As I gradually disengage myself from Chile and return to the strangely familiar environment of Toronto, I’m left with a sense that I haven’t been able to get inside Chile’s head, so to speak.  Part of this is due to the fact that I can’t speak Spanish, and part of it is due to the fact that Chileans are part of a very reserved culture.  But even though I’m on the outside looking in, it seems quite obvious that Chile hasn’t quite come to terms with the legacy of Pinochet and his regime.  There are constant reminders of both the junta and the opposition to it.  It is as if there is still a battle being waged for the memories of Chileans.

In Ancud I noticed that the main street that runs along the waterfront is named after Salvador Allende, the democratically elected President that Pinochet deposed.  The naming obviously happened after Pinochet’s ouster. 

And on the waterfront there is a simple, yet prominent, memorial to four young Ancud citizens who were killed as a result of the coup.  The sad thing is that this memorial has been vandalized and sits forlorn and apparently ignored.  Has it been defaced by Pinochet supporters or by bored smalltown youths who just have no sense of history or memory?  Either way, it’s a sad state.

In Santiago, as well, I noticed this split personality with regards to remembering or memorializing the dictatorship.  There is still a main avenue that is named in memoriam of September 11 – not the terrorist attack of 2001, but the date of Pinochet’s coup in 1973.  When Pinochet took power left wing supporters were rounded up and imprisoned, tortured and murdered.  Much of this happened in the national stadium.  This stadium is still being used for large concerts and sporting events today.

I don’t know if there is some informal, popular reclaiming/memorializing that is happening around the stadium.  I do know that there is a process by some to not let another torture centre slip into the past silently and be forgotten. When I first landed in Santiago I stayed in an interesting little barrio of old, ornate buildings, right downtown.  Just down the street, a half block from where I was staying was an attractive old building that stood abandoned and had graffiti and flyers pasted all over it.  Upon closer inspection I was surprised to learn that the building was a torture house and the flyers were photos of the 119 people who had been murdered there.  To further this act of witnessing, here are some photos of the building.

Ok, just a quick note here.  The computer I am using does not seem to have an apostrophe on its keyboard, so this post might sound a little more stilted than usual.

Now, on to the food.

Puerto Varas:  Enjoyed the German influence here.  Ate the most amazing apple strudel.  It was so dense and syrupy, it reminded me of baklava.  I still have dreams about it.

Chiloe:  Seafood.  So much seafood that I actually got tired of it.  I had a few curantos, which are pretty cool.  Traditionally cooked in a pit in the ground filled with coals, but normally just steamed in a big pot, it is a big mess of food.  On a platter you get a bunch of mussels (maybe about 20), some clams (maybe about 10-15), some chicken, ribs, sausage, potatoes, and a couple of “breads” – discs of potato and flour that get steamed with the rest of the stuff.  Pretty tasty and damn filling.

Argentina:  It is all about the beef.  Argentines eat an insane amount of it.  More than any other country, per capita.  150 lbs. per person every year.  I had some of the best steak I have ever eaten.  Completely sublime.  And cheap.  For 10 bucks you get a gorgeous chunk of meat, 4 or 5 inches across and at least 2 inches thick (at least!).

Argentina has received a lot of Italian immigrants over the years, and they brought with them their expertise with  gelato, although now it is referred to in Spanish – helado.  Some of the stuff I tried was a revelation, almost a religious experience with light shining down from the heavens and angels singing.  Banana with dulce de leche.  I always avoid banana flavoured ice cream because it is usually bright yellow and completely artificial.  This was a true banana grey and tasted like sweet, ripe bananas with swirls of gooey dulce de leche.  Merengueche – dulce de cleche flavoured ice cream with chunks of meringue.  Seeing a trend here?  Dulce de leche flavours constitute a whole category unto themselves in Argentina.  I do not like chocolate ice cream – it does not really do chocolate any justice – but I had chocolate helado that was dense and chewy.  Amazing.  And while Chile is nowhere near the Argentine level of helado expertise, I did discover a great pizza/helados place in Santiago that had some great flavours.  One of my favourites was harina tostada – literally toasted flour, semolina in this case.  It was sort of like a slightly nutty cream of wheat.  A nice contrast to the sweeter flavours.

I was going to make this a regular feature of the blog, but I guess I was too busy eating, so I´ll have to sum things up in a few end of trip posts.  I´ll cover the highlights, and a few lowlights.

Chacarero:  This is a common sandwich in Chilean diners.  It´s basically a steak sandwich topped with green beans and some mild hot peppers (fresh, not pickled).  It doesn´t sound like much, but the toppings give a fresh twist to what would otherwise be sort of ho-hum.

Lomo al pobre:  A Chilean take on steak and eggs.  Take a basic cut of steak (something you would find at a greasy spoon, not a fancy steakhouse), put a fried egg on top, and then cover the whole thing with french fries.  I´d prefer home fries instead, but that didn´t seem to be an option.  Lomo al pobre translates to “poor man´s steak”.  The idea is that they´ve piled on all this other stuff so that you won´t notice how cheap and measly the steak was.

Pastel del choclo:  A traditional corn casserole, consisting of a meat stew base with a thick corn topping.  This epitomizes what I don´t like about traditional Chilean cooking.  Bland.  It´s ironic that, given the country´s name, Chilean cuisine does not employ very much spice at all.  I´m all for tasting pure, fresh flavours, but sometimes you want something zippy in a meal.  You probably won´t find that here.  Also keep your eyes peeled for a future post about how Chileans love mayonnaise.

