Travelogue #6, Concón, Viña del Mar, Valparaiso, Santiago

We left Iquique and after a bumpy night at sea arrived early the next morning off Isla

Pan de Azucar. The island is part of the Pan de Azucar National park and is a

protected wildlife breeding reserve. Visitors are not allowed on the island itself, but as

our ship stood by offshore, we were able to approach the rocky shore by Zodiac. We

saw several sealions and a number of different bird species. J-J, the crew’s naturalist,

identified Peruvian pelicans, cormorants, terns, petrels, American oystercatchers and

Humboldt penguins. This medium-size penguin ranges over much of the Chilean and

Peruvian coast and was once common on this island. But after years of guano mining

the and collapse of the local fish stock, Humboldt penguins are now an endangered

species. We were fortunate to see a couple of these birds.

Guano was once collected from the rocky shores of Isla Pan de Azucar

Our next stop was supposed to be Antofagasta, but the docks there were striking, so we

were diverted to the port of Coquimbo. We were behind schedule, and the ship’s

progress continued to be slowed by strong winds and unsettled sea conditions. This left

little time for a port call, so the stop at Coquimbo was cancelled and we spent the day,

the last of the cruise, at sea.

When we arose the next morning, the ship was docked at San Antonio, a large port

serving Santiago. After leaving the ship, our plan was to explore this part of Chile,

which we had not visited since 1995. The adventure began when we Ubered to the

office of the Rosselot Rent-a-Car. There was nothing there – no signs, and no one to

ask. We probably looked lost, and a very nice lady went out of her way to help us find

the place about a block farther away. We were soon in a new white KIA sedan, found a

gas station to fill up (the car came with an almost empty tank), and headed north.

Our first stop was Isla Negra at the fascinating home of the extraordinary Chilean poet-

diplomat and politician, Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, better known by his pen

name Pablo Neruda. He occupied many diplomatic positions during his lifetime, served

a term as a Senator for the outlawed Chilean Communist Party, and had to flee to

Argentina to avoid arrest. He wrote in many styles including historical epics, political

manifestos, and passionate love poems. A much-loved national figure, he won

the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He was also a passionate collector, and his

house was a veritable museum of full-size ship figureheads, boat models, seashells,

and other curiosities, including a full-size antique steam street roller. After enjoying a

very well-done audio tour (in English), we returned to the car and followed the highway

inland away from the coast.

Home of Pablo Neruda at Isla Negra

The roads of Chile, and especially the highways, are excellent and mostly private, many

with tolls. We had driven some distance into the sparsely-populated countryside when

we came upon our first toll booth, beginning our second adventure of the day. The

booth would not take a credit card and we had no local currency. We backtracked

(literally) and eventually happened upon an ATM at a gas station mini-mart. Ironically,

during rest of our time in Chile, we used plastic for virtually everything, even gelato,

which, incidentally, was quite good.

We ate lunch at a shopping center pizza-cum-sushi restaurant, a cuisine combination

that we were to notice frequently in Chile. We should have opted for the sushi.

The highway turned back to the coast, and by midafternoon, we reached Concón, the

northernmost of a strip of affluent beach towns that also includes Viña del Mar and

Valparaiso. We checked into a small cliff-side hotel on the less developed end of town

in a neighborhood of what may once have been vacation homes of a well-to-do families,

and were given a nice room with a balcony overlooking the broad beach. Most of the

town’s thirty thousand or so inhabitants live in the modern apartment buildings that

crowd the shoreline back toward Viña or in an older community back from the water.

There was a harbor of small fishing boats, a yacht storage yard, and a few closed

restaurants. We walked along the beach for a mile or so, but seeing nothing promising,

we returned to the hotel for dinner of honey-roasted chicken.

The view of the beach from our room at Concón

After breakfast the next day, our guide, Michael Arnold, who fashions himself on his internet site as the “German Pirate” collected us in his van for a tour of the area. We were astounded by the development that had taken place since our first visit here. New residential towers, some quite spectacular, densely dotted the shoreline. Viña del Mar, a modern beach resort (pop. 327,000), is a sister city of our hometown. Except for both towns being on the water, it has little similarity to Sausalito (pop. 7,000).

Looking from Viña del Mar north toward Concón

The parade of tall buildings continued uninterrupted past Renaca Beach and Viña del Mar about twenty miles to Valparaiso, with construction ongoing in the few remaining open sites. While much of this development is new, Valparaiso is a storied place with a much longer history. Prior to the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, Valparaiso was a major stopping point for ships transiting the horn from the east to west coasts of North America. The town became popular with wealthy Chileans who built luxurious vacation homes, some more like European castles. (The name Valparaiso roughly translates to “come to paradise”.) After 1914, Valparaiso’s heyday gradually evaporated but the economy eventually rebounded, particularly after 1990, as Chile recovered from 17 years of military rule.

Fishing is still very important in Chile. We visited Valparaiso’s huge, vibrant fish market and wandered the maze of indoor and outdoor retail stalls offering a vast selection of seafood so fresh and quickly purchased that the fish were displayed on simple counters without need for ice. We talked to one well-dressed customer as he waited for his three large fish to be cleaned and prepared for ceviche. He planned to eat them at home later that day and would later return for more. Outside the main shed, a long row of small wooden fishing skiffs were hauled up on the pavement. Nearby, fisherman repaired their nets as noisy throngs of gulls and pelicans perched everywhere awaiting buckets of fish guts dumped from the adjacent pier.

