Valparaíso

Valparaíso is a fairly old city, with some old-fashioned ways that make it very interesting.  It is built around a big curved bay on a little jut of land poking out from Chile, so that when you stand looking out at the Pacific, you are actually looking North.  This protects it from the direct surf of the ocean, and makes it an excellent harbor.  There is a narrow flat part around the bay, enough for a depth of five or six blocks of fairly long, level streets.  Then the hills begin.  There are about twenty of them, each with its own name.  If you ask for the location of anything, they tell you the hill name first.  The streets up there are so complex that even the police have to ask directions.  We are not talking rolling, friendly hills here, like the hills of Rome.  They are steep and extreme.  There are stair passageways with thousands of steps, and sidewalks along the edge of precipices that could kill you if you slipped off. (Usually, but not always, there is a wall or a fence to prevent this.)  

As the city began to spread into the hills, in the 1890's, it was a prosperous port and the first solution to the hill problem was the ascensores, little cog railroad elevators that will take you up several hundred feet from the flats to a flattish area atop one of the cliffs.  At the top there will be a few streets that are not so terribly steep, fantastic views out over the bay, and usually, some rather elegant old mansions. Many have been turned into restaurants, or small hotels, or boutique-filled clusters of artisan workshops.  But others are just abandoned real estate.  A few ascensores have long broad promenades at the top, perfectly flat for several blocks, held up by intricate iron work that anchors them to the cliff.  These level promenades have rows of town houses on their back side, probably the priciest houses in the city.

However, today the ascensores are mostly for tourists.  Real 20th century Porteños come up and down by automobile, each house having its own peculiar parking place.  On our hill, there are also a lot of people that walk, or wait for small very cheap city buses that are fairly frequent, or they pay just a little more for a collectivo taxi.  These are small cars that take three people in the back seat and one beside the driver, each one dedicated to its own particular hill, about 300 pesos per ride (60 cents).  The collectivo drivers are absolute speed demons; their income depends on how fast they can get back to the stand at the bottom of the hill.  Also, you see the occasional horse or mule carrying freight up; things like sacks of onions, or bricks.  

It is a very hand-made city; everything you see has some interest.  Since no two building sites are the same, each house has its own peculiar shape, and its own system of supports and retaining walls to keep it in place.  On our hill, Cerro Yungay, many houses are covered with corrugated metal, and the carpentry is not exactly up to code.  The mild climate encourages this.  But the whole city is very colorful, with houses in every shade of pastel,  and many big retaining walls have mural paintings.  A well made house with a nice level patch of garden is a luxurious thing.

Then there are the dogs.  Father Bernard says there are about 25,000 stray dogs that live in the streets.  There have been various campaigns to get rid of them, or to sterilize them, but the Porteños love them, and all such attempts have come to nothing.  They are treated like the sacred cattle of India.  They are not starving mutts, but look rather well fed, though often in need of a bath and some grooming.  A few days ago a small dog house appeared in a little park where we wait for the bus.  It has a water bowl, a mattress, a good roof, and the name "Bobby" is painted over the door.  We have not yet identified Bobby, but the mattress looks like it is used.

During the day, from midmorning to midafternoon the dogs fall down right on the sidewalk wherever they are and go to sleep, with people hurrying by just inches away.  Then about 6 PM every day, they all start calling to each other.  At first it just sounded like yapping and barking, but gradually I came to hear it is a form of music; a veritable canine symphony.  If you listen very carefully, you can even begin to hear the words, which oddly enough are in English.  First comes the basso: "OverhereIamthe boss, boss, boss..."  then a tenor the next hill coms in "oyeahsez who, sezwho, sezwhooo...".  Then up close a little yappy soprano says "Buchyacoodntdoitwithoutme, coodjaboss, coodjaboss, coodjaboss...   Gradually more and more come in,  and after about an hour it ends in a grand tutti of thousands of voices.  Then they suddenly fall silent until about midnight, when it all begins again.  The humans here are so used to it they can't even hear it any more.  

The Communist and the King of Sweden

In 1971 Pablo Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Poetry, and in Stockholm the assembled laureates chose him to respond, in the name of all, to King Gustaf's welcoming address:

We come from very far, from far outside or deep inside ourselves, with conflicting languages, enemies, from countries that we love.  We find ourselves here in this place, on this night, at the center of the world.  We gather together from chemistry, from microscopy, from cybernetics, algebra, meteorology, and poetry.  We come out of the obscurity of our work into a light that honors us, and for the moment, blinds us.  For us, the laureates, there is both joy and agony.

But pardon me, if before speaking, and before even breathing, I gather myself together.  I live far from here, and I will return to my land.  So please pardon me, and many thanks.

