Evolve or Die

Sophie is unwell – a stomach bug.  We have been very fortunate to have dodged that bullet until now.  We are not extremely careful about what we eat. I feel compelled to stay in while she convalesces so, unfortunately, that means more blogs.  Sorry.

The images are of urban decay.  Taken in Valparaiso, not Santiago. You can't help but feel the pain when you examine the content. We realized we were in 'the wrong part of Valparaiso' just after I took the last one.  You don't venture into those hills with a camera and a wallet we were warned...  Still, my angels looked after us and there were no incidents.

Vomito is prolific in Valpo

I've taken some jaunts out into Santiago and formed some impressions. Aside from the lumps of poverty that we find there is much to admire about both Buenos Aires and Santiago in terms of intentional design.  Latin cities tend to have a central square – sometimes called a Plaza des Armes, sometimes a Zocalo. These verdant gathering spots form the nucleus of exterior social engagement in many towns and cities.  Of course a city like Santiago has many different squares and parks.  It is mind-bogglingly (?) immense and not without its design flaws.  For instance, different neighbouring jurisdictions within the greater city of Santiago fail to harmonize with respect to road construction and design so major arteries suddenly disappear or shift radically.  Who needs earthquakes when you can’t agree with your neighbour where your roads should meet? The locals have accommodated themselves to these vagaries but it is stressful to the visitor.

The subways in Santiago are as different from those in Buenos Aires as New York’s are from Paris (in the reverse order).  They are modern, well-lit with wide platforms for crowds.  The cars are well-lit, clean -and air-conditioned. The Buenos Subte felt medieval. Though there was some nice ceramic work in several of the stations it was filthy, dark, usually hot and the cars were always crowded – any time of day. Santiago’s appears to be an efficient and well-designed system.  Other public transit is also important here and if it weren’t for the fact that it takes a degree in logistics to work out which bus to take we would probably use them as well.

Another thing we observe even in rather small towns in Chile is the pedestrian mall.  The one in downtown Santiago is immense, covering many city blocks.  Cars are not allowed except thru a few lateral streets.  The wide walkways – formerly known as streets – are tiled and have planters with immense trees and shrubs.  It’s very appealing and makes this part of the city extremely hospitable.  The malls appear to benefit both pedestrian and merchant because it all feels very vibrant and healthy.  When I consider cities I am familiar with in Canada I can’t really lay the same template over a sector and imagine it working.  Yorkville?  Well that’s too elitist - too monocultural with respect to income bracket and commerce – where would the fishmongers go, the shoe repair, the fruit and vegetable stalls? Kensington Market?  How would they carry on all the stocking of produce etc. with no ready access for service vehicles.  I suppose it remains to us to take the plunge and see what happens.  Air pollution seems much less in these malls and there is a pervasive sense of community; however illusory that might be.  Oakville could probably pull it off but they would have to open space for the x-mongers. I don’t see Oakvillians tolerating smelly fish and rotting vegetables.  But the prejudices against those things – decay, a bit of olafactory offense – deny us the huge benefits of communing with our neighbours, making new connections and enjoying a richer, more complex way of living – and artisanal fare.

In my imagined future, where Buckminster Fuller-esque domes of one-molecule-thick carbon material hover over tracts of our cold cities, we could have public market spaces and even zocalos with climates adjusted to accommodate sub-tropical verdure and we could walk and conduct our commerce without losing an appendage to the bitter cold.  While I’m at it let’s add some elevated public transport systems that magically don’t offend the airspace of residents below and make no noise.  Throw in some elevated bike corridors that easily convert from open-air to covered. Toronto is filling up and in.  With greater density we must ensure that there is a safety valve that provides for communal experience and ease of use.  Otherwise we will rot at the core like some of the places we are traveling through. Canadian cities are precious.  Winnipeg has its challenges but it was a fantastic place to grow up in and it still has a very workable scale.  Could we harness mosquitoes to pull the buses around?  Montreal could be one of the world’s jewels because of its quasi-European qualities and excellent hairdressers and, unlike Toronto, it has a hill.  Vancouver has natural beauty up the wazoo – where does it make an adjustment to make it affordable? Sorry Moncton.  You’re screwed.

If I can not reform it is not my revolution

We are looking at extreme change in our near future.  Finance systems will be overhauled, globalism will have both positive and negative effects on our economies. Immigration will infuse our cities with a rich admixture of cultural diversity and potential friction. When will our youth become adequately and proportionally employed to match their magnificent skillsets and education?  Unemployment is, here, clearly the most significant problem in large urban centres. How will change take place – what will change to reboot our nearly lifeless economy?  (I am saying this because I am witnessing so much more passion and industry in these developing countries.  I recognize that many of you are hard-working, creative folk so no offense meant). Traveling through less advantaged parts of the world one can’t help but notice the hunger and energy that the citizens here exhibit. (also the hopelessness and sloth of the unemployed). We are slack and less fit philosophically regarding work in Canada I think – having enjoyed plucking the low-hanging fruit that we have come to believe is our natural advantage.  But the world is huge and teeming with tough, hungry fish. We don’t compete with our neighbours or with the United States any more – the world is opening up and we need to be prepared by being excellent and highly creative in our craft and purpose.

So the city planners for these cities had a better idea - with generous public spaces for commerce and interaction.  Can Canadian cities retrofit to accommodate this ideal?  Let’s see.  All Problems are Design Problems. Again and again I see that what we tend to regard as injurious to our economy or social well-being (environmental rehabilitation, social support, alternative energy, sustainable agriculture, decriminalization of most drugs) turns out to have a positive impact across sectors (not just economic).  Why do we keep running from the challenge we have ahead? Why aren’t we plunging into the future with ideas and innovations and knives, forks and spoons to solve the existing and anticipated problems and thereby steal the march on other countries who we are competing with who are facing the same issues? Easy for me to say, I’m not putting the capital in....But I believe that opportunity lies explicitly where the problems are.