Valparaiso fish market

While the wealthy of Valparaiso built their mansions at the shore, most people lived on the hills above and got downtown via several funicular railways. Today this is a colorful bohemian neighborhood of mostly small homes, some decorated with murals reminiscent of the Sardinian village of Orgosolo. A few of the original thirty funiculars are still in service and others are being restored.

The hills above Valparaiso

Valparaiso Street art

Our next destination was the fishing village of Quintay, about 26 miles from Valparaiso through forested hills, small sections of which we burning as we passed by. (The origin of these fires is suspicious and possibly related to ongoing protests in Chile.) We would have lunch there and visit our guide Michael’s, friend, Julio Munizaga. The meal of breaded conger (which looks like an eel but is said to be a fish) and corvina was excellent, as was the visit with Julio.

Julio, 93-years-young, is an extraordinary craftsman and artist whose house includes a museum, observatory, and various collections, larger even than what we saw at Isla Negra. Unlike Pablo Neruda, Julio makes his objects himself. Among his many eccentricities, he loves to read comic books and was disappointed that Michael failed to bring a new issue.

We enjoyed a nice seafood lunch in Quintay.

Julio Munizaga and friends

We returned with Michael to Concón, where we discovered that our rental car was

inoperable, possibly because of a dead battery. With a great deal of help from the

hotel, a very reluctant Rosselot Rent-a-Car agent was finally persuaded to come, and

later that evening we had a new car.

We needed to return to Valparaiso the next day for a Chilean cooking class, but,

reluctant to chance a further misadventure, we took an Uber. The class was great fun.

It was conducted by the delightful Inés Merken, a native of the city and began with

traditional pisco sours. One of the first dishes we prepared was the Chilean version of

ceviche. Raw flesh is scraped from the fish with a fork, creating a texture not unlike

ground meat, before it is marinated in lemon juice. We also learned the Chilean recipe

for empanadas, which uses carbonated water, and several other dishes including pebre,

palta rellena, and charquican. Our last “dish” was chirimoya algere, a delicious desert

of orange juice and chirimoya fruit. The class lasted until late in the afternoon, and that

night back at the hotel we were too full to eat dinner.

Chilean cooking class.

Chile is a very long country, almost exactly as long as the U.S. is wide (2700 miles). It

is also rather narrow, averaging only 110 miles from east to west. Our next destination

was Santiago, the capital, less than two hours from the coast on nice roads (and the toll

booths accepted plastic!). We had received warning messages from our State

Department about the ongoing civil unrest; we decided to return our rental car at the

airport and Uber to our hotel. This also let us avoid driving in Santiago in what must be

some of the world’s worst traffic.

We checked into the Aubrey, a comfortable old hotel in the leafy Bellavista

neighborhood where the local streets were lined with sidewalk cafes, bars, and

restaurants. The hotel was also adjacent to the Santiago Municipal park and the 2500-

foot-tall Cerro San Cristóbal with its famous funicular railroad. The top of the hill is also

traversed by a cable car system; we road on both. The view from up there was

spectacular, and the chocolate gelato at the gondola station was the best we’ve eaten

outside of Italy! Dinner that night at nearby Galindo restaurant was also quite good,

especially the empanada de pino.

One of the newer sections of Santiago

The next day we were collected by our guide, Christian, in his Mercedes van for a tour

of the city. Santiago is a huge city with a population of 5.6 million and impressive newer

neighborhoods of spectacular tall modern buildings. These include the 64 story Torre

Gran Costanera, the tallest in South America. (Locals comment wryly that it is also the

least occupied.) We had to avoid many of the popular tourist sites because of

barricaded streets due to the demonstrations. Christian explained that the origin of the

current unrest goes back generations and reflects the extreme difference between rich

and poor, government corruption, and other issues. He was sympatric to the concerns

of the demonstrators, known as manifestantes, but deplored their destructive tactic,

such as trashing metro stations, ruining stop signals, and breaking windows. Graffiti

was ubiquitous and many downtown banks and other buildings protected their street-

level windows with metal panels.

After another nice meal back at Galindo, we eventually returned to the hotel but were

still full and decided to skip dinner and just walk to a nearby gelato place. A large crowd

filled the street a couple of blocks ahead and was moving our way. We skipped the

gelato too. As we turned back the hotel, store front shutters banged closed; chairs and

tables disappeared from the sidewalks. The mob diverted off to a side street; that night

we heard a lot of gunfire.

A Santiago monument “decorated” by demonstrating manifestantes

Before driving out of town the next day, we dropped Marta, one of Christian’s three

daughters, at the swank Mandarin Oriental Hotel where she works in public relations.

Marta, an attractive young woman of 28, told us that she plans soon to move to

Australia. We continued out of the city, driving some distance to within sight of the

surrounding Andes. After a nice lunch at the rustic La Vaquita Echá restaurant, we

visited the very modern Concha y Toro winery, the largest producer in South America.

We tasted several wines including a merlot, syrah, and their well-regarded Terrunyo

bottlings of carmenére and cabernet sauvignon. California, France, and Italy have

nothing to worry about. Christian dropped us at the airport, and we caught the late

evening flight home via Dallas.

It has been a marvelous journey, but it feels good to be home, where this travelogue

was completed.