Some Parting Thoughts

Unfortunately, Nicaragua seems to be a land of extremes. Some of its people (a very small percentage) are extremely wealthy; an unfortunately very high percentage are extremely poor. The country has a four century tradition of exploitation. It's been exploited by Spain, the U.S., and corrupt politicians. Sometimes by more than one at the same time.
This atmosphere of exploitation carries over into every segment of society. Vendors will try to take advantage of customers at every opportunity. Nicaraguans working outside the country (20% of the people) are frequently exploited by their employers. Employers inside Nicaragua are shameless in their exploitation of the workers who work for them. Sexual harassment is not only not recognized as a violation, it's practiced widely and frequently.
Exploitation even seems to take place in personal relations. There's a disproportionately high number of aging male gringos in the country willing to offer their relatively "rich" status to some attractive female 40 years younger.
Nicaragua is not suffering from a lack of foreign assistance. There are "projects" sponsored by first world countries at every turn in the road. Although these are pursued with the best of intentions, the results are tenuous at best.
Throughout my stay in Nicaragua, I kept finding myself comparing the Nicaraguans to the people of Mexico. Both have similar problems: high unemployment, a large percentage of the population working outside the country, and corrupt governments. But there's a distinct difference between the two. In Mexico, one can feel the sense of optimism the people have for the future. Small business owners have plans to expand; a homeowner has plans to re-model, or paint, or re-roof, or whatever. In Nicaragua, it's my belief that people don't plan beyond the next meal. Everyone has good intentions, but so often they don't work out. As a result, the people come to expect failure. When failure is the norm, even modest hopes appear unrealistic.
On that rather low note, I prepared to leave Nicaragua. I made 3 trips over two days to the office of the shuttle service to reserve a seat on a shuttle to the airport. Each time, the one and only employee was away from the counter, despite the fact that the office was supposed to be open at that time. On the fourth try, she was eating lunch at the counter in the middle of the afternoon and told me to come back in half an hour after she'd finished lunch. I returned and purchased my ticket for 6 p.m. the following day. The next morning at 6 a.m., the shuttle driver knocked at my door.
Oh well. One of these days, Nicaragua will get it right........maybe.

Credit for Good (?) Behavior

This next subject I pick up with great hesitation. I know it's going to ruffle some feathers, but here we go anyway.

Poverty in this country is overwhelming. On top of that, nature sometimes dumps on the poor country as well. In this case, there's a drought going on in the northern part of the country with the result that people are literally starving. Somehow, the newspapers found out that domestic consumption of food items has decreased 50% (!) from last year in that part of the country. The government is so corrupt and so inefficient, that they haven't done anything to help. To my knowledge, the Catholic Church hasn't done anything either. The government could make appeals to wealthy countries like the US and Europe to help, but the President of this country is Daniel Ortega, a Sandinista throwback to the 1970's. He might make an appeal to Hugo Chavez, but not to the US or Europe.

Ortega is regrettably very uneducated and makes up for it by being very dumb. This doesn't have to be fatal if he's got good people around him. He doesn't. What he has succeeded in doing is forming a business (ALBA) which imports petroleum from Hugo Chavez' Venezuela at cut rate prices and then sells it at retail prices to the Nicaraguans. The result is that Ortega has become, allegedly, one of the richest men in Nicaragua. A good number of old-time Sandinistas are sufficiently dissatisfied with him that they call themselves Sandinistas, as opposed to the Sandinistas who are Ortega followers, who call themselves Ortegistas. (Have I confused you yet?).
If this isn't bad enough, I read an interesting article in last Sunday's paper. The Catholic Church wants to spend 13.5 million dollars (!) to upgrade the sanctuary of a church in Managua, the capital city. To do this, they are offering donors who make sufficient donations a "plenary indulgence." To those that have forgotten their religious history: for a Catholic, there is heaven and hell, as well as a third place called Purgatory. If you've not sinned, you go to heaven; if you've committed mortal sins, you go to hell. If you've only committed not-so-serious sins, you go to purgatory. During the Dark Ages, in order to raise money, the Church would hand out indulgences of 5, 10, or more years, depending on the size of donation received. These indulgences represented the amount of time that would be knocked off your sentence to Purgatory. The problem with a number of years, is that one never knew how many years' indulgence would be enough. To solve this marketing problem, the Church started handing out "plenary" or full indulgences; that is, to heck with the number of years, you get all your time knocked off. Some critics labeled this "selling" indulgences; among them, Martin Luther who nailed his complaint on a church door; and thus started the Protestant Reformation, etc.

