh well. The food was acceptable, nothing incredible.
We went back to the hotel and channel surfed. We were hoping to watch something on CNN but it was the money report, then Larry King interviewing Carroll O'Connor in a live call-in format and then something endless about Korea. We spent some time watching the Deutsche world news service which was in English. There was a report on the OJ Simpson trial on another station but it was in Spanish and I couldn't totally follow it. My spanish is limited by my vocabulary! We also spent some time watching american movies with spanish subtitles, which could be a very interesting way to learn spanish. There is also a french channel and the movies there have french subtitles, which I suspect allow the chileans to follow along. There are a lot of channels, but I don't know how many. We saw some dubbed reruns of American shows, e.g. Cagney and Lacey, but I had no idea that was what it was, which Vally found very funny.
One thing I keep forgetting to mention is that chilean woman have, or are allowed to have big feet. The shoes in the store windows appear to be at least a size 9 (american) and when you see people walking around their feet seem larger than those of american women (not counting me!).
Well, almost enough. Last thing.... this morning when Arnoldo picked us up we talked some about Pinochet. He said that he is still very angry about what happened as are most people but everyone is trying to put it behind them. The good state of chilean economic growth helps. he said, also, that since no one he knew was killed or tortured, it was easier for him than for some others. I think the Argentine general's confession this week may have a big impact here because there has not been much accountability. Pinochet still gets to appoint 2 of the 45 deputies in the chilean senate. Also, one of the laws that was passed under Pinchet requires a 3/4 (I think, maybe it was 2/3) majority to overturn a law. Thus there are still laws on the books that people would like to see gone, especially those giving special rights to the military, but the pro democracy forces do not yet have the votes to do that.
Well, enough of all this. I am sitting here at the computer watching fall happen out the window. The trees are turning, rapidly, visibly and noticibly. Time to quit. Vally is at a lecture being given by Derek Barton from the University of Texas who won the first Nobel prize in chemistry, has visited here for periods of time, and is being awarded something like his 34th honorary doctorate in the
past two years. Vally has met him before.
Well ...
Hasta mañana
Love
Phyllis and Vally
Well, the rain stopped and the puddles went away so we could walk back to our hotel last night which is good because we sat around most of the day. In the morning we had noticed that there was a supermarket about a block away from the hotel, actually Arnoldo told us it was no mere supermarket, it was a "hipermercado." So, after we got back we went to the hipermercado. I find supermarkets absolutely fascinating! I fully understand everything that is sold in an American supermarket and so the differences really stand out. We have an Asian supermarket in St. Louis which just amazes me, actually overwhelms me, because I have no idea what almost any of that is for. When we go to the Indian grocery store in St. Louis, I am always asking Vally to explain what everything is for. Interestingly, Vally told me that he does not have the feeling, in an American grocery, that he fully understands what everything is for. It never occurred to me.
So, anyway, off we went to the hipermercado. There were some vendors (of salad, I think) right outside and then a mall-like short corridor that led to the entrance. Along there were a newsstand, a bulk candy store and maybe something else, I don't remember. Right inside the door were guards (a feature of many stores) and a rectangular counter, about 20 feet by 6 feet (the 6 foot side facing the entrance), painted orange, at which one surrendered all of ones pocketbooks and backpacks. On an orange post at one edge there was a picture, under clear plastic of the employee of the month. This was absolutely IDENTICAL to what we see at supermarkets in St. Louis. I have to go back to the supermarket to sort out my impressions and I am hoping to have an english-speaking guide who will really explain it all, but I will share my random impressions.
-Things are packaged differently. Glass bottles are less used and the kind of containers that say, a large Dannon yogurt or cottage cheese comes in appear non-existent. Soft plastic is used instead. For example Hellman's mayonnaise comes in a plastic container, sort of flat on the bottom and tapering to a seam across the top. Yogurt comes in something that looks like the kind of bag that plasma would be stored in. They have several brands and one said "diet" but I could not figure out from reading the label which that meant. The rest of the yogurt comes in small containers like pudding comes in here, only bigger and is flavored, although I did find a plain one. There is also something else which is sold like yogurt and I can't remember the name , starts with an s and ends with re. I don't know what that is. The yogurt is very good but has a much softer texture (more european??) than in the US.
-There was an in-store bakery with open bins of rolls. A woman was dumping more hot rolls into the bins. They are sold by the kilo and there is a checker there with an automatic scale, just like we have, that lists what you bought and the price. This is useful, since we have no idea what anything is called. We bought a folded roll and a whole wheat roll ("integral") as snacks. It finally dawned on me that the bread has the texture it does because it is made, all or in part, with potato flour. (We plan to find a chilean cook book).
-They have an incredible variety of powdered juices. They are sold in thick individual packets, very colorful. I was reading the ingredients of the pear juice and was down to the fourth ingredient and it still didn't say anything about pears so I began to have my doubts. There are a lot of them, however, like top to bottom, probably 10 feet of display space. They have Tang too. -They have an incredible variety of canned fish products, the names of which I did not recognize, although later I found out that locos are abalone.
-They have three ways to buy meat. One is just like ours, although parts like small intestine of cows, sliced hearts, udder, etc are a little strange, but the packaging, pre packaged, preweighed is the same. The second way is do-it yourself bulk. The meat is there, you choose what you want. Then there are also butchers. I am not sure that everything can be had in every fashion, but some of it definitely. -Fish is cheap and plentiful, but we didn't exactly figure out the prices. meat prices were similar to the US according to Vally who keeps track of that sort of thing.
-The produce department was a blast. First, many of the fruits and vegetables were far larger than anything I had seen here. This was true of celery, kiwis, pears, apples and bananas. Vally wanted to experiment so we bought "tunas" which are prickly pears, "pepinos dolces" which translates to sweet cucumber and maracayunas(or something like that, have to check the label-later found out they were passion fruit). I don't know if any of it was ripe or not, but we cut them up and ate them anyway. There were some things we absolutely did not recognize that looked like rawhide, all folded up and wrapped up, but was light like a dried vine. I'll let you know what that turns out to be. Maybe next time I'll pay attention to the prices.
-American shampoo, toothpaste, etc are available.
-Did not see any brown rice.
-The best part was at the checkout counter. There were two magazines available, one was Caras (faces), don't remember the other. There were also book for sale, in Spanish of course. Here were the titles: One by Richard Bach, another book by Richard Bach whose English title I can't remember , Many Lives,Many Masters by Brian Weiss, a book called The Many Lives of Mary (also about past lives) and one more in a similar vein. The only other books for sale were called "A Mi Madre" and "A Mi Padre" and were very sentimental, children's book length and sized, greeting card style poems. That was it, besides the batteries and candy bars.
-Vally tried something that looked like roast beef rolled around hard boiled egg and carrot and maybe something else. He said it was really good.
-We also got juice. I think I mentioned that there is a brand of juice that we were served on the plane which was really good (lonco or something) and we got some. It comes in 1 liter softsided containers, like giant individual drinks.
-They have all of the little prepackaged puddings, but I don't think I have seen flan in the US. That's what I got.
It was a great relief to find the supermarket so I could have my usual yogurt, non fat granola and fruit for breakfast. We have a minibar in the room and we took all of the sodas out and put our groceries in.
So we went back to hotel room and munched. Actually, we wanted to borrow a plate, a knife and a spoon first and had to call room service. Vally hadn't actually recovered from the steak, but he made a valiant effort.