Very piratical wall - maybe meant as a warning

Birds and Cacti

Here are a few selects.  I've whined about not having my Lightroom software to edit the images properly so these are not to a standard, nor, I fear, are they particularly compelling. I haven't felt that sensation that I was really 'on to something' during my time here in Argentina and Chile.  While some images are ok as reportage very few are striking I think. In any case, here is a wee gallery of some 'moments'. Maybe they will provide a sense of place and atmosphere.

The birds, mostly vultures, were taken on a beach a bit north of Los Vilos in a wetland preserve.  The cacti were in a sere field near Socos - about halfway between Los Vilos and La Serena near the Pacific coast. Careful inspection reveals that all cacti are not the same.  There were young, supple ones, strong, middle-aged ones and rotting, parched, insect-riddled ones. I could relate to the latter. The red flowers are not visible from the highway as one flies past.  Getting out and kicking around the gravel and dust, smelling the flinty air with a distant spoor of creosote was a visceral pleasure. 

As for the vultures I am not sure who was more interested in the other - I might have looked like easy game with my distinct hobble and dusty cane. There were enough of them that if it came to a battle I am not sure I would have been victorious. Luckily they are not predators but scavengers.


Again,if you click on the pix they become large enough to reveal some details.  Then you can right and left click to view the lot kind of like a slide show.

No Country

I am offering a smorgasbord of themes tonight so load your plate my friends.

No Country For Old Dogs

Except for Santiago, Chile appears to have an open policy on canine restraint.  This leads to a few obvious artifacts – namely an abundance of poo-mines.  In Valparaiso they were so dense that high-speed navigation of same would be excellent practice for football and bootcamp agility training.  Every time one passes a pet food store – and they are numerous – a feeling of helpless resignation fogs the cabeza.  Input/Output.  It’s inevitable - and probably one of the laws of physics except I can’t remember which one – not the one about conservation of soya product.

 Other obvious evidence resulting from copious unbound dog-kind is barkaramathons.  Everywhere we have travelled – except perhaps tonight in downtown Santiago (we hope) - we have been regaled with La Woofiata.  When the beasts get a head of steam of up it can be awesome and generally lasts for hours. There are, it would be fair to say, some promising dog-tenors in Chile. Dog arias have interrupted our repose on more than one occasion.  Travelers who are considering visiting this or any other country south of the US would be well advised to bring earplugs, or, for a more permanent solution, have their eardrums surgically removed. It is small wonder that those haystacks of pups are usually dozing in the golden sunlight; they must be completely wasted from a hard nights howling.

Sidebar: most male dogs here are intact with respect to their sexual apparatii.  I don’t generally pay a lot of attention to that kind of thing as a matter of course but it is pretty much in your face so to speak – if you are a midget at least. Thus Chilean dogs are remarkably sexually active before marriage despite their living in a predominantly Catholic country.

The last and most tragic result of dogs running free is traffic fatalities.  The number of canine corpses we have seen is staggering and upsetting.  We clearly have a different tolerance for the carnage than the locals because they don’t seem to focused on removing the bodies. There is no shortage of collateral for the damage though.  Each home seems to have at least three dogs.  Do the math. Most mutts are just that – few purebreds except in the larger cities - but despite their assigned role as gate-keepers we have found that they are usually very intelligent and friendly though usually quite dusty and dirty - and they greatly appreciate a bit of a scratch on the pineal gland (behind the ear - get your mind out of the gutter) as dogs are wont to do.  I get the sense that they are not usually pampered with human affection because they practically melt when you give them attention.  One part-shepherd in Los Vilos followed me down the road after a bit of a skritch – aggressively demanding more pampering by fixing his teeth firmly on my leg – no, it wasn't sexual.  He practically chewed my leg off.  Have you ever had a boy/girlfriend like that?  I had to use my cane to deflect him from his attention. Stick-handled him to submission so to speak. No act of kindness goes unchewed. Hm.  I’ll have to work on that.

No Country For Old Crabs

In this instance I am referring to the crustaceans, not myself. Having been born a prairie boy and then resettled in Muddy York where there is a paucity of any kind of marine shell under 400 million years of age it is always a thrill to wander along a beach and see the wonders that nature’s casino has shuffled up on the sand.  The Pacific – along the American coastline – doesn’t have any coral reefs and so there are not many shellfish or really much of anything other than exquisitely weird Giger-esque seaweed clumps.  

Giger image from internet

Chilean Seaweed

Anyone who has staggered along a Caribbean beach will encounter many different kinds of gastropod ex-domiciles but there are generally about three different types of carapaces on the West coast.  There are clams, oysters and then the crabs (obviously not a gastropod). I was pretty thrilled to find my first beautiful salmon-coloured crab shell on the beach north of Valparaiso.  Then I stood up and saw about 5 more within spitting distance.  Crabs are amazing creatures though they make poor lovers I am told.  I love the stalked eyes and the magnificent hinged claws with their beautifully detailed inner surface perfectly adapted for clinging to prey and subway handles and, interestingly, for frailing on the 5-string banjo.  It makes you want to cry to witness such amazing adaptation – remember we are all evolved from the same stuff – except for a few of us (right Paul?).  A group of crabs is called a cast. So is a group of actors - which is a strange coincidence when you think of it. Recent experiments reveal that they do feel pain when thrust into boiling water  so keep the thermostat low on your water heater. Crabs are fairly cooperative in groups (although the crabbiest tend to be solitary and tend to grow stubbly beards and smell vaguely of stale urine). They usually send their crablets to school (they call them castanets because schools are for fish of course) until grade 3 but have been known to go all the way to senior matriculation.  There are very few crab surgeons unsurprisingly. There is a famous Chilean crab poet named Pocuro. I don’t have any examples of her writing but I am told it is quite witty. Like most Chileans her work is magic realism.  Crabs don’t generally write in couplets because they have a tendency to walk sideways which messes up the ink.  Most crabs communicate by clacking their claws, called chelae. Not surprisingly, crabs tend to prefer classic Blackberry devices over Android and iDiot phones. I like to be informative in my writing you will have noticed. Some of this knowledge is known to very few people.

