happy 30th anniversary to my folks! they shocked me with an impromptu trip to chile this week, which means they spent their big day touring santiago. they flew in just yesterday, having informed me of their impending arrival a mere two days in advance. so far, we have eaten, gone shopping for food, chatted with the owner of the local chinese restaurant, and eaten some more. i've already detected a theme to this trip, but i'll do my best to diversify...maybe throw in a little salsa dancing or wine tasting. i'm hoping santiago has what it takes to keep my parents entertained...
a polaroid moment: introducing the parents to chilean drinks at la piojera. the photographer was evidently a fan of tacky borders and stickers. i guess we got our money's worth.
it's been a while since i've been in a lecture-type setting. during the conference, guest speakers discussed topics ranging from incan astronomy to modern chilean aquaculture. meanwhile, fulbrighters presented research projects in such fields as architecture, identity politics, biochemistry, poverty, sports journalism, sustainability, ESL instruction, economic development, history, media studies, and so on. sadly, even though contemplating latin america from so many different perspectives is undeniably stimulating, my abysmal memory still cannot be trusted to retain anything useful. my notebook is thus my lifeline.
as a rule, any flurry of note-taking is always accompanied by an equal (if not greater) amount of irrelevant doodles. inefficient, yes...but also pretty useless to resist, i've found. sooner or later, the sketches are going to find some way to come out. like this page, which somehow materialized during the orations of a cheerful chilean agronomist.
sorry about the long silence. i was gone on a conference that brought together fulbrighters from all over the southern cone for a week of introductions, lectures, and bus rides. between being amazed by each other's research and hustled to various speakers, we also got the chance to see the highlights of "el norte chico", chile's central-northern region. the area boasts the clearest night skies and thus some of the world's largest observatories, alongside teeming island wildlife preserves, valleys with famed pisco-producing vineyards, white sand beaches, and stately colonial architecture. some snapshots...
a view of isla dama's pristine beaches from the island's highest point.
gazing at the night sky through telescopes, from one of chile's many international observatories.
the valle de elqui, birthplace of nobel-prizewinning gabriela mistral and home to the country's best pisco producers.
leaping dolphins accompany us on our boat ride to isla choros, where several species of aquatic birds, sea lions, penguins, and otters play.
one last note on my last soccer post. i think that chilean futbol is crazy, but evidently i am unschooled in the extremes to which team ultras in other countries will go. sach recently alerted me to the fiery conclusion of the inter milan/ac milan game, where italian diehards hurled dozens of flares onto the field, setting the pitch ablaze, injuring a goalie, and eventually forcing the game to be cancelled. i guess i should be grateful that the chileans keep their pyrotechnics more or less to the stands...
my first south american soccer game! and what a matchup...colo colo vs. universidad de chile ranks among the biggest rivalries in the country. it's the chilean equivalent of the yankees vs. the red sox. i'd never been to a sporting event before where riot police patrolled the stadium en masse or where fleets of black armored buses menaced the parking lots, just daring spectators to get out of hand. but, as i learned today, many things occur in chilean stadiums that would never be allowed to happen back home. in the states, for instance, spectators are hardly permitted to set off their own fireworks and flares from the stands, throw bottles at riot police in the fields, or set fire to their seats. over here, though, that kind of behavior doesn't really seem to faze anybody anymore.
so how was the game? now, i don't know much about chilean soccer teams beyond what i witnessed today. but from those modest observations, here is my breakdown of the two rivals:
team: universidad de chile colors: blue and red advantages: more half-naked fans, more drums, more jumping, a better goalie.
team: colo colo colors: white and black advantages: more pyrotechnics, more toilet paper streamers, more fans, more players with colorful cleats.
one of the things these two fan bases had in common was their ability to memorize and recite a surprising array of team-specific chants, cheers, and songs. many of the lyrics were explicitly graphic in telling the other team what precisely was thought of them, or what exactly they should do with themselves. it's an experience to hear thousands of people chanting profanities in singsong unison...especially whenever seven-year-old kids gleefully join in.
here is a little excerpt from a conversation, as the first half of the game drew to a close. ABBY: time's almost up. i wonder what kind of show they have for a halftime. EMILY: (looking around) i don't think there are cheerleaders in chile. ABBY: (spotting movement on the grass) oh, apparently that's their halftime show. a large group of policemen carrying shields marching across the field. fun fun. EMILY: (startled) they're rounding up the referees. did the officials do something wrong? are they arresting them? ABBY: no...wait...they've circled them and are escorting them off the field...huddled under a solid dome of shields. *silence* EMILY: well, it is safer... ABBY: and surprisingly more entertaining than a dance squad.
thankfully, thankfully, the game ended in a tie. this averted much greater levels of chaos and violence (nobody likes losing, and for some reason humans like to destroy things when they are happy, too). nevertheless, there was still plenty of chaos to go around. below are two quick movie clips containing some good ol' post-goal insanity.
i had planned to catch a bus home after the game, but changed my mind once i realized that the river of humanity overtaking the streets had brought all traffic to a standstill. what buses i did see were so filled with flag-waving fans, they were literally dangling out the doors and windows. walking all the way home did give me the chance to witness various acts of vandalism and road rage, however. all in all, an unbeatable cultural experience.
if i were to infer something about south america based only on this past month's travels, there is just one conclusion i could come to:
there are no south americans in south america.
ok, technically, there are about 350 million people living on this continent. but the ones that can actually afford to see the remote wilds of patagonia or the atacama desert are---in order of the frequency in which i encountered them---israeli, german, australian, british, north american, or scandinavian. (can i also just add a special note that, for being such a tiny country, isreal dispatches an impressive amount of backpackers to south america. i would say that a healthy majority of guests in our hostels hailed from isreal. fortunately, like the europeans that made up the rest of the tourist population, they all spoke english if not a handful of other languages---making us feel abashed as usual for our country's unilingualism---and were all fun and helpful travel companions.)
but as i was saying...if you just knew south america from its national parks, you would have no clue that latinos own the place, much less populate the surrounding cities. at times i almost forgot that spanish was the official language. the only exception to this trend would have been our 4x4 venture into the altiplano, during which i spent days in conversation with leo, our bolivian driver, maria, his wife, and rigoberto, the sole passenger on my return trip to chile. below is a snapshot of leo and maria on the salar, posing with our crap 1985 toyota landcruiser. it needed its tires changed three times and frequently broke down during our journey. (even leo was fed up with the heap of scrap metal, which was assigned to him randomly by the agency. fortunately, we were a patient bunch. we all got along and enjoyed ourselves regardless.)
it was leo's idea to head out early on the salar to catch the sunrise. afterwards, he even managed to coax the landcruiser out to the isla de pescado, a marooned island of giant cactuses in the middle of the salt flats that had been declared inaccessible days earlier due to the water. quite a strange sight, watching a lonely patch of land appear out of a vast sea of blinding white. true to its name, the island did indeed look like a fish rising out of the salar. during one of our stops, maria searched around and found crystallized salt gems for all of us.
all in all, i think we ended up with the ideal driver/guide/travel companions...once i get these photos printed, i promised them i would send them their way. i realized the extent to which i took my technology for granted when i couldn't get their e-mail addresses, though...leo doesn't even have a phone, much less internet access, so i either have to call his boss or mail things to the travel agency in hopes that they will eventually get to him!
....
so i guess this entry finishes up my travelogue of the southern cone tour. there weren't many updates last week because sam came down to chile for his spring break. we had an awesome time exploring la quinta region, staying close to santiago but taking in plenty of new sights, foods, and, of course, drinks. sadly, he has since returned to boston, so it's back to work for me. because i do get work done here. really. i do.
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