We were given a check to reimburse us for incidental expenses and today we decided to cash it. We went to the nearest bank (concepcion has a lot of banks) and they told us that since it was drawn on the Bank of Concepcion we had to go there, so we did. At every bank there were huge lines. Today is payday and this is a 3-day weekend. Monday is Labor Day, and the date is chosen to correspond to an event in the labor movement in the US, something in Chicago, I think (May Day, acutally). Anyway, when we got to the Bank of Concepcion, once again there were incredible lines, we're talking at least 25 people waiting for each teller. We went to one of the people-behind a- desk. They have a section of those, just like in the US, and asked her how to cash the check. You have to wait on line, she told us sadly. I asked if it would be any better if we came back later (since this was lunch hour) and she said, even more sadly, no, worse. At that point she decided to take pity on us and had Vally sign the check (you sign on the front here when you cash a check) and she went off to cash it for us. We felt blessed.
We also went to the tourism bureau and asked for information. The lady lit up and asked us to sit down. We wanted to know where we could go from here-Concepcion is NOT a tourist area as I think I may have said. She told us we could take buses to the north beaches, the south beaches or to Chillan near the Andes. These trips involve rides of up to 2 hours and according to her the buses are constantly leaving. Later we went to a travel agent and asked her about the same things and she wrinkled her nose and said "You don't want to go there."
Our laundry was starting to accumulate and the idea of paying hotel rates was more than I could handle, even assuming that our hosts would pick up the tab. It turns out that there are laundries who do your wash by the kilo. It comes back neatly folded and I think, if necessary, ironed. They charge the equivalent of about $1 a pound and weigh it in a hanging produce scale with a wicker basket at the base. So, we got the laundry dealt with.
We had lunch in a cafeteria, only its called autoservice or something like that here. It helped to be able to see the food before making a decision. I had a salad-the usual, except no avocados here, tomatoes, cooked string beans, peas, corn, spinach, hard boiled egg. All cold, and, I realize now, cooked without salt. Also, there was a quarter of an enormous lemon, in fact , at first I thought it was a grapefruit section. There was oil and vinegar and salt but no pepper. Also a hard boiled egg with squiggles of mayonesa on it. Along with my whole wheat roll it wasn't bad. I wont go into Vally's lunch-I'm not even quite sure what it was. The coffee thing was incredible. The rest of it was standard cafeteria, perfectly efficient. Vally ordered a large (i.e. ordinary by American standards) cup of coffee. They only had "Nescafe" which is instant. Heres how it works. You order coffee and go and sit down. A woman brings you, on a round, polished aluminum tray, a cup, sugar, a covered glass carafe sort of thing with a spoon and instant coffee and then she pours hot water into your cup from a metal coffee pot. You can add all of the coffee and sugar you want, you are paying for the hot water. The routine is the same for tea, except she brings a tea bag. I got some Lonco juice which I thought was peach and drank as peach but later I realized it was apricot (it still tasted like peach).
One final note for today, because its getting late. We are trying to decide about renting a car for the weekend. It would cost about $185 with unlimited mileage to rent one for 3 days and we thought that knowing the weather forecast would be helpful since it is still quite overcast. Arnoldos secretary tried several sources to get us information about the weather forecast (which will be on TV tonight) and she was told that the information is "privado", i.e. confidential. We couldn't believe it! We tried the Internet and although we could probably have found out what the weather forecast is for your backyard, we could not find a weather forecast for Chile. Amazing. We'll probably rent the car anyway.
We will be logging on one day this weekend, but it may be that the next long letter will be on Tuesday after my talk. By the way, the funny characters are quotation marks and apostrophes. I have to save this is what is called ASCII format and those things change. There may be a better way to do it, but right now that is what is happening.
Love
Phyllis and Vally
Well, there's a lot more to tell than I am going to remember or be able to write (or that you want to sift through, for that matter) but I'll write what I can. At the end of my last letter, we were unsuccessfully attempting to get a weather forecast. Arnoldo finally pulled some strings and the forecast was for a new storm to move in, so we gave up on the car. A new storm did move in that night, but actually it was pretty much over by morning...
Friday night, on our way home from the university we wandered into an off track betting parlor-one very large screen TV showing the action, with fixed seats in front of it and about 10 smaller monitors. I don't remember how many people were taking bets at the windows. We lasted through one race, but the place was totally unventilated and there were about 300 people in there, the majority of whom were smoking and the air was so thick that it was visibly grey. It was fun watching people get excited and our picks would have lost, so its a good thing we didn't bet.
Saturday we went back to the Naturista for lunch. On the way out the owner, Victor, introduced himself. Fortunately for Vally, Victor speaks good English. Victor appears to be about 70, with a thin, kind of cramped- looking body but with bright, warm, very alive eyes and a very spiritual quality. We asked if the restaurant is part of some sort of spiritual community and he said, no, but he owns the apartment building in front of the restaurant and it is populated by students and various other folks who are interested in various forms of spirituality. He gave us a short speech about how terribly Chileans eat "White everything." We met a couple of American students who live in Victor's building. One was from Wisconsin but is a student both at Colby college in Maine and the University of Concepcion. She first came here as a high school exchange student and I think this is her third stay. She is studying environmental biology. I asked her about the major difference between the university here and there. Of course, Colby is a very small school. "Disorganization" she said. When she got here, it took her two weeks to figure out which classes to take because there was no catalog and no class list. Later, we asked Arnoldo about this and he said that through his efforts, the university will have a catalog and class list starting next year. He was originally told that there was no money to buy paper and no money to have it printed, but since he found the money, there will finally be a catalog.
We asked Victor about other people, including people whomight do Reiki, that we might meet and he suggested Graciela Fuentes. So, off we trooped to her place. Graciela, it turns out, is a one-woman human potential movement in Concepcion (although she said there were 4 other facilitators in town). By profession she is a cosmetologist and teaches certification-level cosmetology classes, but she also does everything else from Reiki and other forms of body work, to Tai Chi, to Gestalt therapy to Bach Flower remedies and a lot more. She also speaks English! Graciela was most gracious and invited us to a meeting that night of like-minded people.
After we left Graciela's place we kept walking towards the Biobio river, which was very close. We crossed the railroad tracks and quickly realized that we were truly on the "other side of the tracks." This was my first experience of a real shantytown-small rickety wooden houses with corrugated and broken tile roofs, some with visible holes where the wood had rotted, painted random bright colors, surrounded by fences of various found materials. The road was totally unpaved. There were dogs everywhere-none of them housepets, but all appearing to think they belonged to one of the houses. All of the dogs were free. We saw a few cats too. Since it had rained the night before, it was very muddy. This was the first place where we were stared at. I am guessing that strangers are not very common there. There were children playing and a big soccer game, also some horse drawn carts (with the dogs chasing the horses). Vally asked me if the children looked happy and I had to say that they did not have the carefree look of the children we first saw at the Parque de Arau (the shopping center), there was a quality of worry and strain about them. As we stood by the river, we saw a woman with a 2 year old and a very happy looking dog come down to the rise next to the river. She proceeded to pitch two plastic grocery bags of trash over the rise and left. There were a lot of incredibly old cars there too.
Later Arnoldo said that the whole neighborhood is scheduled to be razed next year and the riverfront cleaned up to make room for a luxury hotel. I can see why. The river is wide and the view is beautiful. Today, someone told me that that neighborhood has major with alcohol, marijuana and the Chilean version of crack cocaine and that whole families sleep in the same bed because that is all they can afford. This was in the context of the obstacles that children from there face in terms of getting a good enough education to get out.