Anyway, it doesn’t really follow that this is no country for old crabs but I didn’t really have a useful entre to write about them.  I haven’t actually seen more than one live crab scuttling around on the beach but they are out there somewhere and in generous numbers. So Chile is a good country for crustaceans to be born - they are, unfortunately for them, a very popular food.  We have seen Jaiba advertised in every single restaurant in Chile.  A very common dish is Pastel de Jaiba which is a sort of uber-thick chowder that is baked in an oven.  It is usually quite bland but it's very rich in all the main fat groups.  There is bread and cheese in the sauce - the two foods that Chileans so adore. So, in fact, there are very few old crabs in Chile as they tend to get caught and consumed before they reach their senescence - which is perhaps a decent idea for most humans. I know it is not a new idea but perhaps we should revisit it.  The bread and cheese might just be the combination we have been missing.

No Country for Old Humans

An animita near Los Vilos, Chile

I’ve seen them in many Latin-American countries and Chile is not different - everywhere we have traveled there are little shrines called animitas.  I am told that they are not sites of mourning, rather a celebration of life.  I have always assumed that they mark the place where someone died.  If that is so then a lot of people have died along the roadways.  Were they walking, crossing?  I don’t know but I choose to remain ignorant.  In Mexico they call speed bumps (topes) ‘sleeping policemen’.  I keep imagining that the animitas mark the spot where someone decided to lie down on the warm pavement on a cold night to catch a few winks before heading home to kith and kin and when they woke up their thorax and their abdomen were...more distant than is generally recommended.

No Country for Square Rocks

I don’t feel like doing the work myself so if someone can explain to me why most of the rocks, pebbles, stones and likewise in Chile are rounded I would appreciate it.  From the highest hills (with the possible exception of volcanic cones) to the beachiest beach the rocks are round or, more precisely rounded.  Where I come from that usually suggests that the rocks have been subjected to millennia of erosion by running water.  I know the world is old-ish; nearly 4000 years last time I checked the Bible, but Chile is dry, dry, dry – at least where we have been traveling it is.  I can imagine that it might have had rivers at another time in history – maybe the early 1800s – but EVERYWHERE the rocks are rounded.  Look high, low, left, right.  Examine the cross-section revealed in a highway incision and from top to bottom; egg-shaped rocks.  I don’t think Chile was subjected to glaciations.  Is there another way that rocks get rounded?  Was God practicing with sandpaper for about a billion years?  So if you are reading this please do me a favour and find out why the rocks are enrondeleado (?) here.  Thanks.  I couldn't find any perfectly spherical rocks mind you and Sophie will gladly tell you that I spent a WAY TOO MUCH time combing the beaches, hills, deserts and wadis looking for same.  Still I have some decent eggy ones. I’ll trade 3 eggy ones for 1 spherical one if you found one.

A Toni Onley print

 

a Colin Gillies snapshot - The exquisite Elqui Valley While I am on the subject: angle of repose (maximum angle at which an object can rest on an inclined plane without sliding down. This angle is equal to the arctangent of the coefficient of static friction μs between the surfaces.) I have a feeling that all this rounded rock material goes some way to explaining the interesting sameness of the hills we have seen.  The ‘mountains’ tend not to be very steep.  They are soft, undulating creatures with an inclination usually not exceeding about 35 degrees.  Combined with the constant (before 2pm or so) haze that pervades the atmosphere due to the proximity of the cold Humboldt current (it's kind of technical, look it up if you are interested), they have a very Toni Onley-esque quality.  In fact Mr. Onley’s work would probably provoke huge yawns here given the ubiquity of the effect. Are the mountains here – about to slide under the Pacific Plate in about 500 million years – so old that they have lost their edge so to speak? It’s a mystery.  One eggy rock to the first person to satisfactorily explain the roundness of Chilean stones – no Wikipedia please. This contest is open until June 30th, 2015.  Potential winners will have to answer a silly math question that won’t have that goofy Greek letter in it.

Note: unfortunately the angle of repose is dramatically affected by the presence of water.  The lubricative quality of water altered the frictive status of the rocks during the unusual and profound precipitation in the north of Chile last month and tragically resulted in many deaths due to a dramatic rearrangement of the angle of repose.

Last Thoughts

Tonight as I was scanning the booze list of a menu my eye fell on a funny translation:  Clavo Oxidado.  It took me a moment.  Rusty Nail.  Cute.

She's Gonna Blow!

Mt. Calbuco.  Not my photo

This is going to be a large-ish rant.  If you want to sustain any kind of impression that travelling in Argentina and Chile is altogether enjoyable please stop reading here and go read a poem or two by Pablo Neruda.

I gotta say I feel a lot in common with Volcan Calbuco these days.  I have been trying to keep my blogs as positive as I can – believe it or not.  I was thinking today that if anyone ever had the misfortune to contract me as a writer for touristic activities I would create a book that would send potential visitors away in droves - if I let loose with my candid impressions. Humans are funny, but lately I’m not laughing with them. Maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s my increasingly short temper but I have such a hard time writing enthusiastically about Chile and Argentina.  I am having an interesting time – but not a particularly positive one.  I don’t want to come across as a racist, culturist, sexist, ageist griper though pretty much that’s what I am. It all seems to come back to that same opening phrase – ‘Why can’t they just.....’. I feel like exploding approximately 4237.5 times each day. I dreamt a few nights ago that I had been hired in Canada to design public spaces in a conscious, practical fashion – eliminating all the stupid barriers, restrictions and plain bad ideas that typify our urban experiences.  I think my subconscious is working overtime on this new obsession.