In the states, it's my belief that indulgences have been out of vogue for decades. Of course, I may be completely wrong on this. But one would think that the church would have learned something from the huge break among the faithful that occurred in the 15th century.

What bothers me more is that, instead of trying to use donations to feed hungry people, the church here is more concerned about the opulence of a church interior. Maybe hungry people pray better than full ones? Maybe people pray better in opulent churches than in poor ones?

Bottom line: Poor Nicaragua is not getting helped by the two richest institutions in the country: the government of Daniel Ortega or the Catholic Church. Other countries that might help are Chavez' Venezuela, China, or the U.S. The advantage the first two have is that they haven't waged war on Nicaragua recently.

A Nicaraguan Tale

Due to the heat and humidity, my clothes, particularly my t-shirts, are wet all the time. Also wet all the time for the same reasons is my leather wrist watch band. It's even damp when I put it on in the morning. Not surprisingly, the small leather loop that holds the little buckle decided to break. I think it just hardened from the salty wet environment, cracked and broke. I resigned myself to buying a new watchband, maybe this time a synthetic one.

There's no "watch store" as such in Granada. There are guys who sell watches, bands, and small watch batteries from little wooden tables set up on the sidewalk near the public market. They even do watch repair.

I walked up to one and showed him the band with the torn leather strip and muttered something like "I think I need a new watchband." He put on his eyepiece with the practiced demeanor of a serious professional at work. He studied the broken leather part intently. He looked up at me like I was crazy and said something to the effect of "Are you crazy? A new watchband will cost you at least two bucks!" He then placed my watch and band in a small vise-like device and waved his hand dismissively at me. He said "Go walk through the market and come back in half an hour."

Now, who was crazy? There was no way I was going to follow that advice, for at least two reasons. First, the "market," as those of you who've visited third world countries know, is this covered (in this case) square block of densely packed stalls, rising up 4 meters on the sides. Every square foot of floor space, wall space, and hanging from the rafters space is packed with every conceivable kind of item: animal, vegetable, and mineral. Added to this, the narrow passageways are teeming with people, jostling, pushing, shoving, and moving by each other squish by squash. It's a pickpocket's paradise. I would compare it to being in the bowels of the New York subway system at rush hour. It truly is something to experience. Having experienced it once, I see no need to be a repeat offender.

Second, how do I know this guy is even going to be there when I return? or that he'll acknowledge he's in possession of my trusted, highly valuable (to me) watch? I should interrupt here and describe this chronometer treasure. Not only does it tell time, but it does so in analog fashion, not digital. For us dinosaurs, this is wonderful! It also tells the date (when traveling, dates can sometimes fall by the wayside). By pushing a button, it will also light up, letting me know what time it is in the middle of the night in the dark. Last, but not least, gloriously it even has an alarm clock built in! This is incredibly helpful when having to get up at 4 a.m. to catch some sort of ridiculous flight that leaves at 6 a.m. This treasure of a timepiece is a Timex and goes for $39.95 retail. I would sooner lose a tooth than that watch.

So I spluttered out something like "I want to watch you at work." He again waved his hand dismissively. He pulled out a small hypodermic containing some type of super glue. He had two metal prods. He dripped some glue on the offending part of the leather band. He pushed the prods around and then blew on the glue. He set it aside for a few minutes to work on another watch. Then he dripped some more glue, prodded, blew on it some more, and let it sit some more. He repeated this cycle about half a dozen times. Half an hour later, he examined it closely through his eyepiece. It seemed to pass muster. He held it out to me. I asked him how much. He paused, sizing me up and down, and then charged me fifty cents. I strongly suspect the same work would not have cost a local more than twenty five cents. Some out there might think I was ripped off.

I mentioned this experience to a Nicaraguan friend. He told me "This is Nicaragua. That repair will probably fall apart in a day or two and you'll have to buy a new watchband anyway." Well, it's been over two weeks and the band is going strong. All in all, I'm delighted to be out fifty cents.

Politics in Sandanista Land.