That evening Graciela came to get us and we walked up to someones apartment. Concepcion has a lot of what may be called galerias. That is, the stores are not very large, and the inside of many of the blocks is hollowed out to make and indoor shopping mall. Thus there are far more stores than meet the eye downtown. There is also one hotel that occupies the 6th and 7th floors of a building and the lower floors are offices and shops. Anyway, there are apartments above the galerias, at least in some places, and this was one. So, in order to get us in, the host had some people stationed at the iron gates that protect the shopping area after hours, to keep them open for us. The evening turned out to be a slide show about the inscriptions that are found on rock in some areas that are left from the ancient Indian peoples. The point appeared to be that many of the symbols are identical to those found in Chinese medicine. The talk was in Spanish and I followed about 1/3 of it. Almost no one spoke English (there were about a dozen people) but we did meet a friend of Gracielas, a woman named Juanita who invited us to come and visit us in her cottage in the fishing village of Dichato. Juanita is in her late 40's and is the Chilean version of an ex-hippie and spiritual seeker. She had a wonderful sweetness and warmth and a totally unpretentious, down-to-earth quality. We accepted her invitation and Graciela offered to take us there on Monday.
Sunday, we had lunch (or dinner, or pig out) at Arnoldo's. When I watch people here eat, I still cant believe it! This dinner started with half a bowlful of tartar steak (I had the salad and the hard boiled egg), then roast beef with potato salad, sweet potato salad (different kind, light yellow interior, very good), peas, lettuce, oh yes, bread-Arnoldo's step daughter who is at least 20 lbs overweight and unconcerned, had her tartar steak on a piece of bread with a thick layer of butter on it, can't remember what else in the way of vegetables. I had ravioli. Most drank Pepsi Americano. Arnoldo had wine. For dessert we had ice cream. Afterwards I had tea made from a plant in the back yard which I think was lemon verbena.
After lunch, Arnoldo took us to see the Desembucadora (or something like that) which is the place that the Biobio meets the sea. On the way, I noticed that there were horses tied up eating grass at several places, like medians, where it was growing. In one place a horse was tied up just behind the goal of a soccer net where some children were playing. There was no net in the frame.
First we stopped at a museum that is on the property. It is the former residence of Don Pedro de something who was a major world traveller. His first wife and two children died of diphtheria in 1883 so, in despair, he decided to go on a trip around the world. He collected memorabilia from everywhere. With his second wife he went on two more trips, including making it to the Worlds Fair in St. Louis in 1904. The house is a museum and is filled with many of the objects he collected. You name it, he got it- a mummy from Egypt, newspapers from St. Louis, and everywhere else, shoes, pipes (including one from St. Louis), stuffed animals, jewelry, parts of churches, glasses, its all there-grouped by the part of the world it was from or the category of material. There are also some wonderful period rooms, although the place is humid and many things are in much worse shape than they would be in the US- e.g. the veneer is peeling off a lot of the furniture. Anyway, it was fascinating (although I was underdressed and kind of cold).
Then we went down to the beach. The sand was black!!!! During the summer, this is a very crowded and popular beach. This day there were only a few dozen people, mostly families. There are two small, somewhat steep hills at the mouth of the river (called Las Tetas del Rio-the breasts of the river). We walked along the beach and soon we were at the base of one of the tetas. There was black sedimentary rock everywhere, but it was broken into huge pieces and tossed at all different angles-like it had once been at the bottom of the sea, and then was strewn around by a huge earthquake. We climbed over the rocks and then Vally decided that we should climb the hill. I was dubious and Arnoldo enthusiastic. I allowed myself to get talked into it. Actually, it was fun. It was steep and we had to avoid some plants that looked like giant aloe plants but up close appeared rigid and sharp, and it was a bit muddy and slippery, but everyone made it (and I certainly wasn't cold anymore!). The view from the top was spectacular-on one side the river and on the other the sea, very blue with very white foam and the rocks. We went down the back side which was only moderately steep. At the bottom of the hill there was a shanty house, with a chicken yard, etc, so apparently someone lives there.
Monday, before going to Dichato, we first were invited to Arnoldo's for pizza. This pizza was much better than what we had at the restaurant the last week, but similar. The crust is like a thick pastry crust, something like you might see with a tart in the US, but not at sweet. The cheese was thick and white. My pizza had black mushrooms (incredibly good) and sliced red pepper with a little bit of oregano. The others had a topping of cheese, sliced ham, tomatoes, anchovies and ???? Some had seconds. Meanwhile, Arnoldo had grilled some steaks. Only while we were waiting for the steaks, another round of pizza showed up and this pizza was totally covered with pieces of sausage (picture sausage links, cut in half lengthwise and colored red). Then came the steaks and left over vegetables from yesterday. And ice cream over chopped fruit (kiwis, bananas and apples-called tutifruti). More Pepsi and I had apricot nectar. I only ate one piece of pizza, out of determination not to stupefy myself and also because I ate breakfast, which made me an object of great concern because I "wasn't eating.
Then we went to Dichato. Actually Arnoldo drove us there, after picking up Graciela and her 11 year old daughter Kati. The trip was about an hour up the coast. I wish I could describe Juanitas house. It is totally hidden behind an unattractive grey fence made of what was once green wood with a corrugated metal gate. The house is 100 years old and made of wood. It belonged to Juanitas grandparents. It took her grandmother 6 days by oxcart to get there from Concepcion. It does have electricity but the water-operated toilet is in a separate building-a shed. The ceiling of the house is about 6 1/2 feet high and the floor is made of planks. The rooms are small and interconnected. She has a small kitchen, a dining area that just holds a long rectangular wooden table and the rest of the rooms (maybe 3 or 4) are bedrooms, i.e. they have a metal framed bed and dresser. Very nicely decorated in the natural, country hippie style-neat things on the walls, nice folksy but simple covers on the bed, dried flowers, shells, etc. No stereo or TV. Juanita has a 7 year old daughter who lives with her name Anitek (after Juanita's spirit guide) who was delightful and proved to be a great mushroom spotter when we went out for our walk. We headed for the beach (yellow sand this time). There were rocks everywhere, but they were much smaller. There was also seaweed everywhere and seaweed drying. Juanita told us that they eat two types of sea weed. One, which we had seen a lot of the day before is the one that I described seeing in the supermarket that, dried, looks like rawhide. Eventually, I will remember the name of it long enough to write it (its something like cocheyoyo and we will bring some back). Juanita said they cut that one up and cook it for 15 minutes in the pressure cooker. The other sort of looks like kombu and is found growing from the rocks. They serve it with fried potatoes and chilis. This is considered a poor peoples dish and is not available in restaurants. There are some others that are dried and used for cosmetics and another that looks like hijiki only the strands are much longer that Juanita said the Japanese like to buy. She said they don't use that one.
So, we walked along the beach. Dichato is a fishing town but I didn't see anything larger than a big rowboat, so I guess that's what they use. We also saw some memorials to people who were lost at sea-sort of like Christmas creches, with candles and artificial flowers. The town consists of small houses, a little further apart and maybe in better shape than the shanties we saw on Saturday. There were also some nice new prefabricated vacation houses and many restaurants. We walked along the dirt road that runs right in front of some houses and right behind the beach. The beach is maybe 50 feet wide. The most amazing sight to me was the chickens-somehow looking down and seeing chickens, at the edge of the sea, pecking around in the seaweed was a totally new concept! We continued past all of the houses and it became very beautiful- beach with big black rocks, road and an abundance of plants-raspberry vines, bamboo and a lot of shrubs I didn't recognize. Juanita showed me the boldo plant, source of a tea that I had already had more than once, and liked. I came back with an armload of boldo which I will bring back to the US. One person told us that boldo was good for upset stomachs, another that it was good for meditation since it decreased the libido, but it seems to be a normally drunk herbal tea here, since I have been served it in restaurants.
