Todd's Visit

On Sunday morning, March 7th, I took the metro to the bus and the bus to the airport to pick up my boyfriend, Todd, who was visiting from the U.S. for two weeks. The airport had suffered a lot of damage during the earthquake, so most of the main building was completely closed. Tents had been set up in the parking lot to serve as a waiting area for people picking up friends and family. One tent held international arrivals, while the other held domestic arrivals as well as the gate through which all departing passengers leave. To get past the tent in the parking lot you need a ticket.

His flight down had not been a great experience. He had flown on Lan Chile and though they told him his flights were fine, they cancelled both of them at the last minute and gave him a huge hassle about getting him on a different flight. When I got to the airport, I was not entirely sure that Todd would be on the flight. Luckily, he was.

We took a cab to the apartment where I showed Todd around. We picked up my family and took the metro to Los Dominicos, a local artisan market, where we had a traditional Sunday afternoon lunch. Todd got to sample some local cuisine, including pastel de choclo, a baked corn casserole. After lunch we walked through the shops before heading home for a dinner of empanadas.

Monday, Todd and I took the metro downtown to Puente Cal y Canto. There we checked out the local fish market, fruit market, flower market, and Estacion Mapocho, an old train station converted into an events hall. The fish market was dark and wet. The building that houses it looks like an old warehouse and used to be Santiago’s central market. All types of seafood can be found in the numerous stands there. Estacion Mapocho was also fascinating. The building had suffered significant damage in the earthquake, so we were only allowed to walk through part of it, but what we saw was beautiful.

From there we headed down to the bead district to find some lapis beads for Todd’s stepmother, Linda. Lapis is a semi-precious stone that is only found in two places in the world: Chile and Afghanistan, needless to say, most lapis jewelry comes from Chile. We had a light lunch and headed down to the plaza de armas, the central square that every Chilean city has. Around the square are metal prints of maps from various points in Santiago’s history. It was interesting to see how the city had grown over time.

From there we made our way down to Cerro Santa Lucia, a hill in the center of Santiago. Though the hill itself was closed, because of earthquake damage to the stairs that go up it, the craft market across the street was open. We checked it out and visited the local catholic university and La Moneda, Chile’s version of the Whitehouse, before heading home.

On the walk from the metro stop to the apartment, we witnessed a purse snatching. We know to watch out for pickpockets, but I had never heard of a purse snatching in Providencia, the community that we live in, considered one of the safest in Santiago.

Tuesday we rented bikes and rode to Cerro San Cristobal, another hill in Santiago. Unfortunately, Todd’s bike broke about half way there, so the going was slow. Once there, we took the fenuicular, a cable car that goes up the steep hillside, to the top. There we tried mote con huesillos, a traditional drink here made from rehydrated peaches with wheat germ in the bottom. We walked down the hill on a cute path through the woods that was very peaceful and gave us great views.

Wednesday morning Todd and I headed out of town to the beach. We took the metro to the bus station and the bus to Papudo, a town about two and a half hours northwest of Santiago. We found a hotel and nice seafood restaurant near the beach. We tried a variety of local seafood, including razor clams, congrio, shrimp, and mussels. We walked along the beach, but the overcast weather did not tempt us to swim, though there were many people surfing in wet suits.

Thursday, after another walk along the beach in which we got to see the fishermen preparing their daily catch as well as a washed up dead sea otter. We took the bus down the coast to Zapallar where we checked out the town square and the beach. From there we headed out to the peninsula that juts out from the coast. We were half way up the hill on the peninsula when we heard a siren. It was exactly noon and it shortly ended so we didn’t think anything of it until we got to the top of the peninsula. From there we could see emergency vehicles driving all over the town, and people leaving all of the houses and businesses we could see. We realized that it was a tsunami warning, so I tried to call my parents in Santiago to find out more information. We weren’t sure how big of a wave was predicted or when they thought it would hit, so we weren’t sure whether we should stay on the hill on the peninsula, or run down and back up the hill on the mainland.

Unable to get a hold of anyone because the phone lines were down, we decided to stick it out. We watched for almost half an hour as the police came down the hill and led people back up, then back down and more people headed up, then more vehicles coming down to get more people to go up. After half and hour, Todd decided that if there was this much warning, it must be a huge wave, and we would be better off running to the mainland. So we did. We went down to the beach and ran straight up a dirt road, that I am convinced is too steep for cars. We reached the paved road and a man stopped. He had no room in his car, but confirmed that it was a tsunami warning. Another man stopped and gave us a ride up the hill. There we sat at a café and waited it out. No tsunami hit, and after another 45 minutes I was able to get in touch with my parents to let them know that we were ok. Because when the original tsunami hit after the big earthquake, there had been no warning, and people had been fired as a result, I suspect that those responsible for the warning were quick to put one out.

After the warning ended, we waited a bit for good measure and then took a walk along the coast south of town. The south shore is full of gorgeous mansions owned by Santiago’s elite. After walking the coast we headed back to town to wait for the bus to Viña del Mar.

We waited two and a half hours for the bus, which usually runs every hour. We were on the verge of changing our travel plans when the bus arrived. The driver explained that the company had stopped the busses when the tsunami warning occurred because of its route’s proximity to the shore. We weren’t the only passengers who had been waiting. The poor bus driver had to explain every time a new passenger got on the bus.