Poor Nicaragua. It seems like those two words belong together: as with New and York or North and Carolina. I can't think of Nicaragua without thinking Poor Nicaragua. Just like Mexico, more than 20% of its people live in a different country, earning money to send back to relatives in P.N.
Nicaragua's neighbor, Costa Rica, had the chance to develop small fincas, or ranches, over the centuries. These independent-minded businessmen-ranch owners were able to establish a relatively stable representative government early on. In the long run, this paid off handsomely. Costa Rica has a relatively stable government, a relatively sound economy, and seems to walk a rather narrow road between the excesses of neo-liberalism and socialism.
That was not Poor Nicaragua's fate. For centuries, they had cotton plantations, which, like cotton plantations everywhere, from the American south to the Caribbean, wreaked havoc with the social structure and the economic future of the country. During the mid-20th century, the country was ruled by 3 different members of the Somoza family who bled the country dry. The result was the Sandanista revolution in the late 1970's. Ronald Reagan was not going to stand for that. As a result, the US began waging war, through the straw-men Contras, against the Sandanista socialist regime. Reagan's not-so-secret war was funded by arms sales with Iran. At any rate, the bottom line was that the US government imposed economic sanctions on Nicaragua. The theory is that economic sanctions will cause a government to fall. We've been doing it for over 50 years now in Cuba. At what point do we get the picture that economic sanctions don't work? What they are effective in doing is denying the common people access to basic imported products like toothpaste, etc. For a decade our sanctions further screwed the poor people of Poor Nicaragua.
At this point the government is irremediably corrupt; the infrastructure is a shambles; unemployment is said to run at about 40%; the people are incredibly poor. It will take something pretty close to an economic miracle to revive this poor country. There are lots of volunteer organizations here from the states and Europe trying to help. But the amount of help needed is so great compared to the relief being offered.
There are so many differences between Nicaragua and Mexico, it would take a very long time to begin to list them. However, one thing that stands out for me is that in Mexico, people are making plans for the future. They're adding an addition to their house, or planning on expanding their business in some small fashion. They are relatively optimistic about their good fortunes for next month, next year, etc. Just like in Nicaragua, a significant percentage of Mexicans are working outside of the country. Just like in Nicaragua, there is governmental corruption on a large scale. However, the difference is that here, the people exude a kind of fatalistic resignation to forces they can't control. Their time horizon is tomorrow. If they have food on the table for dinner tonight, then things are okay. They have so little money, they can't make plans for anything past tomorrow. Reading the paper here is an ongoing exercise in trying not to feel depressed.
Alas, Poor Nicaragua.

A Day in the Life of......

I thought I would describe my day. I wake up at about 6 a.m. I've usually spent a restless night. It's quite hot; my guess is that it's in the 90's. I have a floor fan which helps. I also have a mosquito net which regrettably blocks somewhat the air from the fan and frequently fails in keeping the pesky mosquito out. I sleep on top of the sheets. There's no blanket. There's no need for one. Sometimes I wake up in the night because my eyes sting. The sweat has dripped into them. I drink lots of water during the night.
I get up and take a wonderful cold water shower. There's no hot water valve. There's no need for one. I put on sandals and pants and a t-shirt. I walk 50 meters to the little store on the corner and buy the daily newspaper. Breakfast (at my request) is fruit juice, fruit, bread, and coffee. The Nicaraguans eat gallo pinto (rice and beans) with maybe a fried banana and fruit juice. Some days they have a pancake, which looks like a tortilla, only thinner. It has pretty much the same texture as a tortilla. It comes with corn syrup, disguised as maple syrup.
I then spend an hour or so reading the newspaper and jotting down words or phrases I don't know. I then ride my bike off to Spanish conversation class. It's a 15 minute bike ride away. When I arrive, I am dripping sweat. My fresh t-shirt is wet and stuck to me. I spend an hour apiece with two different teachers in front of a floor fan discussing the articles in the newspaper or whatever else happens to dawn on us, with them constantly correcting me. At 11 a.m., I wend my way on my bike through the cobblestone streets between the parked cars and the buses and trucks whizzing past me. Included in the mix are quite a number of one-axled horse drawn carts clippity clopping along leaving the inevitable road hazard behind them. Nicaragua has not yet discovered the bicycle helmet. Oh well.
In reviewing this, I notice my emphasis on the heat and humidity. Please understand: I'm writing this from a California perspective. For folks from Miami or the American south, they might think: it's hot and humid, so what? I can tell you so what. If you haven't been raised in heat and humidity, it can be an incredibly difficult thing to get accustomed to. I've been here for 3 weeks and I'm not accustomed yet. I suspect I could be here 3 years and I still would not be accustomed to the heat.
When I get home, it's time for another wonderful (!) cold shower and a change of t-shirts. Lunch is the main meal of the day. It seems to be almost always chicken, usually in a delicious sauce, with rice or gallo pinto, some veggies, and another glass of delightful fruit juice. Every day at every meal, there seems to be a different kind of fruit juice They're all delicious.
After lunch, I take a 30 minute siesta on top of the bed in front of the fan. Then it's off to the gringo cafe where I can get a frappuchino and get online and catch up on my e-mail. The streets are now empty, deserted. Most Nicaraguans are wisely taking a siesta in the heat of the day. Only the gringos are walking around in the hot sun with cameras clicking away, sweating buckets. In the cafe, I'm in the courtyard right next to the water fountain under the ceiling fan.
At quarter to 3, I start pedaling off to my English class in the poor part of town. The pavement ends and the road turns to dirt and sand. Sometimes I maneuver around goats, chickens, dogs, and the occasional horse. What fun! There are lots of unemployed males hanging around. The unemployment rate, I'm told, is 40%, which seems astronomically high. The average wage is about a dollar an hour.
The school classes are sometimes outside (thank goodness!) where the breeze coming in off Lake Nicaragua is wonderful. Most of the time, though, the class takes place in the classroom. The classroom is about 4 meters square but will hold more than 20 kids. They sit on wooden chairs or crates and there are tables. The ceiling is low. There's no fan. The temperature in the room is probably well over 100. After 5 minutes, I'm sweating buckets. I always bring a full water bottle and drain it in the course of the hour. There's no lighting; but there doesn't need to be. One wall is open to the outside. Regrettably the room is shared with several hundred gnats.
The kids are between 13 and 15. They are delightful. And they seem to be fairly well motivated. For them, the heat, the humidity, the gnats, everything, is simply life as usual and they're oblivious. Not only that, most of them are dry! There I am, red-faced, sweating buckets, and they're cool as cucumbers!
After this class, I ride the bike another 15 minutes to another school where I teach the school teachers English. I've had the wonderful experience, while riding my bike around Granada, of hearing a kid cry out from a block away in English "Hi Teacher!!"
At about 5:30, I head for home. I then peel the sticking t-shirt off and take another wonderful cold shower. I just noticed: ALL cold showers are wonderful! Dinner is at 7 or 8 and is usually something light with another glass of wonderful mysterious-fruit juice. For the Nicaraguans, it's almost always gallo pinto again. At about 9 o'clock, the town seems to come alive. People come out onto the stoop of their houses to catch whatever little breeze might be blowing in off the lake. Little stores open up selling all sorts of snacks and goodies. Street vendors walk around with large baskets balanced on their heads selling fried curly banana strips or some special kind of cheese or some other exotic concoction. Most people stay up chatting away until about 11 or midnight, including the little kids. That's because most of them have had a solid 2 hour siesta. By 9:30, my eyelids are drooping and my brain can no longer form subordinate clauses containing the appropriate form of the subjunctive mood.
Hasta luego!

