CHILIES TODAY, CHILLY TONIGHT, STILL CHILE TOMORROW

Chile has the most unusual shape in the world, right, like some string bean or something? Or maybe one of those silver straws they use with the mate’ cups in Argentina? They don’t use those on this side of the Andes. Everything’s different over here- no more gauchos, no more mate’, no more Portu-Italo-Spaniol as lingua franca, no more fancy pretentious restaurants with spotless white tablecloths, wine glasses, and waiters in penguin suits. No, Chile is more down-to-earth, with many small eateries and menu options with nice little ladies running from table to table, advertising the tastiness of their food by the inches on their waistline. They even have sopaipillas down here, street food, something I’ve never seen anywhere in Latin America, though standard fare in US Tex-Mex restaurants. How come? Did culinary DNA make that big of a leap or was it widespread in previous times only to become forgotten at the center, kind of like camels in Asia and llamas in South America, first cousins long forgotten in their North American home of birth?

There’s only one problem with those cozy little holes-in-the-wall. They’re smoking in there, cigarettes not ribs. Apparently each place has the right to choose its orientation, some choosing separate sections, most choosing the status quo, i.e. smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. In a large place it’s not so offensive, but in a smaller place the smoke can really build up in a cool climate where the doors are shut tight. As if it’s not hard enough to keep your clothes clean on the road, try fighting the fumes too. Still, for a $3 plate of salmon, I guess we can overlook some unpleasantries, right?

But back to that funny shape, it’s really worth stretching your imagination a bit to fully comprehend. Imagine grabbing California by its little Baja chicken-leg, then rip upward along San Andreas’ fault and follow the Sierras northward all the way up to say, about Juneau. Now take that sucker and flip it over southward, letting people slide toward the desert while you’ve got it upended (losing most of them in the process, may they r-i-p). Now slide the whole thing southward to the tip of the South American continent. Welcome to Chile, stretching from almost Antarctica to the Tropics. The southern part of the country is so wet you’d almost think you’re in Oregon or Washington, but without all the people. The northern part is so dry some parts have never recorded rainfall, but they’ve still got plenty of people, and have had long before the Spaniards or even the Incas. The cultures are well documented, since not even textiles rot in dry sand, not to mention the Nazca lines of Peru or the ‘tall ruling people’ observed on Easter Island at the colonizers’ first visit but gone by the second.

But if you like the US Pacific Northwest, then southern Chile is like paradise. Punta Arenas may be a bit cold and windy, but not THAT bad considering its geographical position. Give it some latitude; if you don’t like the weather now, then just wait an hour. The wind is so strong it’ll go through four or five weather changes each day. Puerto Montt is a definite improvement weather-wise, if still a bit rough around the edges from its frontier perch, a mini-Seattle servicing the outback. At least the flowers are beautiful. They say the grayest climes produce the prettiest flowers. If New York or Hanoi is any measure they produce the darkest clothes also, and some of the darkest moods, too, people looking like the Hanoi buzzard ladies dressed in black pajamas, squatting on haunches, chewing betel nut through reddened teeth and watching me with crocodile tears. It all comes back to me now, the angst and the helplessness of that longest night back then back there, frozen in panic, waiting to die and living to look back on it, creating new gods to serve so that they might save me before the night’s over. So I walk the streets of Puerto Montt in my certified 100% wool plaid ‘grunge coat’ humming Nirvana’s ‘Rape Me’, singing the chorus in three-part harmony and waiting for the rain to stop. It doesn’t.

Valdivia is the sweet spot, the pearl of coastal southern Chile, sitting on three rivers and a bay on the ocean also. Not only do you get salmon, but sea lions too. Strawberriews and cherries line the streets for sale. Sound familiar? Portland would DIE for this view in its backyard, the better to compete with Seattle. Again like Portland, the ambience is friendlier and less threatening than its edgy neighbor farther pole-ward. Crafts are for sale in the markets, lots of articulated lizards, but no rain sticks, not yet at least. I wonder if they buy their lizards from China now? The houses are all made of wood, ship-lap and shakes, and architecture that lends itself to the use of wood, very ‘un-Latino’. Is that because of the pronounced German influence into the bloodlines here? It’s probably more because of an abundance of trees, chain saws proudly offered for sale, certainly not illegal like in Thailand. I even got to see and hear some good music on the way through. A ‘fusion’ group called Entrama (Andean jazz?) just happened to be on tour and was there at the university the same night as me. Chile seems more sentimentally attached to Andean culture than its eastern neighbors, even though Argentina probably has more of it within its borders. I like it, flutes and quenas and cuatros with cellos and organ and clean jazz guitar.

There are some problems in paradise of course, the rain not the least of it. There’s also the cold, not so cold really until you try it without heaters and a chill set into the bones. Then there’s the coffee, much harder to find in espresso form than neighboring Argentina and just as expensive or even more if you do. You know you’re in trouble when the espresso machine has a Nescafe logo on the side. Pretentiousness has its perks I suppose, but can’t you be unpretentious and still prefer good coffee? I’m confused. And how do you explain cheaper prices at Starbucks in the US? Coffee is an international commodity, meaning the same price the world over. Wages are four or five times higher in the US and a cup of coffee is mostly just that, labor. You can get a lot of cups out of a ten dollar bag of coffee, and that’s retail! Go figure. And that doesn’t mean you can even find a place open before mid-morning. This is when you need that breakfast with your bed, just to have something warm for your belly first thing on a chilly Chile morning. Screw it. I’m tired of the wet and cold. I’m going to Santiago.

Fingers are crossed. Santiago has a rep for smog, but maybe Saturday will be better. Maybe all that rain will have washed it away, future perfect tense. The bus pulls in at day break and the outlook (i.e. sky) looks grim, grimy and gray. But that’s typical of the morning on the Pacific coast of America almost everywhere, isn’t it? It finally lifts to reveal blue sky, something I haven’t seen in days, if not weeks, temps mild even warm, and sidewalk cafes busy. I’m groggy from an all-night bus ride and things happen to make me wonder if maybe I’m hallucinating. First I pass a Christian Science reading room. Huh? In Santiago? Mom, are you following me? Then I’m sitting in the park looking for a wi-fi signal, when an entire family of three sits on the bench beside me, seemingly interested in my Cambodian baseball cap. The man asks me in English, “Where you from?” I answer in Spanish, “Soy Americano.” Then they start talking to each other in Thai. Huh? In Santiago? Tang, are you following me? Turns out they’re with the embassy here, three of the couple dozen Thais in town. The teen-ager's nickname is Anwar, in homage to the Thai pop star. I inform him that's an Arab name, something he was oblivious to. We chat for a half hour in Thai, trading notes and addresses.

Too bad there are no good hostels downtown. In the rush to convert to condominiums, hostales don’t bother to renovate. The only cheap hotels are for short-term use, renting by the hour. Anyway I’m home, for a day at least.