Start with the food?  Why not?  Why such a cavernous lack of imagination in Argentina and Chile regarding publicly available cuisine? Is Canada unique in its agglomeration of different styles and types of cooking.  I have always worried that might be the case –about 80% of the volume of our refrigerator is occupied by different condiments, pastes, chutneys, seasonings because we love to prepare meals from all over the world.  What I wouldn’t give for a Szechuan, Indian or Middle Eastern dish right now! Hell is filled with Parilla restaurants.  ‘What would you like today sir? We have beef, beef, beef, sirloin, flank, ribs, beef and beef.’ Of course you can have some potatoes on the side. ‘Salad?’ There’s lettuce, tomates, avocado and.....well that’s about it. For your dressing here is some olive oil and here is some white vinegar.  Help yourself to some salt.  Good luck finding some fucking pepper. Of course I exaggerate.  Chile has seafood as well.  Ceviche, mariscos, ostiones (clams) with some gloppy cheese that turns your mouth into a Carlsbad cavern of queso stalactites and there’s a decent fish called Reineta.  But no matter where you go it is all prepared the same way.  Overcooked and bland, bland, bland.  Did I mention that they don’t believe in pepper here?  Or any spices for that matter.  In fact there is no Spanish word for spice until you get up to Mexico where suddenly all that pent up avoidance of anything that might stimulate the oral cavity turns into, well, Mexican food = oral Calbuco. Only coriander here is de rigeur. I’m getting de rigeur mortis. (groan)

But the topper is bread.  I am told that Chileans love their ‘pan’.  You get soft, white bread with everything.  And LOTS of it.  Bread for breakfast, lunch, dinner and anytime you open your mouth.  Always that soft, bland, tasteless, slightly chewy bread. Never toasted, never a molecule of whole grain or, God forfend and Yoicks!, rye, spelt, quinoa, oats...  It’s like eating sugarless marshmallows every day.  One would avoid all that bread if there was an alternative – like fruit for instance – in an abundance of water the fool is thirsty – well where’s the collective dunce cap?  Everywhere you look while walking around you see are piles of fantastic fruits and vegetables but the hotels and restaurants can’t seem to get past bread. Their jams are delicious. I haven’t yet stuck just a spoonful of jam in my mouth yet to avoid the bread carrier but I have been sorely tempted.

Outside the room I am writing in there are dates, passion fruit, olives, lemons, limes and apples growing –  practically within arms reach.  But for breakfast we get... bread.  And Nescafe for heaven’s sake.  In Argentina they had high standards for coffee at least.  Really – it’s almost worth travelling to Argentina for coffee alone. Here you get mud-brown volcanic ash that dissolves in your cup.  Mind you Argentina was a bit manic with the medialunes – croissants that complemented the morning coffee - a novelty at first but after a few weeks that croissant would just perch like a Cheshire rictus on the breakfast plate each morning, cruelly reminding one that each bite delivered 5 cms of fat to the belly. Spontaneously.  Hideosity.

Ok, enough food.  Street layout and driving habits.  When we were primarily pedestrians in Buenos Aires it didn’t really faze us that streets were predominantly one way.  The traffic lights were tricky then – they often didn’t face you if you were walking on a one way street that ran opposite to your direction so it was difficult to know if it was safe to walk or you were going to be turned into human butter.  But we survived by observing what other people, or dogs, were doing.

But here we are driving much of the time. Chileans invented the phrase ‘You can’t get there from here.’  Streets are not only almost entirely one way; each direction alternates and each right of way is based on some infernal system I haven’t unravelled (so no need for stop or yield signs?). That seems easy enough except you have to add in the fact that you often can’t make a left on to the street you want (???!!?????don’taskmewhy!!!????!!!@#%$*^&LORD).  So, in Chile two wrongs don’t make a right but three rights make a left.  It’s enough to make you take up knitting.  And no u-turns on the boulevards and no right turns on a red light andthosefuckingChileanswhohonktheirhorn any time you slow down to only twice the speed limit and who try to jam their front fenders up your arse.  Just when you think you have it solved and you are confident that the generous thoroughfare you are on is going to take you out of whatever hellacious town you are suffering through the capacious artery dwindles to a minor corpuscle thruway which then turns into a wee blood vessel and then ceases to exist altogether – turning instead into a road that runs the opposite direction and offers you only one way to turn – right.  I have popped three eyeballs already.

The physical condition of the roads is pretty good in Chile.  And the sidewalks are generally smooth and free of bear-pits – so top marks for that. In fact I will go further, Canada could take a page or two out of the sidewalk design in Chile.  Sidewalks – amazingly true to my earlier proposal regarding standardized surfaces – are usually tiled, with a nice textured impression for good footing.  AND most sidewalks, even in this little town I am/was in (Vicuna), have that nifty textured path that enables blind persons to navigate by following the street Braille.  At most intersections the sidewalks have a nice, sloping ramp to road grade for wheelchair and cart use.  So, top marks there.  Get the Department of Sidewalks and Pedestrian Ways to talk to the Department of Insane Roads and Passive-Aggressive Thoroughfares people. I am not certain that the slope on the sidewalks that drop to street grade would work perfectly in Toronto with the Department of Public Jerk’s uniquely satanic treatment of putting salt on snow, thus turning it into zero-friction shaving-gel - creating a medium so slick in fact that there are often luge teams practicing at the foot of our street. We would have to design a grippier texture for that portion of the walkway.  Still waiting for those robotic sidewalk scrapers please.