Granada 2

I had a fun weekend in Granada, thanks to my host family.
Saturday, the son of the senora of the house I'm living in, invited me to watch him play soccer in an adult league. He's a very enthusiastic soccer fan and player so it was fun to watch him play.
We walked fifteen minutes to the soccer field. Like most everything in Nicaragua, the soccer field reflected the Nicaraguans' great intentions but lack of resources. The soccer field was a dirt lot at the edge of town. There was literally no grass. The surface was very rough and uneven. In the background were half a dozen horses grazing. There were numerous piles of horse poop on the field itself, together with enough trash and garbage that could fill 2 large plastic bags.
There was no shade whatsoever. Fortunately, the game started at 9 a.m. By 10, it was pretty unbearable. I fled to the one and only shade tree, which still provided a view of the soccer field. The players definitely knew how to pace themselves in the heat. Due to the "conditions" of the field, they also took special care to make sure they didn't fall down. At half time, each of them downed a couple of liters of water.
Also at half time, the little old lady with banana fries showed up and the few spectators deluged her. Also making a big hit was the guy with the block of ice and sweet syrup. He would shave the ice with a metal scraper/scooper thing and pour syrup from large jars onto it, making a snow cone.
Sunday, the whole family and I, together with family friends and other hangers-on, went to one of the over 300 little islands that cluster right offshore from Granada on Lake Nicaragua. All of the islands are privately owned by rich Nicaraguans and gringos. Each island is only an acre or two with a rock mansion on top of it. Very impressive. We went to an island, called Nicar. It doesn't have a mansion on it, but instead it has a restaurant and 2 pools. The pools were small: about ten feet by 20 feet. They're a few feet above the water level of the lake, and the water from the lake is pumped into the pools. The water in the pool is the same color as the lake: brown. It's opaque; that is, you can't see 6 inches into it.
Most Nicaraguans don't know how to swim. So the pool is about 3 to 4 feet deep. Many also don't have swimsuits. So the kids swim in their underpants and the adults in long t-shirts and shorts. They don't "swim" as such, as much as sit in the pool and try to cool off.
I couldn't shake from my mind the fact that only 20% of the houses of Granada have septic systems. All the rest dump their untreated sewage straight into the creek that feeds into the lake. Fortunately, there's a government plan afoot to build a sewage treatment plant one of these years.
So, I decided to pass up the opportunity to go for a swim. I'll wait until this coming weekend when I can return to Laguna de Apoyo, which reputedly is the cleanest lake in Central America, to go for a swim. Instead, I sat at one of the tables with a couple of other Nicaraguans, sipping rum and Coke (the drink of choice here in Nicaragua) and relishing the slight breeze that blew in off the lake.