Anyway, we collected a lot of beautiful shells on the beach and Vally picked up a very round rock. We were walking back at sunset and it was all incredibly beautiful. When we got back to Juanitas we had more tea (Rose Hips), some bread, wild blackberry jam and cookies. It was perfect. We left at around 8 PM. I was unaware until then what would be involved in getting back to Concepcion (Arnoldo had left). We had to take a collectivo, which is a taxicab that is on a fixed route and takes as many passengers as it can hold, to Tome. Only we weren't the only people waiting for a collectivo. Juanita finally captured one for us. The fare was 200 pesos each (about 50 cents). Then in Tome we took the bus to Concepcion (about 300 pesos each). The bus was crowded and Vally wound up standing. We all got on without paying. About halfway through the 1 hour ride, the collector squeezed through the bus getting everyone's money. Vally said that was pretty normal in India, except there the buses took all of the people they could possibly hold and they still collected the fares by that method. So we got back and Graciela led us to our hotel, since we had no idea where we were when we got off the bus. I will stop here, although there is more to tell. It will wait. We should be in Concepcion until at least Thursday. By tomorrow, I will have a better idea of our plans.
Well
Hasta maña (bet that character doesn't translate!)
Love
Phyllis and Vally
May 3, 1995 Communication Number 7
Hello everyone
This one is being written in Word Perfect (which we brought). That way I can spell check whatever I write, which I probably could not have done in the Spanish version of Microsoft Word. I may not get very far today, since it is late and I have been doing other things, but we'll see...
I left off yesterday just before we met Maria Antoineta Valenzuela, chemistry professor from Santiago and force of nature. Maria was originally planning to come here to sit in on Vally's class, but when the class got canceled due to massive disorganization, she decided to come anyway. We had no idea what to expect, but had talked to her over the phone. She seemed so enthusiastic that we were baffled, especially when she announced that she was coming anyway, even without the class. She turned out to be just as she had seemed, warm, enthusiastic, incredibly talkative and, basically our guardian angel. She and Vally got to do the chemistry thing-talking with Baeza and his group and spending time with Nelson Carbuchon (or something like that) who is the U of Concepcions's enzyme chemist and talking with each other, but mainly she came and took care of us. First, yesterday, she took us to a very good seafood restaurant where we ate massive portions of salmon with seafood sauce (me) and shellfish chowder (Vally). It was so nice to be with someone who understood the menu. ( We returned the favor by taking her to the Naturista today). Then we worked out the details of our talks (Wednesday, May 10th in Santiago and Friday, May 12th in Valparaiso). Then we got down to the serious business of figuring out what we will do between Friday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Friday of next week. Between her and Arnoldo's secretary, we have it all
figured out. Here is what is going to happen.
1. We are going to ship our excess luggage to Maria's house in Santiago (tomorrow).
2. We are going to take a Tur Bus bus to Temuco (south of here, 5 hours) on Friday, leaving at about 9:30 AM.
3. From Temuco, we are going to rent a car and drive to Villarica (about another 2 hours south). Villarica is in the lake country, on a lake and at the base of a smoking volcano. This is the country of magnificent scenery, Indian settlements, markets etc. It is a tourist area, but this is the off season.
4. In Villarica we will be staying in a guesthouse that is run by someone that Arnoldo's secretary knows. We will be there from Friday through Tuesday.
5. On Tuesday we will fly back to Santiago from Temuco and stay in a hotel right near where Maria works.
6. On Wednesday we will give our talks. Maria will be contacting some cardiologists that I have corresponded with and make sure they know when my talk is. Then Maria will take us to a place in the mountains whose name I forgot, for the day.
7. On Thursday we will take a bus to Viña Del Mar which is near Valparaiso and Maria will make sure that we know who our hosts are and that they meet us and show us around.
8. Friday we give our talks again and then return to Santiago on Saturday to reunite with our luggage and spend the rest of our time in Santiago with Maria and her family. Ladeco willing we leave on Saturday around 10 PM.
9. Maria will arrange for us to have access to the Internet in Santiago and in Valparaiso, so you will be hearing from us at that time. I will write tomorrow before we leave here also.
So, that's the plan.
Back to the present...
Last night, when we made our near-daily trip to the hipermercado I began to be aware of some of the differences between this store and an American supermarket. The store is quite large, but the aisles are wide-at least 4 shopping carts wide, instead of the 2 we are used to in the US. Then I realized that there were several things that were "missing." Among them, there is no salad dressing-it is simply not used here. Lemon juice, vinegar and oil, yes, but dressing, no. There is no frozen juice, powdered, but no frozen. There are no canned vegetables or canned soup, some powdered soups. The pet food occupies about 6 feet of display space-there is cat chow and dried dog food and some canned food, but not much. People here tend to cook for their pets. There are frozen vegetables. There are toilet paper, napkins, paper towels, but all smaller than their us counterparts. The hipermercado does not sell Kleenex, although Maria says that the stores in Santiago do. There is a lot more pudding in the dairy case and cherimoya yogurt (which I love). There are only a couple of cake mixes and no packaged dinners of the sort where you add water and cook for 20 min. There is plenty of soda, beer, wine, pasta, rice, tomato sauce and one brand of what we call Mexican food. There is almost no packaged bread, but, as I mentioned there is an in store bakery. I have not seen any packaged beans of any sort. Maria said that they are between seasons, that dried beans are used in the winter and that last years are considered too hard and are not used.
Something I forgot to mention is the woman I call the "coffee lady." Vally says that that sort of person is common in India. She is here all of the time, buzzes us in when the door is locked at lunchtime, but basically, as far as I can determine, her job is to bring coffee to everyone who works here, and to guests like us. A couple of times she brought me some orange juice, but it tasted like Tang and made me feel ill, so I have given up on her services. I have already mentioned the dismal state of coffee here, or rather the two systems of coffee. Maria told us that the real stuff is called "cafe real" (pronounced ray al). So now we know how to ask for it. Actually we had gotten to "Es Nescafe?" There is some way to type the upside down question mark on this keyboard, but I haven't figured out how. I think the coffee lady serves cafe real.
I have been noticing that there is a certain type of woman who works as a maid or the equivalent. She is always somewhat short, even squat (whatever that means) and there is something about her manner, maybe a subservience, that tells you what she is. Maria said that all of the women who work full time have maids. The maid does all of the cooking and cleaning and is home when the children get home from school. She works 6 days a week. I think about American families where both parents work full time and there is no maid, and think how nice it would be (for us, at least) if we had maids in the US.
Oh yes, I did give a talk on Heart Rate Variability yesterday to about 20 people, half graduate students and half faculty. It was reasonably well received considering it was a captive audience and they had no real reason to want to know about it. My host, Dr. Marchanelli was fascinated which was very nice.
So, tomorrow, we will wind up Concepcion. We will shop for souvenirs and post cards and a gift for Arnoldo's wife (we knew he would not take anything) and pack what we need for the lake country.
I'll write briefly tomorrow, unless something really interesting happens between now and
then.
Love, Phyllis and Vally
Communique Number 8 May 4, 1995
Hi everyone
Well, we'll be incommunicado for a few days now. That used to be normal for vacations but now it will seem strange. Today I will just put together miscellaneous small details that I have forgetten to send.
Dichato-Juanita told us that every household bootlegs wine from the country. They sell it in what appear to be gallon wine jugs with a fakes plastic wide-weave basket at the bottom.