We finally arrived in Viña, as it is affectionately known, around 8 pm. We found a hotel and checked out the main part of town. A couple restaurants had people on the street ushering people in with free drinks or discounts. One guys offer of two free drinks and the smell of fajitas lured us into a Tex-Mex restaurant, where we had the most delicious fajitas I have had in a long time.

Friday morning we walked around Viña. We saw the castles that litter the coast. Apparently, in the 1920s someone decided that it would be cool to make their house look like a castle. Others copied. We also saw the flower clock, a working clock that is built into the hillside in downtown Viña, made of planted flowers. From there we headed to the main park and museum in the city, only to find that it was closed. Viña, way over crowded in the summer months, was wonderfully relaxing in March. There were only a few people along the beach going about their daily lives. Because there weren’t that many people we were able to notice the pair of pickpockets checking us out and loose them.

We had the biggest completo (hotdog on a bun with tomato, avocado, and mayonnaise) I have ever seen, before catching the bus back to Santiago. At the completo café, we were sitting outside when another big earthquake hit. The fence blocking off the sidewalk café started rattling and everyone felt it. In Chile, waiters never give you the bill until you ask for it; to give it to you without your asking would be the equivalent of asking you to leave. The earthquake scared everyone so much that the waiter, apologizing profusely, brought us the bill as they were closing the outdoor part of the café. On the way home from the bus station, Todd and I hit up Bravisimo, the biggest ice cream store in Santiago, to treat our sweet teeth.

Saturday we loaded up the car and headed up into the mountains with my family. My siblings’ squabbles made for a long car ride, but the scenery was beautiful. We drove up to Juncal, just west of the border crossing into Argentina. Four years ago, we had an exchange student from Chile, Gabriela, and her brother, Fernando, is a park ranger at Juncal. They had two guest rooms, but the rest of us slept in old ovens. Yes, ovens. The park station used to be an old gypsum mine, so they still had one of the old buildings with gypsum ovens in it, previously used for drying out the gypsum into plaster so that it was easier to transport. The ovens provided shelter from the wind and definitely beat sleeping in a tent, the alternative. We had a cookout of longenizas and hotdogs for dinner and sat around the campfire before going to bed.

Sunday we got up and hiked five kilometers up toward the mountains to get a better view of the glaciers. I was not feeling well, so turned back at the two and a half kilometer point, walking a total of five kilometers, but Kalindi, Sterling, and my parents continued on going twice as far. Back at camp, the rest of us played cards, dice, and charades while we waited for everyone else.

When they got back, we packed up the car and drove back down to Santiago. We arrived to a nation-wide blackout. By the time we got to our apartment, the power had just gone back on, but much of the country was still without power. Apparently there had been a problem with one of the power stations caused by leftover damage from the earthquake.

Monday we took it easy because Todd was feeling under the weather. We picked up my brother from his school and took him out for a snack, but other than that, we laid pretty low.

Tuesday we drove out to Pomaire. Pomaire is a town about an hour and a half from Santiago where most of the traditional Chilean pottery comes from. We walked around the town and picked up some gifts for friends in the US and some bowls for my mother. We had fresh empanadas at a restaurant in town and drove home, stopping at a roadside vegetable stand for potatoes and onions. For dinner, Todd and I made sushi for my family.

Wednesday we drove out to my parents’ friend, Diego’s winery. The winery is in Pirque, just 45 minutes from Santiago when the traffic isn’t bad. The winery had suffered severe damage during the earthquake and they had lost most of their wine. Luckily, the earthquake struck just before the start of the new harvest season. Most of the stainless steel tanks were destroyed. Only those who were empty survived. According to someone who was driving by at the time of the earthquake, a wave of wine came out of the winery and was strong enough to spin his car around. Most of the grass and trees around the winery had died because of the wine. The tanks that fell knocked out a wall, which they were in the process of rebuilding, so we all needed to wear hard hats. After the winery tour, we had lunch with my parents at a nice outdoor restaurant before returning to Santiago.

Because it was St. Patrick’s day, Todd and I went out to the local Irish pub to celebrate. The place was completely packed! We never even went inside, opting instead to hang out on the sidewalk so as not to pay the $15 cover charge. Apparently there are no open container laws in Chile, as the bar had set up a table on the sidewalk and was selling every imaginable type of beer that comes in a green can. They did not, however, have Guinness. Apparently, they ran out early in the evening. We met lots of English teachers from the U.S. living in Santiago. Almost everyone there was speaking English. It was almost like being back in the U.S.

Thursday we headed back to the plaza de armas for lunch, before going to the nearby Pre-Columbian museum. The museum was fascinating and with artifacts from all over Latin America, including a Mayan Stele. After the museum we zipped back to Los Dominicos to pick up a copper bowl that we had seen the week before and headed home.

My parents took us out to dinner while the kids stayed in with a movie. We went to a revolving restaurant for appetizers and got a great view of the city. Then for dinner we went to an Indian restaurant, which was good, if not spicy enough for our tastes.

Friday we went back up Cerro San Cristobal to take photos of the view before going out to dinner with my family, kids included. Todd got to try steak tartar, sea urchin, and pastel de jaiba, a crab and cheese pie. After dinner we picked up Todd’s luggage and I took him to the airport. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go past the tent in the parking lot, but his flight left as planned and he made it home safe.

To see photos of Todd's visit you can check out his pictures at tdmack.smugmug.com/Chile2010.