Granada Nicaragua

Hola, and greetings from Nicaragua!
Why Nicaragua, you ask? Why not?
The downside to poor Nicaragua is that it is so poor. It's probably the second poorest country in Latin America after Bolivia. However, like Bolivia, the people here seem to be incredibly friendly and also a bit self-conscious of their being the poor man of Central America. Like Bolivia, you see beggars in the streets. However, unlike Bolivia, Nicaragua gladly welcomes any and all tourists. And of course they welcome even more enthusiastically the dollars and euros the tourists bring with them.
I'm in Granada, which is indisputably the major tourist attraction of Nicaragua. It's more than a little off-putting to see signs everywhere in English; e.g., "Kathy's Waffle House," etc. I also discovered that the ATM machine will not spit out cordobas to me, but dollars instead (!?). The people prefer dollars because every week inflation sends the exchange rate a few centavos higher.
I'm slowly, as in SLOWLY, getting used to the weather. Every day offers a high of between 95 and 98 degrees with humidity to match. At night it "cools down" to 93 or so. I suspect only the first class hotels offer air conditioning. In the house I'm staying in, there is a fan in my bedroom, which is wonderful. There is only cold water in the shower, but you wouldn't want to touch a hot water knob. Cold showers 3 times a day are not only necessary but wonderful. Likewise, drinking a gallon or more of water during the day is a must.
Granada is a truly beautiful city. Around the city center, the great majority of the buildings are colonial style, painted wonderfully bright colors. In the central plaza, there are horse-drawn carriages lined up waiting to give tourists a ride. I have some great photos but regrettably I can't seem to get them uploaded onto Photobucket. I'll keep trying.
Today, Sunday morning, there was a whoopee-doo soccer match between two teams of competing 10 year olds. Rather than just everyone showing up at the soccer field to watch the game, the Nicaraguans do it right. About half an hour before the game, the marching band of some 20 or so started the parade. What they lacked in quality, they definitely made up for in volume. Fully 50% of the "musicians" were drummers. They walked from the central plaza to the soccer field. Behind them came several hundred people: the players in their uniforms, the coaches and supporting staff, and all the proud family members and hangers-on. Picking up the rear were the half-embarrassed teen age siblings of the players, taking advantage of the opportunity to flirt with each other.
The Nicas seem to be equally fans of soccer and baseball. It's kind of mind-boggling how those kids can be out there in the hot blazing sun playing ball games. But...a great sales opportunity for all the women on the sidelines selling fresh-squeezed fruit juices in plastic bags with a straw sticking out.
Next time: more about Granada.

Ciao, Chile!!