The campus loudspeaker is playing really loud rock at the moment-hard to think.
Street vendors-all through Concepcion there are street vendors, mostly selling candy, as well as a few selling avocados and humitas (which are like tamales, wrapped in cornhusks, but bigger and softer), lottery tickets and magazines. Similar sorts to the US, newpapers, tabloids, sports mags, comics, etc. We have not seen any books, magazines or newspapers in English. There are a lot of candy vendors nears the schools since everyone leaves school between 12:30 and 2:30 and goes home for lunch, often piled into collectivos (small taxis).
The street-the sidewalks are made of some sort of tiles. They are usually about 8 inches square. Some are cross hatched and some have parallel lines so that the tile is divided into 7 sections. They may be made of cement, since some are cement colored. Others are blue or red. There is no place we have walked where the tiles are not cracked with pieces, or frequently groups of them, missing.
Misspellings...the town is Talcahuano, the sister town of Concepcion. The people of Concepion look down on Talcahuano. The seaweed is cochayuyo. I put together a box consisting of the boldo that Juanita gave us, the shells that we picked up on the beach at Dichato and at the mouth of the Biobio, some cochayuyo and the rock that Vally picked up. After some struggle to communicate we managed, after opening it up for inspection, to mail it to the US. We went for cheap (which was $18) and it will go by boat. Supposedly we will see it in about 3 months. it will be like a time capsule.
We also shipped two suitcases to Maria in Santiago. They weighed 42 kg (about 90 lbs) and cost less than $10 to send to Maria's house. We could each barely drag one down the hall. The bellhop/doorman managed to carry both at the same time without showing any strain. He weighs maybe 135 lbs. We were impressed. The bus ticket to Temuco (5 hours) cost $11 for both of us.
Yesterday there was a national bus strike of all of the within city buses. Supposedly, the issue was that the drivers were getting too many traffic tickets and having to pay for them themselves. People left work early to make up for the buses. There is a lot of struggle, in some sense, here, maybe that's true everywhere. We noticed that the chemistry faculty have reserved parking spaces while Arnoldo has to work to find a parking space every day. (His car, the mid 70's Chevy Nova, is unique here-it is absolutely the biggest car we have seen in this city). Anyway, we asked Arnoldo why he didn't have a reserved parking space since he is a Dean. He said he didn't believe in it (too inegalitarian) and then he said that the chemistry department wasn't really allowed to do it either, they just put up signs. Sometimes, he said, "When I can't find a parking space, I use one of theirs."
Since they're not supposed to have reserved spots, there's nothing they can say about it. I thought that in some way, this symbolized Chile.
Today we also changed our tickets so that we can fly from Temuco to Santiago. The process took over an hour from the time that the very nice agent began to try to help us. Every transaction in Chile ends with someone rubberstamping several documents. One becomes like Pavlov's dog, one hears the sound of the rubber stamp and begins to have hope.
Well, I am frustrated that I could not remember all of the things I wanted to say, but we have to get going. I'll try to
write from Santiago on Tuesday.
Love,
Phyllis and Vally
Hi We are fine and have have many adventures that we will be sharing, but not now. We do not have the time and computer access we had in Concepcion. But I have been making little notes so that I won't be forgetting as much and won't finish a letter with the feeling that there is something really neat I wanted to share. Right now we are in Santiago, having been in Villarica, Temuco and Valdivia. Tomorrow we go to Valapriaiso and Vina Del Mar. Sorry about the typoes. This is too slow to edit. We are fine and I promise you will hear about our adventures-picture active voano, Mapuche village, isolated black sand beach in the misty rain. (well, volcano, not voano). Vally can order coffee in Spanish and not get Nescafe) and I can make myself understood but it would take a long time for me to have enough vocabulary to really understand most of what is going on.
I think people are waiting for us, so I'd better quit now. We may get a chance to log on from Valparaiso, otherwise, Monday.
Love to all
Phyllis and Vally
Subject: letter 10 last one from Chile
Hello everyone
Didn't think I would have time to write again before we left Chile and it all stopped being timely, but I have been given the use of a machine while Vally gives his talk. We are in Valparaiso right now, at the Universidad Catolica. Every town has one and they are somewhat better funded than the public universities. However, neither the public universities or the private ones in Santiago or Valparaiso have real campuses-the faculties are scattered all over the city, often in building that we built for some other purpose. This one, and the one we saw in Santiago were built a long time ago (this one in the 20's) for the university. I wish I could describe them-they are truly wonderful, maybe like government buildings in the US, but with a Spanish design that includes courtyards in the middle with palm trees and mosaic tile floors. This building has a beautiful chapel and the hallway on each floor is outdoors and looks down on the courtyard. The original ceilings were so high that floors have been inserted which hold the offices and labs of the chemistry department.
We are staying at a hotel in Vina del Mar, while is Chile's Rivera. Our hotel is about 75 feet from the ocean, which is crashing against the rocks just below the street. Vina is beautiful, the summer playground for Santiago and for many Argentineans, since Argentina is only a few hours drive away, on a fairly good highway. Everything is well maintained (for Chile), with beautiful parks and plantings, hotels and every other sort of tourist accommodation (resedencias, hospidajes) and restaurants. Vina and Valapariso are essentially the same city (total population 700,000), except Vina is the playground and Valparaiso is an industrial and port city. There is a small amount of flat space (from feet to blocks) between the sea and the hills, so everything is build on the hillsides. Our host took us for a drive along the coast and the was any number of condos going up which looked, from a distance, like amphitheater seats for a giant. In order for the tenants to get up to their homes, there are semi-vertical elevators call "funiculares." It is all built on sand but our host assured us that the foundations were very deep and they would not slide into the sea during the next earthquake.
Speaking of earthquakes-Chile has a significant one at least every 10 years (the last one was in Valparaiso). The 10 years will be up this weekend and still no earthquake.... Chileans are pretty sanguine about earthquakes. By now, everything that could fall down has. They know that if power goes off, it was more than a magnitude 5. Actually, they do get nervous, but earthquakes are a fact of life. I was reading a brochure about the history of Chillan (a town we didn't get to) and it was almost comic. The history read something like this: The town was built in the mid-1700's and burned down a year later. It was rebuilt in time for the next earthquake and promptly fell over. It was rebuilt again at another nearby site and maybe the Indians got it that time. This happened a few more times, and the last time it was knocked over by an earthquake was 1939. Well, I have been keeping some notes, but I can't possible get to everything.
We left Concepcion on Friday morning. The university chauffeur came and got us and took us to the bus terminal. Arnoldo was there to see us off. The bus was waiting-we were headed for Temuco. We were totally blown away by the bus. Tur bus is luxury. The bus was enormous. Made in Brazil. The seats were comfortable and really reclined-air travel would be a breeze if the seats were that good. The bus had a TV monitor, pillows, blankets, a bathroom, sodas. The driver and the conductor had a compartment to themselves, sealed off in front. They were listening to tapes the whole way, but we didn't hear them at all. The bus stopped for someone to come on and sell newspapers and later for someone to some on and sell sweets (we waited for them to get off before continuing). We sat in the front seat which gave us a very good view of the Chilean sport of passing on a two lane road. It was truly amazing. Chile's main highway (Rt 5) to the south is two lane virtually all the way and also winding and hilly. Our driver was really good-very calm and careful, but he did not hesitate to pass and there were time when the oncoming vehicle was visibly headed for the side of the road as we got into our lane. Chilean's also have worked out a good system for passing in groups, a very subtle dance. This is especially challenging because virtually all of the smaller trucks carry double trailers, with a painted sign at the back saying how long the thing is (usually 21 meters). We stopped about halfway for 15 minutes. All of the bus terminals have "cafeterias" which are small restaurants. They also charge 50 pesos for toilet paper, if you don't have your own.