I think that’s enough.  Half of my spleen is on the floor and some prick just tried to pick it up to cook it in the Parilla next door so I will retire for esta noche.  I’ll give myself a day to review this diatribe and perhaps edit out some of the more kind-hearted bits.

Doors of Valparaiso

There is a lot to like and a lot to ... hate? about Valparaiso, Chile.  It's got natural charm and remarkable geophysical features but we were told on maybe a dozen occasions today to be careful - that pickpockets and purse and camera snatchers were everywhere so hide your phones, hide your camera, hide your purses. We didn't have any problem but it created a creeping sense of impending disaster that spoiled the richness of the place..  Mind you some of the richness is olfactory and the source is an abundance of dogshit and human urine.  It's a fucked-over city with rich murals and graffiti too. Many of the houses are crumbling, vacant, deserted and ramshackle (good word ramshackle). My favourite subject matter (on this trip) seems to be decay and urban rot.  So here is a small gallery of some of the doors of Valparaiso.  

Valparaiso was a wealthy city once but the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 spelled its doom as the 'Pearl of the Pacific'.  Like Havana the city has seen much better days.  The sudden failure of the economy delivered a shattering blow and then repeated earthquakes (a big one in August of last year) have been the sucker punches that keep it on its knees.  It certainly is not experiencing the renaissance that we see in Santiago.

If you have had the misfortune to have seen Robert Altman's movie Popeye starring Robin Williams as a mumbling, spinach-addled cretin - one of the most unintelligible movies ever made - then you will have reasonably good idea of what Valparaiso looks like.  Altman must have used Valparaiso as the visual inspiration for Sweethaven; that sunblistered shantytown perched like a broke-legged curlew on barnacle-crusted rocks. That town was the best thing about the movie because neither Williams nor the otherwise excellent Shelley Duval could save it.

Just a reminder, you can see a larger version of the photo by clicking on it.  Later

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Hot Termales or Desperately Seeking Sluicing

Alamos trees in the Rio Maule Valley

One of the main reasons we were interested in driving around Chile was because we felt it would be a wonderful experience dipping into the many different spas and hot-springs that we have read about.  Chile is, of course, sitting on a major fault line – a subduction zone where the Chile Ridge is being subducted under the South American Plate.  (It;s actually more complicated because there is a third plate around here which makes for a perfect trifecta of shit).This, as you will know, causes a lot of large-scale activity which manifests itself as volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and the like. Our friend Luis suggests that all this destruction and disruption gives Chileans a resourceful and obdurate character.  A positive consequence of all this tectonic activity is hot-springs which result from subterranean water being heated by geothermal pockets of ultra-hot stone which expands it – the force brings it up to the surface where we humans greedily partake of its benevolent properties.

The usually well-behaved Mount Colbuco erupted last week just south of where we were travelling and, in fact, right where we intended to be a couple of days hence.  So we adjusted our plans, not thinking it wise to end up looking like a half-finished piece of pottery in Herculaneum. After a few days south of Santiago we decided to pursue the Termales further north.

I’ll confess, the pursuit of the perfect hot-springs has been a very frustrating one so far.  Our travels have taken us to a few sites – I should state up front that we are doing the beer-budget tour of spas and hotsprings – we are not going to 4-star hotels or thermals.  In fact the first one we went to was about as far from a 4 –star experience as you could probably imagine.  After several hours of hiking in a nearby National Park we lit out for some ‘natural’ springs near the Argentinian border.  A couple of hours along Highway 115 takes you just east of a wee pueblo called La Mina.  It’s about as close as you can get to Argentina without being gonged with a bolo.  You park in a gravel lot just off the highway – drive your car through that gap in the barbwire fence and pull up to the edge; not too far or your car will plummet about 200 feet to that picturesque canyon floor.  Don’t forget to put some rocks under your wheels just in case your car decides to roll. Climb down a few hundred steps along the crumbly cliff face, cross the gap-toothed suspension bridge over the swiftly-running mountain river and voila, you are almost there.  All you have to do is negotiate the use of the ‘thermals’ with David – an entrepreneur with a whiff of gypsy about him who endeavours to remove all excess cash you might be carrying.

Elizabet's Termales - the hot pool is a tiny birdbath at the extreme right of the big pool

Fortunately we were saved by Elisabet who shooed him away. She led us a few hundred meters to the ‘Vapors’ which is, essentially a steam room.  There are three rooms in fact, each one a ramshackle closet of rusted, corrugated metal, poles, plastic sheeting, moist dirt and rocks -not in any way comfortable but somehow kind of quaint and wonderful.  Intense puffs of steam were exhaled from a mouth-shaped funnel in the side of the cliff as if Satan himself was huffing. If you huddled just so you were bathed in a delicious cloud of earthy steam – barely sulphurous.  In fact someone had placed a clump of eucalyptus leaves on the hole where the steam issued forth and the closet was filled with a yummy, menthol/rosemary scent that lifted our spirits enormously.  We were simultaneously cramped - being pressed against dirt, metal and rock - and anointed with a fantastic sensual mist that shrouded us in a healing embrace. It felt like a timeless ritual – close your eyes and you might have had the same experience hundreds of years ago minus the rusty metal.

From the tin vapour shack we walked back a couple of hundred yards to a small hot pool.  Or perhaps a tepid pool would be more accurate. It was late afternoon and a distinctly cool wind was picking up – pushing down through from the mountains to the east.  A deliciously hot pool would have been most welcome but that was not available.  Still it was lovely to luxuriate, lie back in a dead-man’s float in the shallow, pebble-bottomed depression and look up at the perfect, grey-blue sky with sheer cliffs on all sides.  It was too late to get back on the road so we negotiated a stay in one of Elizabet’s cabanas.  It kind of defies description.  Maybe rustic if you think 1849 rustic.  It was...standing.  The floor was a porous to the outside –the planks had substantial gaps between them.  There was no hot water but there was water.  Electricity appeared just before dark – at about 7.15. We gobbled down some sandwiches made from supplies we had bought for lunch and darted under the linens.  I had a most wonderful night, replete with rich and delicious dreams.  I kept waking up thinking that perhaps all those mountain winds were bringing marvelous and magical ideas and images to me.  Sophie was just cold, cold, cold.  I woke up in the middle of the night and opened the door to look at the stars.  Not a 4-star hotel but a billion star sky.  Wow!