Some random thoughts on leaving Chile.
TRAVEL
Chile is a difficult country to get around in, especially in the more rural parts of the country. Taking public transport is frequently a challenge. One of the problems is simply finding out which bus leaves for where and when. As in most latin american countries, the bus lines are privatized. If you're lucky, there will only be one or two bus stations in a town. Sometimes each bus line will have its own station or stop. Fortunately, the chilenos are inordinately helpful and will direct you to the right bus station. In the south of Chile, a bus may run only a couple of times a week. It will not timely connect with an ongoing ferry, etc. This means you have to be very flexible in your travel plans. Frequently places you may want to get to are not reachable by bus.
Definitely the best way to visit Chile is with a car. The best way to do this is to rent a car. The downside to this is that it is hugely expensive. Not only do you have to pay for gas, you'll also have to pay tolls on the many toll roads, ferry charges, and insurance. You'll have to travel out of Chile into Argentina and back in again which means you'll have to buy insurance valid in Argentina. Last but not least, when you return the car to the agency, some 2000 miles away from where you started, you'll have to pay a "drop-off fee" which can be way over $1000. My recommendation would be to try to travel with 2 or 3 other people and share the huge expense of that rental car.
There's one other alternative that is more attractive; that's to buy your own car and then sell it at the end of your trip. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. I'm told that you cannot buy a car in Chile if you're not a resident. You'd have to strike some sort of deal with a resident whereby you "borrow" their car. Even that gets a little risky considering you'll have to cross into Argentina and back again.
In Patagonia and southern Chile, there is very limited bus contact between Chile and Argentina. Traveling back and forth across the border on public transport leaves you with some very limited options. The ferry from Puerto Natales going north only goes all the way (3 days, 4 nights) to Pto. Montt, not to any in-between ports. This is because they want to make money and they charge exorbitant prices for the long trip.
Another option is to fly. Sky Airlines is Chile's equivalent of Southwest. It's relatively cheap and provides great service on short hops throughout Chile. The downside is that you only see the beautiful countryside from 30,000 feet.
LANGUAGE
Like other countries of the "southern cone," chilenos speak a language that is somewhat unique. The Spanish that we may have learned in high school, that we hear on spanish language tv, etc., is referred to by chilenos as "castellano." Because they watch tv, etc., they can understand castellano well. However, frequently, when they talk, it comes out chileno. I would analogize it to learning British English and then stepping off the airplane in south central L.A. and attempting to talk with people who speak ebonics. They may understand you speaking British English, but you may have a very difficult time understanding them.
It's also something of a class thing. The higher the social class the more likely it is that they will be able to modify their language so as to make it understandable by you. Once they determine you're following along, they unconsciously start sliding back into chileno, and it becomes increasingly difficult to follow along.
An example: when I landed in Punta Arenas, I had an interesting conversation with the landlady of my hostal. It was in castellano/chileno but the story can be told equally well in English. She said there was another guest in the house from "Ahlahka." I asked "Where?" She said again "Ahlahka." I said I didn't know where that was. She then pointed with her finger in upward movements: "You know: the United Tate, Canada, and Alahka." "Oh, of cour!" I answered "THAT Ahlahka." The Chilenos frequently do not pronounce the letter "s." Sometimes, the phrasing is sufficiently familiar that you can mentally supply the missing letters; other times not.
We English speakers place great emphasis on the consonants; the vowels sort of come along for the ride. If you hit all the consonants correctly, it doesn't matter too much how badly you mangle the vowels in between. For Spanish speakers, it's just the opposite: the vowels are critical, consonants are those things you don't bother to pronounce, particularly if they're at the end of the word. This habit carries over to when a spanish speaker speaks english. We might hear some one say:
"I ha the chan to ree the boo." (I had the chance to read the book).
Likewise, we gringos frequently misuse vowels. The result is that when trying to say "She did it," it comes out "I do it." All because of a slight change in vowels.
NATIONALISM
Chilenos are very, very proud of their country. If one were to come up with some sort of "patriotism scale," where 0 represents total indifference and 10 represents the ultimate patriot, I would place Europeans generally at about a 4, Americans at about a 6, and chilenos at an 8. This sense of patriotism is strongly supported by the government as well. The country is quite young. It's "founding fathers" are a colorful bunch of genuine characters whose lives make fascinating reading. They have been made consciously into "heroes," by and large. One can definitely understand the government's desire to stimulate a sense of national identity. Keep in mind that the country is almost 3,000 miles long and in places less than 200 miles wide. There are sections (Patagonia and Chiloe come to mind) where many people feel themselves independent of either Chile or Argentina and would like to be viewed so. It doesn't help the cause of national identification that there isn't even a road that connects the north to the south. You have to travel out of Chile into Argentina and then come back in again, or else take a ferry or fly, in order to try to travel the length of the country. One wonders: if, God forbid, there were an incursion by Argentina into Patagonia or Tierra del Fuego, how would the Chilean military be supplied? Remember that one important reason why the US has interstate freeways is that Eisenhower wanted them built for self-defense purposes.
One consequence of this sense of nationalism is that it can be very touchy to express a comment about Chile that could be interpreted as critical.
FRIENDLINESS
The one overriding impression of chile and chilenos that I take away is the incredible friendliness of the people. I have mentioned this several times in my blog but it bears repeating. When asking directions, I've had people insist on driving me to where I was going. I've had people on the street, noticing that I looked lost, ask me if they could help me. Many people initially are quite shy. However, once you strike up a conversation with them (for example, the person sitting next to you on the bus), they open up. There's a heightened sense of what I would call "graciousness." This character trait definitely makes Chile a place where you the visitor feel welcome.