After the stop, the conductor started a video. The TV was just over our heads so we couldn't see it very well and didn't want to watch it badly enough to move. So we drove through the countryside of Chile listening to a Japanese samauri-type equivalent to a shoot-em up movie, dubbed in Spanish with random English subtitles. I am pleased to report that Toshiro Mifune spoke very good Spanish. Actually, the soundtrack was very strange-it sounded more like the soundtrack of a cartoon than of a film. Shortly after the movie ended, we were in Temuco.
Learning the geography of a new town whose street names are in a foreign language is tiring. Our excellent guide book had maps of every city. Also, it turns out (and this may be true in the US, but we don't tend to notice as much) Chilean cities have many of the same street names. There is always a San Martin, a Bernardo O'Higgins, a Pedro de Valdivia, Anabel Pinto, Pedro Montt, Barros Anana and the rest of the heros, including Indians and Indian places like Lincoyan and Chocabuco. So, the words do become familiar.
In Temuco we intended to take a bus to Villarica and rent a car there. However, we were advised, by more than one source, that there is no way to rent a car in Villarica, except to have it transported from Temuco (Chile's fastest growing city, by the way). We wound up at the Chilean automobile club (which had moved since the guidebook was written) and allowed ourselves to be talked into renting a car there(15% discount for AAA members which we are). Car rental is ridiculously expensive in Chile. We finally worked out a deal whereby we got the car on Friday and returned it on Tuesday morning, but only paid for 3 days of rental. Then the nice lady asked where we intended to go, and I mentioned the volcano at Villarica and we allowed ourselves to be talked into paying only $20 more to rent a small pick up truck, instead of a tiny Fiat. We paid a total of $232, which included unlimited mileage, taxes and insurance for a grey Toyota Hi Lux (the kind with a back seat). It did not have AC, power steering, power brakes or cruise control but did have a radio and tape deck. (When we actually tried to use the radio, in the middle of nowhere, there were only about 4 stations we could get at all on FM and we couldn't use the AM because we needed the wipers and they wiper motor generated some sort of electrical noise that drowned out the radio signals). Gas, by the way, is about $1.50 a gallon and leaded gasoline is widely used.
We stored our bags at the bus station for 50 pesos during the time we were wandering around Temuco. We saw the plaza (every town has one) and also the Mercado Central where we had a delicious and inexpensive lunch. I had fish soup. At the mercado, you had to pay 50 pesos to get in to the bathroom, whether you needed paper or not. All of the mercados we have seen are the size of a city block and in an enclosed building with a high roof and supports but no walls. The woman who set herself up as the bathroom toll booth is typical of the many similar enterprises in Chile. Aside from the people selling toilet paper at public bathrooms, the most amazing one is the attended parking meter. All of Chile's parking meters have attendants, because money doesn't work in them, only slugs which only the attendant has. You tell him how long you want to stay and give him the money. He inserts the slugs into the meter and generally "watches" your car while you are gone. I am not sure how much this costs beyond the cost of the slugs. However, there is a simpler form, in a parking lot, e.g. at a supermarket, where there are self appointed car watchers, young boys and you give them maybe 10 pesos to watch your car. The other one is the parking helper. As soon as you start parking your car, someone appears to signal you about when to back up and stop, etc. A small tip is customary. We got one of these, a boy of about 13, in Temuco when we came back on Monday. He helped us park and then sat in the bed of the truck guarding the truck until we came back. Vally was rather taken with him and gave him about 150 pesos, which probably made his day.
I am not sure what good car watching really does, but people are very careful here. You don't leave anything in your car. The car often has an alarm, and when we wanted to put something into the trunk of Maria's car in Santiago, we were told that if we were seen putting something into the trunk, that was a virtual guarantee that someone would open the trunk while we were gone.
Well, back to Temuco. We left at about 5. The trip to Villarica was under 2 hours. As we got close to Villarica, we could see a glow hanging in the sky, off to our left-it looked like the sort of thing you see burning at the top of a chimney in an industrial park, but more diffuse. We finally realized that it had to be the volcano, but at the same time it was hard to actually believe it.
Oh God, I am on a Chilean university campus, and the rock and roll has started! It is much louder than in Concepcion. This is the lunch hour. Vally is giving his talk right how, I hope it isn't that loud where he is. Its reflecting off the courtyard walls.
My ability to think has suddenly shrunk! I will have to finish this at another time, maybe from St. Louis. We will be in Vina until tomorrow morning and then take a Tur Bus back to Santiago and get shown around again (will report first round) by Maria and her husband Javier (really delightful people to be with), pick up our luggage from Maria's place and from the place where we stayed in Santiago (another story in that place) and leave (presumably) from Santiago on Ladeco at around 10:45 PM. We have the worst return schedule imaginable, about 15 hours to get from Miami to St. Louis, with a 6 hour or so layover in Miami and another one in Chicago. We plan to use the time to see my aunt in Miami and some of Vally's friends in Chicago. We should really be at our best when we get to Lambert airport at 8:45 Sunday night! Tonight is our last night in Chile-I have mixed feeling. I have really enjoyed this place and like the people very much. There are some parts of Chile, e.g. the desert in the north, Easter island, the Andes, that we haven't seen. So, I have some regrets about leaving. At the same time, I am ready to get on with our "real" lives. This trip has, in essence, been our honeymoon (sometimes you can't do things in the right order) and we have been treated here as husband and wife. Vally keeps thinking about the mountain of mail that is piling up behind our front door. Also, one of his graduate students may have made an important breakthrough while we were gone, so he's really ready to go home.
One more little tale. While our host was showing us the office that he had made available for Vally to use, someone suddenly said "Vally!" and I turned around and there was Vally hugging someone, looking totally surprised. The person was Carlos, someone Vally had known and hung out with in graduate school (another one with the same advisor) and Vally never expected to see him again! Interestingly, Carlos is still finishing his Ph.D. (its only been 15 years), this time here.
Well, I let you rest. More when we get back.
Love
Phyllis and Vally
Hello everyone
Glad some people enjoyed "the letters." If it was too much to read, that's fine, again it was voluntary. I plan to send out one more letter, but not today. There will probably be less blow-by-blow since the context is now different. Our trip home was just fine-the plane left an hour and a half late (11:30 PM instead of 10 PM) and we all had dinner (again) at 1 AM which passed the time in a pleasant way. The movie was the same one they showed on the way to Chile, but no one was very interested anyway. We managed, after initally being put in the smokers cabin (but smoking was only allowed in the last 6 rows, great help!!) to find a triple seat in the non-smoking cabin. By taking turns sleeping sitting up, we both actually managed to sleep pretty well. Either no one was snoring, or the engines drowned it all out. I had to wake up when people started moving around the cabin because I guess my head was sticking out into the aisle a little bit and people kept bumping into it. The last time, I almost hit someone back, so I knew it was time to get up. We had a fine stopover in Miami visiting my aunt, and then in Chicago we were picked up and taken out to a chinese restaurant by two friends (one Chinese) of Vally's. I did a good job with the menu-they had Sezhuan broccoli with pork in it and they had other dishes with bean curd, and I finally convinced the waiter that it really was possible to make Sezhuan broccoli without ANY prok and put a little bit of bean curd in it instead. I think he understood, but Liu explained it to him in Chinese just to be sure. It was very good.