We left early, heading back to nearby Talca.  The valley all along the Maule River was stupendous.  Towering Alamo trees appeared at every turn like frozen Roman Candles.  They glowed in the morning light; cadmium with touches of yellow oxide and sometimes sap green – their autumn costume.  They look like Lombardy poplars - stand about 20 or 25 meters tall.  They form a perfect graphic counterpoint to the undulating grey, purple and vermillion of the valley walls and their verdant, stouter arboreal cousins.  So, in all it was a sensual feast but with some fairly substantial creature comfort costs. Perhaps that is the right formula – it’s just not what we were anticipating or hoping for.

The next Termale we visited was purported to be more luxurious.  It is adjacent to one of Chile’s most popular ski resorts near the small city of Chillan (avoid). The drive up was, again, spectacular. I love the journeys up into the mountains.  Both times we traveled up into increasingly verdant, forested hills and sierra.  This time the road was up to the summit of the mountain so the road was winding and heavily forested.  The trees are very different what we are familiar with in Canadian forests.  Some trees are huge, broad pines – having the silhouettes of deciduous trees.  There is a tree here called El Roble that provides beautiful red wood – almost as deep as mahogany.  It’s reputedly as strong as oak. 

When we neared the summit – there were some crazy hairpin turns along the way which challenged the power of our meagre Chevrolet sedan and also my neglected skills with a stick shift – we drove into the Complejo Hermoso – Beautiful Complex.  This Termale consisted of three piscina, only two of which were operating.  They were quite crowded even at that relatively early hour.  Large-ish Chileans formed a ring around the edge like a limn of salt on a pisco sour.  The water was an opaque oyster grey and, unfortunately again, not very hot. Drat! We were both looking forward to a good cooking like we had experienced in Japan.  This time the setting was a bit more commercial, with concessions selling dulces and bebidas but the sun was yummy warm and the sky was a perfect azure.  We simmered for an hour or so in the charcoal soup and then headed back down the hill.  We were planning to get close to Santiago – about a 6 hour drive.  On the way down the hill we picked up a couple of young ladies who were hitchhiking to get down to Chillan - on our route.  Their English was only a bit better than my egregious Spanish but we made good conversation and their stories lightened our spirits.  They are both avid climbers and they had spent a few days climbing in and around the area.  I might have scared the crap out of them with my distracted driving.  Ah well, we all lived.

So in terms of performance of the spas, maybe a C.  But both trips were memorable for other reasons.  And that is sort of the story of Chile so far.  The experience of the natural beauty of the country and the warmth and friendliness of the people outweighs the teeth-grinding frustration of the traffic, town layouts, signage, MALE CHILEAN DRIVERS and general lack of sanitation almost everywhere. I long for the wonderful bidets of Argentina.

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We are now in the north.  We are resuming our quest for delicious, healing, scalding Termales.  I’ll give you marks from the second semester in a later posting.  Stay well and warm my friends.  We are entering the home stretch.  After a few days up here in Chico Norte we will head back down to Santiago via Valparaiso, drop off the Chevy and spend a day or two with our friends before flying back to GOOD OLD CANADA.

Chile Dawgs

Mireya with Baloo, Charly and Alfie

I feel compelled to write but I don’t have a theme.  It happens. I expected Chile to be different from Argentina but it is different in every possible way.  We have some acquaintances here.  We knew Mireya in Toronto.  Not very well but she was in Sophie’s circle.  She and her husband Luis live in the southeast of Santiago.  They live in an ‘ecological’ development which seems to be shorthand for ‘how the world might have turned out if the sixties didn’t go sideways’.

Santiago is cradled within mountains.  Everywhere you look there are mountains just out of reach. They were misty when we arrived.  The next day the sun burnt off the mist and they were mauve, sandstone, grey-purple and blackish green in places.   They are not particularly sharp but they are comfortingly close. Sometimes it is reminiscent of Banff – but Banff with a population of, what...15 Million?!?!? and dropped into New Mexico or Colorado perhaps Arizona.

At the entrance to Mireya and Luis’ enclave is a cluster of little artisanal shops.  Ceramics, weaving, knitting, crocheting, and the like are for sale and too, those skills are offered as classes for children and adults.  Yoga Tuesdays and Fridays and a few restaurants rest happily beneath the huge trees.  People walk around in hippy weeds, their gait is loose and easy. Travel a up the road a little further and then turn up the Buena Camino: a delicious serpentine macadam road that winds easily between brobdignagian eucalyptus trees – it's a scene right out of LOTR .  There are no curbs; asphalt hugs the bases of the trees - it lies like it was taffy poured from a jug. Drivers slow and pull over for oncoming cars because it is a bit too narrow for two cars to pass easily in most areas.  People hitchhike in this community; it is safe within the perimeters though, interestingly, not particularly neighbourly – Chileans seem to be family focused but not particularly inclined to share time with immediate neighbours (I am told).  As in the rest of Santiago and what we have seen of Chile so far, each house has a fence or wall in front.  An automated gate permits ingress and egress of vehicles and humans.  Dogs are everywhere, they wander quite freely though we are given to understand that the perimeter of each yard in sacrosanct and foreign dogs enter at their peril and often perish if they trespass.  It is the law of this place and everyone knows and respects it.  Dogs are so present in Chile and Argentina in fact that I suspect that half the canine of the population of the world can be found in Latin America. The houses in the community are all unique, much of them designed and jerry-built – which doesn’t mean they are poorly constructed, just that they are often quirky in design and features. Some are distinctly hobbit-like. Some do look a tad shaky.