Valparaiso to Los Vilos

Leaving north out of Valparaiso, I'm reminded of why the capital of Santiago was founded in the first place. (How's that for a somewhat mind-boggling opening sentence?) When Pedro Valdivia back in the 16th century headed south out of Lima, Peru, looking for gold and fame, he spent days and days crossing the Atacama Desert. This is reputed to be the driest spot on earth! It's not a desert in the sense that we might envision Lawrence of Arabia riding a camel across the endless sands of the Sahara. It's a desert as in rock-strewn ground, and high mountains.
Valparaiso is just about the same latitude as Santiago. Immediately north of Valparaiso there are some nice fertile valleys with crops, notably grapes. Then there are a few curves through some mountains, the road goes through a very long tunnel ("de Melon"), and then comes out on the coast. On the western side of the road is the Pacific Ocean, with (today) large waves pounding the shoreline. To the eastern side of the road is scrub brush and cactus, not unlike the high desert around Reno, the Mexican west coast around Baja, or the Sonoran desert of Arizona. What a dramatic change! No wonder Valdivia and his crew were delighted to come upon the fertile valley that would turn into the teeming metropolis of Santiago. And, to tell the whole truth, the fact that there are cacti here and scrub brush means the area this far south is not that harsh. As one travels farther north, it gets drier and drier, becoming the (in)famous Atacama.
Back in the good old, bad old days of pirates and buccaneers (the Spanish word for boat is buque, pronounced 'boo-kay'; a person who sails the boat is a bucanero, and the English attempt at saying it is buccaneer), Francis Drake and his ilk went plundering and pillaging up the western coast of South America. One of his compatriots was allegedly a gentleman by the name of Lord Willow. Local legend has it that Lord Willow left his mark on the shores of Chile, as represented by the spanish attempt at honoring his name: Los Vilos. There are numerous businesses in the town labelled "Lord Willow." The less romantic and therefore less interesting interpretation of the origin of the name is that it's the indigenous word for snakes. Needless to say, you know which interpretation I prefer.
Which is a VERY long way of saying: "Greetings from Los Vilos!"
Well, whether or not there were fanciful English pirates mucking about in Los Vilos in the 16th or 17th century, there was definitely a warship here in the latter part of the 19th century, the famous monitor Huascar which I talked about in Concepcion (below), under the command of the Peruvian Admiral Grau. Today, the battles in Los Vilos only take place between fishermen and their nets.
This nice little town reminds me of one of the beach communities on the central California coast near Morro Bay. It's fall here. The sun is out; it's still shirt-sleeve weather during the day, but there's a nice cooling breeze that blows in off the water.
Unfortunately, throughout the whole day there's a haze that spoils attempts at majestic seashore photographs. It seems the cold water happens to meet the high pressure hot dry desert-like air and the result is a haze that muddies up the air a lot of the time.
Los Vilos has a beautiful long beach. Yesterday when I arrived the waves were quite big and a dozen or so surfers in wet suits were out there taking advantage of them. They were the only ones in the water. The other dozen or so people on the beach were the inveterate beach strollers, out getting their exercise on the beautiful empty beach. Los Vilos offers about a dozen restaurants, one cafe with "real" coffee (!), and a couple of dozen more shops offering kitsch/artesan products.
I had another wonderful "Chile experience" today. At "onces", my coffee break, I asked the waitress in the local chileno version of Starbucks, where there might be a bicycle repair shop in town. She asked why. I said I wanted to rent a bike for the day and thought that might be a good place to start. The other customers then put their heads together and all agreed there was no bike repair place in this village. With that, one of the customers said "You can borrow my bike for the day." So today, I got both exercise and another opportunity to experience Chilean friendliness to strangers.

One side of the road...

And the other

Los Vilos

At the Park on Sunday

Punch and Judy are alive and well in Valparaiso!
See below

For kids of all ages

Interactive entertainment

Valparaiso

I couldn't resist some more photos of Valparaiso.

Valparaiso

Sea lion's view

Valp. from the water

afternoon siesta

hello!

"Little San Francisco"

Valparaiso has been described as "Little San Francisco." It really is strikingly similar to S.F. There is the bay, the anchored ships, lots of hills, funiculars in place of cable cars, electric streetcars, the same amount of drunks and bums in the streets, lots of wonderful restaurants, and the list goes on. However, Valparaiso is different in a number of ways as well. Many people paint their houses in striking colors. The whole town is poised on hills looking directlhy down onto the water. It's like the whole city of San Francisco found itself perched on top of Russian Hill. The ships in the commercial port are right smack dab in front of your nose. Even the view from the window in my room in my hostal is wonderful! The numerous trucks going to and from the docks go through tunnels so as not to clog up the streets of the picturesque city which has been named a World Heritage Site. Many old men stand around dockside watching cargo being loaded and otherwise "supervising." Of all the places I've been in Chile, Valparaiso is to me the most interesting, and the place that draws me in the most. It has a wonderful cosmopolitan feel to it. If I were to spend some time in Chile, I would choose Valparaiso.