We came back from Chicago on an earlier TWA flight than originally scheduled and amazingly, our Miami-checked bags, whose tags bore a flight number that left before the bags even got to Chicago were spinning happily on the baggage carousel when we got there. I don't know when they actually got to St. Louis, but things had gotten very confused with a cancelled flight etc., and a bunch of luggage was simply left on the carousel until it could be dealt with. So we didn't even have to wait for our luggage.
Tonight we'll unpack and get back to normal. It feels good to get back
to work. Being home feels incredibly good, which is not to say that being
gone feels bad. We came back to a mowed lawn and a room newly painted.
The weather was utterly perfect. Well, one more Chile letter to come. Feel
free to show them to anyone that might be interested.
Love
Phyllis and Vally
Hello everybody
This letter is being started from my office on Friday afternoon. I have been back at work for a week. Unfortunately I forgot my "notes" so I will wind up finishing this later.
When last I wrote from Chile, we were in Vina del Mar so I will take up the account again from there to add that our host, on Friday, gave us a tour of Valparaiso. This was the ultimate in picturesque, with the old, narrow, steep winding, cobblestone streets on the side of the hill that borders the city-old, flat houses pressed against each other in some places and houses built on slabs wherever they could be persuaded to perch in others. It was amazing! Also funiculares, some of them very old, to allow people to get home without climbing the hills.
We also spent some time overlooking the harbor, and I came to understand what a container ship is and how all freight, essentially is shipped in containers so that it can go on a ship, on a railway car or a truck with equal ease. The container ships have the cabin and engine at one end, instead of the middle and containers are stack on special holders both below and above (3 high) the deck.
Our host told us that the reason that Vina was so beautiful and well-maintained was that it has a casino (which we looked at but didn't want to spend money to enter). The casino provides enough revenue to maintain the place.
Our last night in Chile we ate in an Italian restaurant (reasonably good) and walked around the commercial district of Vina, along with what appeared to be every teenager in the city-Vally was impressed-it was 11 PM, what were all of these kids DOING out there? We tried to figure out if we felt bad that is was our last night, but we really didn't.
In the morning we packed and took a cab back to the bus terminal and took Tur Bus back to Santiago. The Santiago bus station is really wonderful because it is attached to a small shopping mall. It also has an eating area with several varieties of quick food (but no American chain food). The terminal is connected to a metro station so everything is very easy. We ate at the bus terminal and then took the metro to Maria's stop. We called her from there and she came to get us and walk us to her house. She had lunch ready (3 kinds of empanadas and 5 kinds of pastry) but we had eaten so the food was rescheduled for later (actually we wound up sampling the pastries).
We waited for Javier to get back home and then took off to see the Cahon de Maipu. It was 3 PM by then and there was a little bit of time pressure since we had to be at the airport by 8 and we wanted to repack. Also, we had left some of our stuff at the place we had stayed on Tuesday and Wednesday. Anyway, it was a long drive, over an hour, to the Cahon but it was worth it. The Cahon (site of the most nearly successful assassination attempt against Pinochet) is a broad (maybe 1/2 mile wide) valley, with a river in the bottom of it and surrounded by mountains which are backed up by snow- capped mountains. It is semi-wild (there are towns) and beautiful. There is a two lane road roughly on each side of the river. People come there to picnic in the summer and (in the Chilean way) the people who own the parcels of land near the river charge for the privilege of picnicking. It is amazing to see such a beautiful, unpolluted, pristine place so close to Santiago. But then again, 6 million of Chile's 13 million people live in Santiago, so I guess the rest can be left alone. We struggled back through traffic (all of the Rt 5 north-south traffic in Chile goes straight through the streets of Santiago), picked up our other bag, bought some wine, made it back to the house in time to repack and eat. I was really worried that we couldn't fit everything back into our bags but between Vally's extraordinary packing skill and the fact that we left all of the big, fat, heavy text books with Maria, we actually had space left over. Now, what have I left out...the events between letters 8 and 10, which it doesn't make sense to cover in exhaustive detail, but here are some sketches. 1. The volcano. By daylight it was absolutely beautiful-this snow capped mountain, standing alone, with a lake at its base and a slight dirty tinge to the snow at the very top. We were told we could drive up on the volcano, so we did. There is a town at either end of the lake, Villarica at one (where we stayed) and Pucon at the base of the volcano at the other. The roadside (about 26 km) in between is totally filled with motels and campgrounds. We could only imagine what this place was like during the summer (or during ski season). The road up to volcano was dirt and barely 2 lane. We began to see the value of driving a pick up. The ascent was gradual, through country and then woodland-really a lot of different ecosystems. The road was cut into the mountain and the sides, maybe 8 feet high were black, volcanic sand. There was an area where there was a lot of bamboo growing and a bunch of bamboo poles drying, so someone was using it. There was a sawmill (don't know what powered it) and a few homesteads. At one point the tree were somewhat short and green but sticking out above the trees where the tall, burnt remains of taller trees, a memorial to the last eruption of the volcano (which was in 1971). Eventually the trees stopped and the green stopped and then we were at the ski lodge. The road ended there. It was basically a moonscape (except for a few small clumps of green weeds which I thought should have been dug up to complete the effect)-just black volcanic sand. There were many chair lifts and I think the skiing here is probably incredible, except I am not a skier. We managed to kind of sneak into the ski lodge and find the bathroom. The lodge itself was not fancy. It reminded me of a college dorm after the semester is over and the students are gone. I don't think people stay there. We saw a small crowd of future ski patrollers in red jackets with white crosses practicing getting people off the chair lift. Most of the chairs were down though, being repaired. We were too cold to really wander very much, just got back into the truck, drove back down and went to Pucon.
Pucon is a total tourist town (described as upscale in the guide book). Population 5000. Probably very quaint but we were tired and hungry. Our dinner was overpriced and not that good (didn't follow the guide book). We did walk around and wound up walking up the stone steps that led to a monastery. The monastery was closed to the public (too late in the day) but the walk through the woods up the hill was beautiful. We came down via the driveway which was totally paved in grey stone. The stations of the cross followed the driveway down. Each of them originally had a wooden sculpture on it, but only one or two of them remained. The crosses, however, made of stone, were there. (We took pictures).
Our first residence in Villarica was a bed and breakfast the one Arnoldo's secretary recommended. We didn't like it-the room was small and unheated and the "private bath" was out in the hall and private only because there was no one else staying there. It too was unheated and small. We decided to stay there the first night since we didn't get in until after dark, but we went out walking that night to scout another place. WE wound up at the Hotel Rahuyen (recommended by the guidebook) run by a Chilean of Swiss ancestry named Gualberto Lopez. He spoke English, sort of, and talked a lot about how great he was, but listened not at all. He was definitely a memorable character and possibly if we had been willing to share a bottle of wine with him, he might have enjoyed us even more. The room was better and there was a space heater. We moved in the morning. The first one was $20 per night with a continental breakfast and the hotel was about $30.
The second morning in Villarica was cold and rainy, we couldn't even SEE the volcano. Now we understood why people kept commenting about how fortunate we were to have the good weather the day before. It was almost scary to think that we could have spent 3 days in Villarica and NEVER even seen the volcano! Anyway, we had a vehicle so we HAD to do something. We decided to head south.
Valdivia is a costal city, one of the few places in the south that was settled before the treaty of 1881. We went to the mercado central (as recommended by the book). The fruit and vegetable and fish part was really picturesque, even in the rain, about a block of three rows of vendors selling the same fruits and vegetables as everywhere else, and in the first row, next to a beautiful wide river, the fish and shellfish vendors. There was also a set of waterbirds (seagulls I seem to remember) congregated in the water below waiting for the fish to be cleaned and the guts to be pitched. The indoor part of the mercado was utterly depressing-the roof was leaking, it smelled bad and everyone looked pretty unhappy.
