Travel Review: Chile

Showing posts with label Chile. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Valparaiso - Valpo, Chile

Like a bank of submerged gems, the city of Valparaiso lies dreamy over its sleepless port. She’ll wake up soon. Her streets will fill with throngs of those who lovingly call her Valpo, like the brand name of some superglue or Velcro-type invention. It’s almost tempting to ponder the miracle of an entire populace existing without our recognition or slightest concern.

“You’re getting depressed and you’re talking out of your but,” says Draga, suddenly appearing out of nowhere, like she always does. “Don’t collaborate with your sadness.”

“George bought dog,” she says. The indefinite article doesn’t matter much to Draga. She knows the difference between things that are important and those that are not. “He name him Jerry.”

“Jerry,” I echo. “Can’t wait to meet Jerry.” And my mind takes me to Belgrade, where I dropped my anchor a small eternity ago, where human souls drifted from the clouds and spoke and got names. George’s smile, his pizza’s, his TV that’s always on the Serbian version of MTV; it’s home to me, the most sacred place on earth.

Day break in the port of Valparaiso

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Isla Robinson Crusoe - Chile

With a modern ocean steamer it’s a good twelve hours west of the coast of

Chile

; the island Robinson Crusoe. In the olden days it must have been quite a bit more. In 1708, a marooned Scottish sailor by the name of Alexander Selkirk was plucked off the island, after having been there for four months.

Selkirk’s story circulated widely and was romanticized by Daniel Defoe, who named the hero of his story Robinson Crusoe. At some point, people decided to name the island after the fictional character, but Alexander Selkirk was also honored with an island named after him: Isla Alexander Selkirk.

There are 600 people residing on the island, living off fishing, possibly because there’s not much else to do.

Isla Robinson Crusoe - Chile

Monday, February 28, 2011

Puerto Montt - Draga's Day Off

“There’s a world out there,” she said this morning, looking out the porthole of our cabin, “It’s a beautiful day. If I can’t share it with you, I’ll walk into that world out there.”

“Bring back pictures,” I said. She knows I can’t leave my work, but she also knows how important it is to me to know that there are places that are not made from steel and grease and peeling paint and rust.

I’ve lived so long in my own head, looking at the laws that make the world tick, that I forget what I’m part of. Someone once said that a cow is so dumb that he can stand to his knees in snow and still die of thirst. I know now that I’m that cow. When I met Draga on the Amazon last year, I didn’t know how thirsty I was. I didn’t even know what I was thirsting for.

Somehow she pried her way into my head and found a barren world. Ever since then she’s been plowing furrows and planting seeds. There are flowers in my head now; green pastures on mountains, and lakes between them with boats bobbing on them and quaint white churches with friendly people inside on their banks. Far away the snow is on the pinnacles. There are dilapidated cottages by every travel road. There’s even a lama.

That’s my Draga; my lifeline to the real world.

Lama

Pretty white church with friendly people

Dilapidated cottage by the travel road

Snow on pinnacle

River flowing into a lake

Boats bobbing on a lake

Boat house on the lake

Snow on a volcano - Puerto Montt, Chile

Puerto Montt, Chile - Little Germany below the volcano

The southern shore of Chile consists of magnificent fjords that make for a scenery that easily rivals that of Alaska and

Norway

. The waters also contain enormous amounts of debris, shrimp and other things that clog up the seawater systems, and we spent most of the trip eying pressure gauges and splitting filters and condensers.

Finally, at the north end of this swamp we arrive in Puerto Montt, rumored to be a quaint Bavarian village with lots to do. We are too exhausted to partake and slump down next to gracefully humming engines and compressors. In the evening we sit on deck and overlook the port. Music drifts in from shore. Far ahead a volcano rises from the horizon. On a nearer hill stands a cross, which, we all agree, is not at all as imposing as the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio. But then, very little is.

Sunrise over the Chilean fjords

The cross at Puerto Montt, Chile

Puerto Montt, Chile - Little Germany below the volcano

Puerto Montt, Chile

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Penguins in Punta Arenas

At some point during the evening I remember my man Ludin, and how he was blabbering this morning about penguins and how mean it was that he wasn’t allowed to go ashore to see some. I reminded him that I had sent him shore in Rio, to take pictures of the statue of Christ the Redeemer, but he said that Christ the Redeemer was no penguin and he wanted to see penguins.

When he showed up again, two minutes before departure, he insisted that I had clearly given in and let him go ashore. I recalled no such thing, and Ludin was put on volunteer duty once again and will spend the rest of the week cleaning filters.

Here are Ludin’s pictures:

Penguins in Punta Arenas

Saturday, February 26, 2011

UFO's over Punta Arenas, Chile

We’re in

Chile

, apparently, although nobody has time or a mind to going out. Perhaps we’re all still too saturated from seeing the grandeur of Antarctica; perhaps we’re plain old lazy. We spend a few hours tied to shore but hardly look over the railing. Our world exists entirely between the bulkheads; out there is a universe we’re only technically a part of.

At departure, a fleet of UFO’s emerges from the horizon. Some unusual natural phenomenon casts shadowy beams across their backs, as if somewhere out there the mother ship is calling us home. We don’t head her call. Lines are cast and we head north, meandering through the Chilean fjords, looking for definition.

UFO's over Punta Arenas, Chile

Punta Arenas, Chile

UFO's over Punta Arenas, Chile