Valparaiso is a photographer's and artist's dream home town. The numerous hills are laced with narrow streets and pathways. Each turn offers a new sight causing me to want to pull out my camera yet again. Pablo Neruda, probably Chile's best known poet, had a house here. It seems like Neruda had houses everywhere. But his house here is really wonderful. It consists of one or two rooms per floor, five stories high, connected by a narrow staircase. Each floor offers a stunning view onto the city. The top floor was his study with his writing table.

My hostal is near the top of a hill called Alegre. Each day I enjoy taking a different route walking down to the downtown. There are lots of other locals walking downhill. It only costs about 50 cents to take the colectivo back up the hill from the flat streets downtown. This means the only people walking UP the steep streets and stair-filled walkways are necking teenagers and tourists.

There are all sorts of kaffee and kuchen cafes and wonderful restaurants with menus of the day. There are a great number of bookstores, even though books here are unfortunately very expensive. As in all of Latin America, there seems to be a high tax on books. However, there are quite a few parks and streets populated with outdoor stalls selling everything under the sun, including used books.

Unfortunately, just like San Francisco, the fog comes in at night, lingers through the morning, and HOPEFULLY, burns off by the afternoon. Fortunately, in two of my three days here, the fog has lifted by the afternoon revealing beautiful views. The view at night from my hostal window is gorgeous: all the lights of the city and their reflection off the water of the bay. Marvelous!

Attached are some photos which I hope can give a little bit of a feeling for the place.

Room with a view

Pablo Neruda's house

Touch of color

On top of the city

Talk about steep!

Beats walking

The Huascar

Every year, the people of Bolivia bemoan the anniversary of the "War of the Pacific," and the fact that Bolivia is a totally landlocked country. I discussed this earlier in my blog from Bolivia. The anniversary is a national holiday, the workers have the day off, and people line the streets to watch or take part in parades. Bolivian flags are carried high; Chilean flags are burned; and sometimes Pres. Bachellet is hung in effigy. Why is this? Why do the Bolivians get so worked up over this and what is the "War of the Pacific?"

After Simon Bolivar got through running around South America liberating the locals from Spain, the boundaries between Peru, Bolivia, and Chile were quite vague. Theoretically, Bolivia had a coastal shoreline on the Pacific, but the majority of the people there were Chilean, busy making money working the mines in the region. The Bolivian government decided to increase its taxes on the mining operations (unwise); the Chileans called on the Chilean Army for help, which they were poised to do. The Bolivian Army was all but non-existent, under-equipped and underfed. The subsequent land battle between Bolivia and Chile was over faster than you could say Evo Morales. Bolivia became a country without a port.

However, Chile had extended its reach not only into Bolivia but also into what the Peruvians considered part of Peru. Peru had a naval force of its own, not as large as Chile's, but nevertheless fairly effective, particularly because of the power of one ironclad Monitor-type combination sail-steam warship called the Huascar. Huascar was named after an Incan prince and was captained by a great naval strategist named Admiral Grau.

There were several relatively minor naval battles which could be characterized as either draws or Peruvian victories, largely due to the power of the naval vessel Huascar. In one battle, the Huascar rammed the pride of the Chilean fleet, the Esmeralda, sending it to the bottom. During the battle and ramming, the Chilean commander, Adm. Prat, leaped onto the Huascar, shouting brave words, and was promptly killed. Adm. Prat is now Chile's primary naval hero. In all fairness, there are reasons for them to honor him as well. If you had a dollar for every street and monument in Chile named Prat, you'd be a rich person.

Finally, the Chilean navy was able to badly outnumber the Huascar and successfully overcome her. The captured and restored warship is now on display in the harbor near Concepcion. Attached are some photos of the boat. During the tour, there is military music played over loudspeakers throughout the ship, and the naval guide is quick to point out the heroicism of the participants on both sides.

Each year the Bolivian government renews its efforts to strike some sort of deal with the Chilean government whereby Bolivia would get access to the sea. Each year, no agreement is reached. Bolivia is currently suing Chile in the World Court in the Hague, for what that's worth over its "right" to have a seaport. In the news today was an article showing that the Bolivian use of the seaport of Arica, now a part of Chile, has increased considerably over last year. About 69% of the trade going through Arica is Bolivian.

Ironically, Bolivia has a "Navy." It even has one ocean-going boat, at anchor somewhere off Peru. It has admirals and officers and the like. However, they're all stationed at Lake Titicaca, no doubt waiting for the day when their navy can actually be on salt water. In the meantime, Chile has a significant navy of its own, as well as an historical reminder, in the form of the Huascar, as to who has the upper hand.

The Huascar

2 Sailor-Powered Raft

Monitor-type Gun Turret

The Helm