Chile

02/10/2016: The grown ups (my pops and his sister, who also happens to be my aunt) have now joined us for the Peruvian chapter of our jaunt through South America. They arrived in Lima about a week ago and travelled down to Arequipa by car, stopping in tiny towns and a beautiful (despite its slave-trade significance) old hacienda, and generally had a really lovely time. Given that we only arrived in the country yesterday they may well be thinking that we joined them on their jaunt, but this is my blog and therefore my jaunt. They joined us.

In order to get to our meeting point with the elders (a sofa in a hostel in the centre of Arequipa) Pól and I, starting in Santiago (Chile), took a plane six hours north to Bogota (Colombia), then another plane three hours south south west to Lima (Peru), then a final plane 90 minutes south east to Arequipa (thankfully, still Peru). The journey took 16 hours in total and as I'd forgotten to check the “I’m a wanky veggie” box when booking the flights all the way back in 2012 (probably), we had to survive on the three giant packets of crisps I insisted on buying to make up for my mistake, accompanied by a tiny aeroplane side salad (the food equivalent of a Yorkshire Terrier: cute but shit). I would not recommend travelling from Chile to Peru via Colombia just to save a few euros. It's like choosing microchips over curly fries, it's like wearing a potato sack instead of clothes: you get where you want to be; full, not naked, in Peru, but the experience is tasteless, uncomfortable, and long. Plus, the same journey by bus would have only taken a few hours more and no doubt been cheaper (I can't bring myself to check) but hey ho, you live you learn. I think Pól's forgiven me, though he’s been shivering and whimpering whenever he sees a bag of cheese Doritos, so I'm not sure.

After the delights of super-duper Shit Europe (Argentina), we crossed the Andes (again) into Chile, and spent three nights in the seaside town of Valparaiso, famed for its colourful houses on hills and funiculars which take you up (some of) those hills. Pól saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. “It's the biggest ocean I've ever seen,” he whispered, face pressed against the window of the bus, jaw dropped in awe. Our hostel was super nice - “soap in the bathrooms, and hand towels!”, as was the entire town. As much as Pól's bad knee hated the hills and ignored the graffiti (knees can't appreciate art after all) I enjoyed both things enormously. Valparaiso is like a giant St Ives (a beautiful seaside town in Cornwall with gentle hills, noisy seagulls, a Tate gallery and the house of artist Barbara Hepworth). The Chilean St Ives had all of those things only instead of the house of a modernist sculptor, we visited the house of Pablo Neruda: Chilean poet, ambassador to France and advisor to Salvador Allende, the president who was murdered in 1973. Chile lived under a brutal, fascist dictatorship until 1980 and we sensed a divisive hangover in Chilean society when we asked an old lady at the bus stop if she'd ever been to La Sebastiana (Neruda's house). “I’m not interested in the sort of thing,” she sniffed at us from beneath her fur coat, “I don't like communists.” Pól wanted to give her his opinion of rude old fascists; I found the exchange intriguing.

La Sebastiana is incredible: a messy pile of rooms filled with furniture, nick-nacks and bits and bobs amassed by a human magpie with deep pockets, great powers of persuasion and an extremely eclectic taste. Seeing where Neruda used to sit to do his work, the chair and footstool spattered with his signature green ink, almost made me reassess my aversion to poetry. It was also nice to be by the sea for a few days, although the rain kept us away from the beach.

From Valparaiso it was a couple of hours’ bus ride to the capital. I’m assuming this journey had no great views as Pól let me sleep the whole way. We had managed to find a resident of Santiago willing to let us into, and sleep in, his house, thanks to the wonder of couchsurfing. Leonardo and his cat Tinón live in the city centre, and they received us, wined us, and took us straight out on a walking tour of the sights of Santiago (the cat stayed at home). I’ve been in a casino once, in the Netherlands for some reason, and I somehow managed to turn 20€ into 200€ over two hours at the roulette table. This was the first time I've used couchsurfing and finding someone as friendly, kind and generous as Leonardo reminds me of that casino experience. I feel there's a term which links them: novice’s fortune, or something like that.