Luis and Mireya live at the ‘top’ of Buena Camino – theirs is the last cross street – named Camino las Estrellas.  It does seem that you could leap to the stars if you got a good enough run up the Buena Camino. To get to their home you take a right from the smooth macadam; the road immediately turns to hellacious dirt and rocks whose sole purpose seems to be to eviscerate your vehicle.  Fortunately they live only a hundred or so feet along.  Another right down a narrow drive brings you to their gate.  When it swings inwards you find yourself in an Eden-like sanctuary.  Baloo, Charly and Alfie (you have to work at getting Alfie to like you) are there to greet you.  Baloo is a giant, male yellow lab; neck like a bull and male apparatus to match.  He’s only nine but already has a touch of the ‘thritis.  Never mind, he’s as friendly as any lab you can find.  He talks a bit; low-frequency groans and grunts that surely are meant to communicate his pleasure at your acquaintance or his discomfiture at the pinch of fall that is in the air.  Charly is a as smart as a whip. Part border collie, she has a gentle manner, deep, chestnut brown, voluble eyes and a silky black coat with just a hint of brindle mutt in her fetlocks. Alfie is similarly small with a wavy black coat with a brilliant white tuxedo chest - maybe a bit of spaniel, some border collie and a touch of terrier.  He’s much more reserved and will take his own sweet time in deciding whether you can be a friend.  Chuck him under the chin for a bit and give him a few rubs on the insides of his oversized ears and he’s yours.

The house that Luis and Mireya designed is literally fantastic.  Statues, masks, dreamy paintings and a thousand small amuse-guele abound. In the towering hallway a winding iron staircase leads up to the master bedroom and star-watching dome.  Through and to the right is a generous kitchen with a heavy wooden table.  Another table in the next room would easily seat 10.  Luis and Mireya seem to do a lot of their day-to-day work there – Luis has a few projects on the go and Mireya is an art and music therapist.  The floors are variously stone, tile, and dark, tropical wood.  Keep moving to the right and there is a passageway, a shortish hallway lined with plants, that brings you to their music room.  It’s a musician’s dream with every instrument and noise-making piece of hardware you can imagine. What an auditory feast! Luis lit a fire in the small stove at the far end of the room when we arrived because it was a particularly cool evening. We sat and talked and were immediately at home. Luis shared a wonderful and terrible life story - mostly wonderful - from the crucible of Chile in the 70s he has emerged a gentle, compassionate man.

The side and rear of the house open to a hectare or so of porch that Luis has been working on for a year or so.  Trees thrust from the porch or arch over it, creating shady pools and yummy sun struck islands.  Below, down a few stairs is a path to their swimming pool.  Too cool now to swim in but very inviting.  Hemming the porch are a variety of shrubs and trees.  Peaches and almonds grow here.  Bougainvillea, hibiscus, figs too. Reach out and grab a few leaves of lemon-balm to make a delicious tea. Here’s a rosemary bush the size of a car.  And succulents are everywhere in Santiago so there are dozens of cacti, sedum, jade plants, agave  – I have no idea what 90% of the plants are.  It’s absolutely magnificent.

I've neglected to mention Emma and Simon, two of their children who live here as well.  They have been generous and welcoming to us as well.  Evan went to school with another of Mireya’s children, Camilla, at Ossington Old Orchard Public School – that’s how we came to know Mireya.

Enough for now.  I am writing this from their beach-house which is an hour north of Valparaiso.  It looks west to Australia perhaps.  I’ll put together a few words about this ocean idyll in a later posting.

We have landed in a cradle of kindness and generosity, so we can just eat and laugh with friends. We’ll take to the road soon enough.

We are now more than half way through our journey.  We’ve felt strong yearnings to return home from time to time but every day has a different energy and buoys us or drops us.  Part of the deal.

Suenos y Suertes

Sculpture in the Cemetario - Buenos Aires

Dreams and Fortunes - I am dreaming again.  After a long drought of months and months of furtive, forgotten or blurry dreams I am waking from labyrinthine epics. This morning, one about Evan and his newly discovered love of horse-riding (Marsie, Don et al also in the cast) – In the event Evan is a sexy, pre-pubescent Bieber-like star because of his good looks – pin straight hair draped casually ‘a la rideau’ over his smouldering dark eyes.  Most of the dream was spent looking for a nice large space for him and his friends to enjoy riding.  Is it the sudden presence of gauchos in my subconscious? In any case I love to dream so it’s a welcome change. I’ve always felt that my dreams are evidence of my wonting creativity – ‘if only I had ready access to the huge trove of imagery and storytelling that resides in my unconscious’ I opine.

Just before we set out to Argentina I had a dream. As follows: in a ruined transept of an ancient stone cathedral; I gaze into a small room on the right side of the nave and watch as a pair of dusty legs clambered down from a sun-spiked hole in the ceiling.  The nave is filled with a glacis of broken stone and plaster, bits of wood . The figure continues to climb down – sandals, legs, heavy woven robe, revealing, eventually, none other than Saint Christopher (patron saint of travelers I think).  I just ‘knew’ it was him, no introductions.  The upshot of it was that in that half-awake moment I realized that THERE IS A GOD! (because, in dream-logic it follows that if there is a Saint there is a God).  In any case I woke up sobbing – the emotions were that strong for this lapsed Cat-lick.  I can’t say that it led to any Tarsus-like conversion (it was a dream after all). I mention this only because it was the first or one of the first dreams that occurred after my long drought.  My interpretation was that on some level I was mentally preparing for this trip - and certain people have expressed concern that it might be too early for me to take on the challenges of a sustained voyage.  I took the dream to mean that all would be well (if dreams have predictive capability). I sincerely believe that I am attended by several ‘good spirits’ who look out for me and deflect bad things from my path. Among those in the pantheon of my protective spirits I believe are our two Grandmothers: Rie and Ket, those three-lettered angels who so profoundly loved we Gillies children – our first experiences of unconditional love. For the record, I also believe that there are brujas in the world who one is better avoiding. I’ve met some of those and gotten into a few scrapes. New Age nonsense?