Espresso:  Boy, was it hard to find a good cup of coffee.  I don´t expect a nicely pulled shot in a small town, but in Santiago I thought I would have some luck.  Unfortunately, most Chileans consider Nescafe to be a damn fine brew.  A lot of places would have fancy espresso drinks on their menu, but the quality was poor. And a lot of places had a weird idea of what a cappuccino was.  You´d get a measly shot of coffee topped with a gargantuan mound of whipped cream (it would be 1 part coffee, 4 parts whipped cream!).  I have an incredible sweet tooth and even I found this disgusting.

While Villa La Angostura seemed to be teeming with classic sports cars, Mendoza seemed to be teeming with everyday cars from the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  I used to hate the automobile stylings from the 80s, but, and I don´t know if this is nostalgia or a more refined design sense, I really enjoyed looking at the clean lines of the cars I saw in Mendoza.  Some examples below (sorry so many of the photos are in shadow – too many damn trees in Mendoza).

I also dug the more curvy lines of this van.

And this classic little Fiat.

And this Renault 4.

It´s hard to see in the above photo, but Renault 4´s remind me of a képi, the hat Charles de Gaulle wore.

Well, I´m back in Puerto Varas, the town where I aborted my bike travels and stored my trusty steed for a few weeks.  Made the dash down here from Santiago last night, and am heading back tonight with the bike (ahh, nothing says good times like 14 hours on an overnight bus, followed by…another 14 hours the next night!).  Being in the south it´s a bit colder.  The air was thick with chimney smoke this morning.  I had forgotten that in Chile and Argentina, central heating is a rarity and practically everyone heats their homes with woodburning stoves.  Most houses also have woodburning ranges in their kitchens.  Below is the one that is in the kitchen of the hostal that I stayed in.

They use that stove everyday.  I even saw new ones being sold in a department store in Valdivia!  Who knew they were still being made?

Another thing that I forgot about Puerto Varas was that there seems to be an inordinate number of hot women for a town this size.  It´s quite unbelievable.  Must be something in the water or something.

I´m not really a car guy.  But I can appreciate them as design objects.  And when I was in Villa La Angostura a while ago a whole bunch of classics came rolling into the local gas station as I was walking by.  I had to take a few snaps.

This is a sleek looking Ferrari in a lovely, understated grey.

This is a more muscle-y looking Ferrari.  I like the sporty stripes.

This is a sexy little Maserati.  It looks like a 1957 200SI.

And this was my favourite.  An Argentine car called the IAME Justicialista.  It looked even cooler in person.

A couple of things I observed recently showed me how men´s and women´s roles are seen differently down here than back home.

The hostel I was staying in at Iguazu Falls was huge and it sort of operated like a resort or cruise.  There were organized sports during the day, sometimes shows were put on in the evening after dinner.  I was hanging out one afternoon and the guy who was in charge of the afternoon soccer game was going through the common areas trying to drum up support.  At least half of the people there were female, but I noticed he didn´t ask one of them if they wanted to play.  When he met a mixed group of people he would only ask the guys if they wanted to play, not the women.  I´m sure if one of the girls piped up that they wanted to join in he would have said ok, but I don´t think it occurred to him that women would play soccer.

And then today, I passed a graduation ceremony for the Carabinieros (the national police – like the RCMP I guess).  There was a parade down the street and the graduates were marching in formation.  The men looked like military, carrying rifles.  The women, while being in uniform, did not carry guns.  Instead they all carried purses.  It was surreal.

I have no idea what the text in this next one says.  If anyone who can read Spanish wants to give us the gist, you can tell us in the comments section.

The following shots show an official mural on the outside of a metro station.  Can you imagine the TTC having the creativity and vision to do something like this?

Back in Santiago as I finish up my South American travels (I´m back in less than two weeks!). It´s interesting to see how advertising and visual culture differs from what one is used to at home. I snapped a few examples when I was wandering the streets of the Chilean capital

First we have this mannequin from a major department store:

While he does share that universal mannequin talent of looking relaxed and natural, he seems to have been involved in some sort of a catfight. And with that annoying smirk, I´d be tempted to slap him in the face as well. Yes, nothing makes me want to buy clothes more than a bloodied and smirking dummy.

Next we have this charming couple, prominently displayed in the window of a health food/natural medicine store:

Boy, does he look happy and healthy. Maybe he just knocked back some tincture of echinacea or something. Or perhaps this shop was across the street from the above mannequin and he´s getting ready to knock that guy on his keester.

And finally we have this one:

That´s an ad for women´s shoes, by the way. Because nothing says shoes like a crotch shot. I can hear the photographer right now – “that´s it honey, just act natural”.

Many aspects have improved since the Argentine economic crisis of 2001, but it still remains difficult for many people to make a living.  On my travels I´ve met a few Argentines that were on vacation.  They were employed in white collar jobs such as librarian and economist.  While they made enough money to be able to afford to go away on vacation, they were sleeping in dorm rooms just as I was.

And then there are the others that don´t make as much.  Here in Buenos Aires I´ve seen men in their fifties, obviously well kept and well groomed, probably employed somewhere, but sleeping on the street with all their belongings in a suitcase.  I´ve seen a parent and child hunker down for the night on a traffic island in the middle of the biggest street in the city.  And I´ve seen the cartoneros.

The cartoneros are the people who go through all the trash bags that are put out each evening, looking for cardboard and other materials that they can sell to recycling depots.  They appear all over the city centre when night falls, working hard, hauling huge bags made of tarpaulin, hustling for a few pesos.  Small children often work beside their parents.  It is simultaneously heartbreaking and inspiring.

Check out these great links for more info.

A photo essay on the cartoneros done less than a year after the economic crisis began:

http://www.worldpress.org/photo_essays/cartoneros/

A blog post from a year and a half ago.  The rest of the blog looks really interesting too:

http://www.magicalurbanism.com/?p=149

An article from a couple of years ago.  Talks a bit about the cartoneros organizing politically:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0125/p20s01-woam.html