Unfortunately, as we arrived in Santiago on a Sunday afternoon, the next day our hosts had to work: one at the courts and the other at the scratching post in the living room and so we took ourselves off up a hill, via another funicular, to look at the city, the mountains, and the pollution from up high. We bumped into a couple we’d met in Argentina and they told us they were going to visit the museum of human rights the next day. Given our non-aversion to museums and our fondness for human rights, we decided to do the same and, after spending the money we’d saved on a hostel on a (not even that fancy - Santiago is pricey) breakfast, we caught the metro to the giant, imposingly dark, metal building that houses the HR museum. The United Nation's declaration of human rights is displayed on the wall of the sloping entrance in big, metal letters. I read a couple as we walked down, realising that these these points must be optional for some of the world's democracies; more like a "build your own sandwich" menu than a code of conduct. #closeguantanamo

Until 1975, Spain (the country where we lived until July) existed under a dictator named Francisco Franco. Despite, or perhaps due to having been named by apathetic parents who confused the family and first name boxes on his birth certificate, then couldn't be bothered to correct their mistake, Frankie Franco behaved as an adult - as a commander in chief- like an angry child trying to gain his parents attention and approval. Attention he certainly received, approval from some more than others, as his policy of killing or imprisoning his opponents and leading Spain down a path of isolationism has left his country so far behind its neighbours it's still struggling to catch up today: “We have computers too,” is Spain’s national motto. When Freddie Flintstone finally popped his clogs in 1975, the government of Spain did what any healthy family does after a drunken row: it buried the subject in a pact of non-rememberence. A country of 40 million people was told to act as if it had never had a porcelain duck thrown at their head, punched the wall and stormed off to bed in a huff (because half their family had disappeared in the night). No matter how many people wanted answers to the questions 36 years of repression and censorship had thrown up, the “pacto de olvido” meant they’d be shouting their questions into a void.

When the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (Pinocchio, Penishead) was told to fuck off (sorry, relinquish power) through a plebiscite held in 1988, and finally died in 2006 (though not after an unfairly long and punishment-free life thanks to Margaret Thatcher -she was nice like that) the people of Chile had the opposite approach to their country’s murky past and opened a museum dedicated to the memory of the absolute pile of wank Peenyshit unleashed on his people when he seized power in 1973.

A lefty's view of Valparaiso.

IX No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

We spent a long time in the first part of the museum, which is dedicated to the morning of the (US backed) military coup. One particular photo gripped me. It was a picture taken of the incumbent, socialist (ah, now the “US-backed” makes sense) president Salvador Allende as he leans out of the window of the presidential palace, waving to a couple of young supporters. This was the last photo taken of him before he died, when tanks and planes operated by troops from his own country stormed the building and killed him. Minutes before he died, the democratically-elected Allende managed to broadcast a speech to his people via radio which was so heartfelt, sincere and incredibly uplifting, despite his hopeless situation, even the staunchest liberal-hater would have to fight to hold back the tears on hearing it (who am I kidding? Some people are monsters, like Boris Johnson).

The next part of the museum was similar to a train crash in that, despite knowing I shouldn't stare, I couldn't move on or drag my eyes away. Picachu ruled through fear, oppression and torture, and the maze of black walls displayed photos, letters, diary extracts and video testimonials which described the cruel and unusual punishment that went on during the dictatorship.

Thankfully, the misery ended. For us it took 20 minutes and a flight of stairs up to the next floor. For Chile it took 15 years and thousands of “disappeared” people whose families may never know for sure if, and where, they died. We left the museum, grateful to come from a country which would never tolerate, let alone support such a hateful, hated regime (unfortunately that’s only true in Pól’s case #maggieandpinochetsittinginatree).

To cheer ourselves up after such a depressing morning, we took ourselves to the happiest place in the world: Subway. A veggie delight with jalapeños and chipotle sauce must be proof that the world is a decent place. Later we met Leonardo for a terremoto (a weird yet delicious Chilean wine and pineapple ice-cream cocktail) and went home to watch the first US presidential debate. And so ended the most depressing day of holiday, apart from the sandwich, which was great, and would probably make a decent-enough president come to think of it.

Our six days in Chile were over in just under a week and, despite our fervent tourism (visiting the Museum of pre-Columbian art, various squares and oh so many markets) we could have easily stayed longer. Chile is a big place and we’d have loved to have visited Patagonia in the south, found wild chinchillas in the desert, and had at least one more Subway sandwich. Oh well, maybe next time.