Santiago, CHILE - 29 january 2003
I originally had an air-ticket flying from Buenos Aires to Cancún. But apparently, during my intended time of travel later in March, Mexicana would have cancelled the route. My travel agent in Singapore had advised me to go to the nearest Mexicana office to get a re-routed ticket.
That was why I was heading to Santiago, which was originally not my intention. I guess that was why people made plans… so that we would have something to change from.
I awoke just as the bus passed by tiny houses with a small-town feel and entered a bus terminal. I remained seated, thinking that this was perhaps a small town before Santiago. Then, I noticed everyone was getting off. OK, joke’s over. Now take me to the REAL Santiago.
Well, apparently, this was it. As I stumbled off with a confused look, I was accosted by a few taxi drivers. Fine, in a city with no map and a vague idea of which hostel I wanted to go to, and still very sleepy, I guess a taxi would be the solution.
The driver suggested two hostels near the centre and he was very kind to radio back to the head office to ask them to give the hostels a call. Full, full. He drove to another hostel and knocked on the door. Full too. I proffered the telephone number of the hostel I had. Full again! Finally, after a tour de Santiago, we arrived at La Casa Roja and it was NOT full. Great, the cost of my taxi ride was nearly the cost of my hostel. But the driver was very nice.
You can take a girl out of a city but you cannot take the city out of a girl. Give her a couple of metro lines and todo bien [everything OK]… until she came upon her first turnstile and could not locate the hole to stick her ticket through. She then wondered if she had been ‘naturised’.
But give her another hour and the chameleon adapted faultlessly. Stony looks, no eye-contacts, brisk pace of walking amongst the suits, a need to dodge traffic (human and vehicular), no saying ‘hola’ to strangers if you did not want them to give you a suspicious look, massive breathing in of smog. Instead of settling for a cheapie-looking café that sold, yet again, pizza, empanada or hamburger, the cosmopolitan organism scrunched up her face and sniffed affectedly, “I want to eat sushi.” The girl was back in town!
I sorted out my air-ticket stuff and wandered along the main avenue back to the centre, passing Cerro San Cristobal and Cerro Santa Lucia. Boy, it was blazing hot, more than 35°C. Like, NOW I own a scarf?
Wonderful about Santiago are the water dispensers available on the streets. A heaven-sent in this summer heat. People were queuing to take sips. Some even took to turning on taps in drains and drinking from there or splashing their faces. Children were playing in the fountain as if it was a swimming pool.
There were people playing chess (with time-clocks too, how exciting) at the Plaza de Armas, under a pavilion. This place must have the highest level of brain activity ever recorded at this temperature. An old man was sitting alone at his table and gave me a quizzical look to ask if I wanted to spar with him. Err… no, I cannot play Chess, I can only spell C-H-E-S-S.
Before coming to Santiago, loads of people down south, including the Viña del Mar family, had warned me about robberies and told me to be careful here. I guess the faint STUPID sign on my forehead was still lingering. At the metro station, for example, there were warnings, telling people that it was FORBIDDEN to carry their bags on their backs. Forbidden?!? Indeed, some locals were walking with their bags in front.
As I did not sleep well on the bus last night, at one point, I sat on a bench on Paseo Ahumada and inadvertently dozed for 40 minutes. Talk about warning me about robberies!
Santiago to Viña del Mar, CHILE - 30 january 2003
With the heat, one tended to be lethargic. I sat in the shade in Plaza de Armas and turned to stone for an hour or so.
I later visited the very good Museo del Arte Precolombiano [Museum of Pre-Colombian Art]. So far in Chile, I had not really been exposed to the cultural bits of the country. This was a good change and allowed me to revisit the potteries, sculptures, statues, jars, masks, etc… of Mexico and Peru too.
I arrived in Viña del Mar at around 7:30pm. I was lucky for the family had just arrived home from their vacation merely half an hour earlier. Jessica then picked me up from the bus-station.
They had asked me if I missed my parents and how often I called home. They were scandalised when I said four times in nine months. I mentioned tomorrow was Chinese New Year’s Eve. They were delighted. They made me promise to call home for this special occasion and even calculated the best time to do so (9am for 8pm in Singapore) so that everyone would be at home.
Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, CHILE - 31 january 2003
Despite their multiple reminders last night, I still overslept and in the end, at 10am, Adriana had to wake me up and make me call home.
Katya took me to Valparaíso for a quick walk around the old port town which had lost its importance after the Panama Canal was built. The town had steeper hills and ascensors which were antique rickety funiculars to reach the top of the hills. Colourful houses built on stilts could be found at the sides of the hills. It is a rather charming place.
Adriana, Katya and I later took a stroll along the beach area of Viña del Mar to watch the fantastically orange sunset across the cloudless sky. The weather in Viña del Mar was much easier to tolerate than Santiago’s because of the fresh sea breeze.
Viña del Mar is a modern sea-side resort town and tourism is a rather huge industry. I later learnt that because of the Argentinian economic crisis, hardly any Argentinians made their way across the Andes to Viña this year. And also because of the same crisis, the Chileans were making their way across the Andes to Argentina for their summer holidays. Viña del Mar is apparently quieter this year.
But what was great was to stay with a family up on one of those residential hills in the outskirts of town and experience a little of their lifestyles. It was also weird to hear the family call my Chinese name for I had not heard it in a long time… and in Chile too. I was soon known as ‘La Wei Xin’.
Viña del Mar, CHILE - 01 february 2003
I soon realised Adriana has the kindest heart in the world.
Pretending to be making casual conversation, Adriana had asked me how I would cook rice. Usually plain, I had replied (just as I had told that Argentinian woman in Villarrica who refused to believe me).
The next thing I know, plain rice was served with some delicious pork for lunch.
Then, last evening, she asked me if we Chinese eat chicken. Of course we do. And… I was served chicken today.
Because of the summer heat, the family did not usually take dinner, just some bread and butter known as once [eleven]. But again, through ‘casual’ conversation, she had learnt that dinner was the most important meal in our Chinese culture and so, because of me, they made sure I was fed before bed-time.
I was SUPER touched by their gestures! Surely, I did not deserve these kind acts.
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