A happy Cemetario cat

The famous Cemetario in Buenos Aires is unlike anything I have ever seen in Canada.  Unlike Paris’ Montmartre in that it is entirely comprised of crypts in perfect array, hardly a centimeter of space between one and the next.  This wee Pueblo de los Muertos hosts generations of prominent Buenos Aires families’ dusty ancestors. The dessicatantes reside in tidy little bloques arranged on a slightly eccentric grid - the whole site is only a city block in area.  The ‘residences’ of the deceased are maintained exquisitely or left to crumble in genteel desuetude; likely a reflection of the fortunes or lack thereof of the families who are the occupants. In the latter case dessicated ferns and stringy shrubs are permitted to sprout optimistically from tiny cracks and crevices in untended doorways and walls.  Occasionally a bland-faced attendant will pop out of a hidden gap, Jeeves-like, armed with broom or cloth to attend to this structure or that. Some of the crypts have windows that reveal inky staircases leading to the personal underworld of the occupant family. Stone sculptures have limbs missing, tiny, ancient caskets are nearly tumbling out of fractured windows. There is a subtle but pervasive smell of mildew and must. Doom and decay are everywhere despite the imposition of order and care. Cemetery cats wander, stretch, preen and loll – they will welcome a little skritch behind the ear then saunter off.  They look content enough with their employment. You know what they say: If you love your job you will never work a day in your life. One doesn’t really want to think too hard about the food chain that links to their sleek, healthy appearance.

Tomb of Eva Peron

The tomb of Eva Peron is here and is easily the most famous feature.  She is still fiercely revered by many Argentines.  Her crypt has the family name Duarte.  It is a fine crypt though her family roots are quite humble.  How is it that newcomers find a residence in this finite space.  Did some family fail to keep up with the rent or do lesser families get the boot in favour of the more recent notables? There are fresh carnations and roses twined into the fine, wrought iron gate of her crypt. All the guided tours wend towards that one crypt, the walkways seem almost concave from the wear of pedestrians.

There is another crypt nearby that has a notorious history.  Apparently a young woman was buried alive – her later exhumation revealed scratch marks on the interior lid of her coffin.  Taphophobia is the word for fear of being buried alive.  I couldn’t find a word for the event of it rather than the fear thereof. There are several contrivances that have been devised to prevent premature internment from being a fatal experience. I suggest a little bell and a generous flue. Make sure you have a strong wifi connection if you have such a concern.  The door of the unfortunate lady’s crypt features the bas-relief sculpture of a young woman pulling at the door – far more pleasing I think than an authentic depiction of someone clawing wildly at the lid. I was reminded of that wonderful wake scene in The Shipping News by Annie Proulx.  Not so fortunate this woman.

Another nearby crypt has a sculpture of a young woman standing beside her loyal dog (top picture in this blog).  Strangely, the cats seemed to like hanging around just thereabouts. The bronze nose of the dog has been polished to a bright sheen by the touch of many passers-by.  Perhaps it is a talisman of fortune to the locals. Here in the Cemetario, unique in a public place in Buenos Aires, there is not a trace of graffiti.  The walkways are pristine and true.  Ok Colin, we get the picture...

A couple of days later we visited the Evita Peron Museum. I confess I knew very little about her. I had assumed in my ignorance that she was a beautiful gold-digger that had attached herself to a powerful political figure for personal gain. I am not certain what the attraction was between her and Juan was – they had profoundly different values before they met - but she achieved remarkable things and worked assiduously for the poor – especially single mothers - during the few years she lived with him before she died tragically young.  I was profoundly moved by her history as narrated in the museum. There is a terribly affecting bronze bust of her near the exit.  It was bashed and beaten by some thug after her demise – like the barbaric defacement of a ruler or god by a conquering enemy. Have you noticed how many times Western leaders have used the word ‘barbaric’ when referring to ISIS/ISIL? Smacks of ancient, biblical stuff – rape, pillage and the like.  Shorthand access to our fears and prejudices. After all, barbaric just means ‘foreign’.

The Evita Museum is a short distance from the MALBA – a small but beautiful private art museum featuring 20^th century Argentine art.  The displays are wonderful, the ambience is delicious – a sunnier version of the Guggenheim perhaps. The return trip home, through the Japanese Gardens and then the Botanical Gardens was less impressive – or maybe I was just too tired and footsore.  In any case I would recommend giving the Japanese gardens a pass - especially if you have ever been to Japan – it comes off as a shabby notion both aesthetically and structurally. The Japanese hold in reverence water, stone and wood – this garden demonstrates none of that quality of thought or spirit.

All these sites are within walking distance if you stay in Palermo.  I haven’t visited all of BA but my impression so far is that it is the best barrio for travelers to reside. It is urban but not as polluted and relentlessly concrete as San Telmo.  It has an abundance of street life – cafes, restaurants and nightclubs. It seems quite safe even at night, and is central to much of what BA has to offer.  A quick trip on the Subte (subway) along the Santa Fe line takes one downtown to the center, Puerto Madero and to San Telmo which all have notable sites to visit. Wear comfortable walking shoes. Taxis are cheap, buses and subway are very inexpensive – buy a SUBE card at a lottery shop (they are everywhere) and charge it up with 50 or so pesos so you don’t need to deposit money to travel.