We went hunting for something to eat and finally I had pizza and Vally had coffee in a restaurant that called itself the Cafe Arabe. They had middle eastern food but nothing without meat. At the end of the meal, the proprietor approached us and asked if we spoke English. He showed us a letter, in English, that he had received and asked for help in translating it. It was an amazing letter. It was addressed to him, but it was a form letter and it was from Africa (don't remember where). He received it because he was in the import-export business. Basically, the writer was saying that his government wanted all foreign debts cleared up by a certain date and the writer was proposing, I guess you would call it a money laundering scheme. He wanted access to our hosts's bank account, supposedly for the purpose of depositing money in order to get it out of the country. He was trying to hide, he said, $11 million dollars and would give 35% of whatever money he deposited to the owner of the account. (Something for nothing, big time). I could hardly believe it and kept saying "Esta loco" (this is crazy!). The proprietor's eyes got very big. He was as astounded as we were. He wanted nothing to do with it. I can scarcely imagine what would happen to anyone who answered this letter. We saw a lot of old furniture in a museum in an old mansion in Valdivia (after banging on the door to be admitted since it was supposed to be open) and then went on to the coast. It was still raining. We wound up in Niebla, a beach resort and followed signs to the big beach (playa grande). There was an arrow that said parking (estacionnemiento or something like that). It also said residents only, but we decided that wouldn't be a problem. Suddenly the road went down at about a 30 degree angle and then we stopped in a small level area. Realizing that how to turn around and get back out would be a significant problem, we decided to forget about it and explore the beach. The beach at Niebla is black sand and rocks. The tide may have been up because there was only, maybe 10 or 15 feet of sand between the ocean and the rock cliff. It was absolutely beautiful-rainy, overcast, black and white, no colors and no one else there. Eventually we had to deal with getting the truck back out-a matter of k-turns and the invisible ditch behind and the drop off in front-plus a very bad gear ratio in first plus prayer. When Vally lived in the country, no one had any vehicles so he had no experience with this sort of thing and it was a little traumatic. We continued along the coast and stopped at a restaurant in a fishing village. From our table we had a view of the sea and of fishermen in their big row boats, out in the rain (this was a Sunday). Vally had some sort of seafood orgy plate which he liked and I had a fish soup which I didn't really like. The bread was poor-we had gotten spoiled by all that fresh-baked stuff. The next day, still a little rainy. We decided to spend the night back in Temuco because that is where we needed to be in the morning. We drove back to Temuco and then decided to go see a village (Chol Chol) which our guidebook described as Mapuche (indian) and as a place where time moves very slowly. It was 28 km, via dirt road from Temuco. We really needed the pick up for this one! We followed the little square-backed bus (Temuco to Chol Chol, I think 50 cents) and were thinking "Oh no, stuck behind the bus, maybe we should pass him." Hah! he knew the road and before long the bus was out of sight. On the way we saw farms, and children getting off the school bus and oxcart tracks along muddy driveways. The road was wet and washboarded. We picked up a hitchhiker, who was absolutely silent.
Chol Chol had no paved roads. There were little houses everywhere, and in some places geese and pigs and of course, lots of dogs and children wandering around. We went to the commercial-looking street, looking for a restaurant. Wound up taking pictures of Vally sitting with the occupants of a bullock cart. The bullocks were oblivious, although one had very runny eyes. It was definitely slow and peaceful and muddy there, but we had no way of understanding the town. Nothing especially Mapuche in the architecture, although we had started to realize that the men that went around in ponchos and flat- brimmed hats and the women that wore blanket capes were mapuche-I guess we began to understand what they looked like. We found a restaurant and Vally had some fantastic churrasco (steak sandwich). On the way back, via a different dirt road to Nueva Imperial we saw a lot of oxcarts and horse carts and people riding horseback-including on very drunk Mapuche man who was staggering along, only he was on horseback and the horse was sober. I don't know how he stayed on! Clearly time does go more slowly where you can only go about 2 miles per hour.
After Nueva Imperial (small city) where we were unable to change dollars into pesos and which did not have a REDBANC ATM, we went back (paved road) to Temuco to look for a hotel. By this time we were very tired. This was the only part of the trip where, because we had a car and were determined to get our moneysworth, we overdid it. We checked out two middle-priced hotels from the guidebook and then decided to stay at a good ($70 night) one. We got to our room and Vally laid down and didn't get up until morning. I went out to get some pesos and some food. I had gone a few blocks when it dawned on me that I really needed to remember which hotel we were staying at and where it was-it was a sobering and also comic realization. Found a REDBANC, found a hipermercado (same chain as Concepcion, same metaphysical books at checkout).
The next day (Tuesday) we returned the car and took a cab to the airport. On the way we were involved in the closest routine near-miss we had seen in Chile. The details are sketchy in my mind but as I remember it, it involved a bridge, a horse and cart and an oncoming car passing another car in our lane. No one hit anyone but the horses had to move over a little bit. Auto accidents are the third leading cause of death in Chile but apparently we have gotten used to this sort of thing because it wasn't even upsetting. The flight to Santiago was routine, except that it was supposed to be a direct flight but sometime happened to the fight to Valdivia that morning so our flight had to take people to Valdivia (15 min air time) first.
Almost caught up-just a few more details.
Maria and Javier took us for a night tour of Santiago which included going up the Cerro (hill) St. Christophe which has a giant statue of the virgin Mary on top of it (visible all over the city). The road up was beautiful-wooded, stone walls, overlooks. We stopped a looked at the lights of Santiago. At the top the ubiquitous kiosks and a funicular (closed at that hour). We walked up to the base of the statue and sat and looked at the city and talked. The statue is very white because it was cleaned for the visit of the pope in 1987. Maria saw him and was truly thrilled. Maria brought cakes and candy which were delicious. After that we went to dinner at their house.
We stayed in a hotel that is run by the University of Concepcion for its guests (I think the university has several locations besides Concepcion). The hotel was in a apartment of what used to be a residence for wealthy people. The ceilings were very high and it was very comfortable except the bedspread clashed horribly with the walls (oh well). It didn't have heat, but we didn't need it. The continental breakfast consisted of juice, coffee or tea and white toast with butter or jam. There was a kind of concierge, an older woman whose job it was to meet our every need-I know she meant well, but she made me feel like I was under surveillance. She did our laundry and gave it back all ironed-so now I have worn freshly ironed underwear and socks.
Well, you don't need any more, or even this many details. I will look at my tidbits list and see if there is anything I really want to say...
-the sky is really blue in Chile-an amazing color that we never see in St. Louis. I thought the sky was blue in Virginia, but I was wrong. Picture the celestial blue of a renaissance( or is it medieval) painting.
-Chile has a good phone system with a flat rate for long distance calls anywhere in the world.
-The hotels has only one, very small plastic trash can in each room, located in the bathroom. Tissues are never seen.
Well, enough, for sure. Finishing this letter is almost like the final step in coming home, and I finally just did it at work because I needed to finish it. On the way home, on the plane, it was definitely like a dream, but now after talking about it, it has become a fond memory. We're glad we went and incredibly happy to be back in our home. Now we have to focus on planning our wedding ceremony (about a month from now) and getting some things done at the house. We are planning to have an open house party to celebrate our wedding-more about that when we know.
Love to all-you've been a good audience Phyllis and Vally.