Memories of Chile

[Marc Chevalier]

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Probably no one except for me and Smithy will be interested in this, but oh well. Continuing the conversation ...



I lived there from '95 to '96, and then continuously from '98 to '05. First in Providencia, near Av. Suecia ... then in Las Condes, near Av. Tobalaba.


Loved Bellavista, especially late at night when the revelers and hooligans were out and cavorting. Memories of 2 a.m. food carts selling fried sopaipillas.


Smithy, did you ever visit the plaza Mulato Gil area? Great old area. Some wonderful restaurants and bars there. My favorite was the BAR BERRI, in the basement of a decaying 1900s mansion. It looked like the low-ceiling'd galley of a 19th century sailing ship. Memories ...


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[Paisley]

...light the corners of my mind...

 

[Marc Chevalier]

View of Las Condes (in Santiago) from the San Cristobal hill. You can see some of the Andes mountain range in the distance.

View of the park in San Cristobal hill:

View of a magnificent 1900s apartment building in the Barrio Brazil. Alas, it has become very rundown. Most of the people who live there are migrant workers from Peru:

View of the living room in my small but comfy apartment in Las Condes. Note the fez perched on top of the wall speaker.

 

[Smithy]

Great pics Marc!

I'll scan and post some pics later today as well.

I don't think I did visit that part of the city but my Spanish is pretty appalling, the better half will remember if we did, I'll ask...

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Leaving Santiago for a moment ...

Here are shots from the far north of Chile, home to the world's driest desert. It was here that nitrate mines supplied the world with minerals for gunpowder and fertilizer. That is, until Germans invented a chemical substitute in WWI. The mines slowly died after that. Now they're ghost towns in a lunar landscape:

The swimming pool, made from iron plates recovered from a beached steamship:

 

[Marc Chevalier]

And not so far away from that desert is the port city of Iquique, once one of the wealthiest in the world. The world's supply of nitrate exited through this place. Unfortunately for Iquique, practically all the wealth it produced went south to Chile's faraway capital, Santiago -- where the mine owners, railroad magnates and shipping families actually lived.


Here's a view of Iquique from the desert. In fact, the desert goes straight to the sea. You can just see Iquique on the far right:

And here is Iquique's 19th century opera house. Caruso and Bernhardt played here:

Iquique has its own Club of Spain, now a restaurant. Built in the early 1900s, it retains its original Moorish decor:

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Does anyone find this at all interesting?

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[Mojito]

I do! Particularly Iquique. I think I mentioned in another thread that I'd spent some time working with the letters of an Edwardian steamship officer who spent time on the South American run, and who spent weeks at a time in Iquique and other ports on the Nitrate Coast. He wrote at length about his experiences there - including what happened when the cargo proved volatile and a ship blew up astern of them.

We've been looking at working with the Chilean Government at ways of interpreting their rich maritime history, so I'm fascinated by these images of what remains today in the port of the glory days. I'd love to know from what beached steamship the pool was built!

 

[Tomasso]

Does anyone find this at all interesting?

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Press

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Press

That cracked me up! lol

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[Marc Chevalier]

In another thread, I mentioned a grape brandy called pisco. This is the national drink of both Peru and Chile. (Chileans drink more pisco than wine, I suspect. They'll never admit to it, though.)


Peru first produced pisco (in a region named Pisco), but Chile made the stuff too. In 1912, Peru decided to patent the name, much like France's Champagne region has done with the bubbly stuff. A wily Chilean senator who represented his country's pisco-producing region decided to foil Peru. He convinced a town in his region to quickly change its name from "La Union" to "Pisco Elqui." By doing so, he stopped Peru from being able to patent the name "pisco," since it couldn't prove that the name didn't exist anywhere outside Peru. For this reason, Chile continues to call its product pisco without having to pay Peru for the rights to the name.


Not surprisingly, the clever senator later became president of Chile.


A view of Pisco Elqui today:

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Here is the "Chile Pavilion" that was once part of the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, along with the newly built Eiffel Tower. (Incidentally, Gustav Eiffel's firm designed several structures for Chile in the late 1800s.) The pavilion is made of exposed wrought iron and tiles. Its design was considered quite modern for the time: even the Greek columns are made of wrought iron.


Some years later, the pavilion was dismantled and shipped from Paris to Santiago, where it is now a cultural center in a park:

 

[Tomasso]

pisco, the national drink of both Peru and Chile.

I had a pisco sour, just the other night, at a Peruvian restaurant in Miami Beach. The restaurant was recommended to me by a Chilean acquaintance.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I had a pisco sour at a Peruvian restaurant ... recommended to me by a Chilean acquaintance.

A Chilean allowing you to try Peruvian pisco? Sacrilege!


Peru and Chile have problems getting along. Chile won an 1879-'82 war against Peru and Bolivia: it's called The War of the Pacific. Bolivia lost its access to the sea, and the national library in Peru's capital, Lima, was sacked (though some items were returned later). More than a few beautiful statues from there are still in the gardens of old-time Chilean families.


After the war, it took forever to settle the border between Chile and Peru. Finally, in 1928, and with the help of the U.S.A. (whose mediator in the matter was Gen. Pershing himself), the border dispute was "settled." Peru and Bolivia are still mad about the deal.

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[Maj.Nick Danger]

Does anyone find this at all interesting?

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Well, hell yeah. It's like National Geographic. Nice pics and we get to learn somewhat of a foreign land.
The wrought iron building is cool, that was all the rage for a while, along with the tile architecture too. I think because it was easier to prefabricate iron parts than it was to cut stone, so it was a technical innovation at the time.

 

[warbird]

Ah yes, pisco. Had some just the other day and thought of old times. Me and my friend Huck walking and talking economics in gardens with our friend Augusto.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Ah yes, pisco. Had some just the other day and thought of old times. Me and my friend Huck walking and talking economics in gardens with our friend Augusto.

Okay, I'll bite (again). "Augusto" as in Pinochet? And is your friend Huck really named Michael? As in Townley? Or are you just pulling my leg?


(No worries, I won't go into politics. A yes or no answer will be fine for me.)

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[Fletch]

Handy Phrases for Travelers

Pard??n, se?±or. ¬øD??nde puedo comprar la ropa alemana usada?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Pard??n, se?±or. ¬øD??nde puedo comprar la ropa alemana usada?

You're close. Ask, "Donde esta la calle Bandera en centro? Estoy buscando tiendas de ropa usada." Look for shops with the name "Ahora O Nunca" ("Now or Never" -- a clever name for a used clothing store), and "Meicys."

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[Lincsong]

Yeah, I'm always fascinated by Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. If you have any pictures of these places post them Marc. I'm a history buff.