I return to the streets of my childhood, to the winter of South America, to the lilac gardens of of Araucanía, to the first María that I held in my arms, to the mud of streets that knew nothing of pavement, to the bereaved Indians left us by the Conquista,  to the darkness of a country, a continent,  that searches for light.  And if the light of this festive room shines forth across land and sea to illuminate my way, it illuminates also the future of our American people who defend their right to light,  to dignity, and liberty, and life.

I represent that time, those current struggles, that populate my poetry.  Forgive me for having extended recognition to all that is mine, to the forgotten of the earth, who on this happy occasion of my life seem to me more real than myself, more high than my cordilleras, more broad than the ocean.  I belong with pride to the human multitude; not to the few, but to the many.  I am here surrounded by their invisible presence.

Pablo Neruda

Inspired as she is by the poetic atmosphere of Valparaiso, my wife has composed the following lines:

A foolish old Gringo named Willy

was robbed and assaulted in Chile

both eyes were blacked

his forehead was cracked

and the bruise on his knee was a dilly.

Carol McClain

April 2

Don't cry for us, Argentina

Yesterday we came over the Andes by bus; this time, all the way to Valparaíso, in Chile, on the Pacific coast.  It was like crossing from Las Vegas, where the desert is held back only by lavish irrigation,  up over the Sierras and down into cool green hilly San Francisco.  The difference is that the Andes are so tall and steep; we had a great view of it all from the the very front upper deck of a comfortable bus.  Except for the vertical barrier, it is not very far; we were on the road only a bit more than half a day.

The upward road was the same as we did by tour bus, following the gorge of the Mendoza (see the High and Dry blog).  In Argentina, the road turned into a switchback trail for tour buses only after we left the main highway to go up to the historic ancient pass at glacier level. This time we just bored ahead with all the trucks through a tunnel several kilometers long, and at least a thousand meters lower, coming out in Chile on the other side.  

The border bureaucracy is fairly tight.  We had to get out and be inspected and stamped, and they pulled all our luggage out and used dogs and X-rays on it;  that took almost an hour.  It was a little worse than a Bush-era American airport, except that you could keep your shoes and hats on.  This is a border that has been fought over (in the 1890's) and memories are long.  There are army bases near the crest of the Andes on both sides.

There is no doubt that Chile has the steepest side of the Andes.  The road below the tunnel was the densest bunch of switchbacks I have ever seen.  As viewed from the upper front window of a double decker, it was really scary at times, with the road disappearing completely under the bus, and little bits of gravel scattering down to the next level.  This was not the time to rock the bus by getting up to go to the restroom.

I figured the landscape would flatten out again once we were down, but this was foolish.  Chile does not have any pampas, and is not very flat anywhere.  The road followed the gorge of the Aconcagua river, starting with water that melts on the western side of the great glaciers up on the Aconcagua peak.  It was clear and swift at first, but before long it was as muddy as the Mendoza, with silt picked up by the rushing water.  The main difference is the abundance of rain on the Chilean side.  The land, though rather hilly, is green and fertile, with all kinds of vegetable and fruit farms.  Also lots and lots of grapes; maybe even more than in Argentina.  Before long we were in Viña del Mar on the coast, and from there the bus took a coast road to Valparaîso, twenty minutes away.

More on Valparaíso when we know more.  But, man, the seafood is great.

The only salad dressing here is called Golf dressing, white, tasteless, and rich.  It may be based on whipped cream.  I had it once at a salad bar.  Heart of palm salad with Golf dressing is on a lot of menus.  I hate to think how many palm trees they cut down to provide it.  Each tree makes about one good salad.

Salads are never dressed with mayonnaise, or mayonnaisy dressings, like Ranch, or Russian.  Only oil and vinegar, and I approve.

Butter on the table is unusual; In very good places you see a tiny dish of herbed, home made mayonnaise as a bread dip, but it is more usual to just pour out some delicious local olive oil and dip the bread in it.

I have never seen normal black pepper in Argentina.  It is always white pepper, a rather unusual item in the US.  Black peppercorns are the unripe seeds of the pepper vine (piper nigrum), dried with the skin on.  White pepper is the very same berry, ripened, rubbed to remove the skin, washed, and dried.  Escoffier frequently calls for white pepper, under the strange name of "noble pepper".  Also, Paul Prudhomme calls for it as part of every  Cajun dish, along with black pepper  and cayenne.  Now I begin to agree with Prudhomme that white and black have a different flavor.  I can hardly imagine that the exclusive use of white pepper traces back to Escoffier.  Nothing else in Argentine cooking does.  Italian influence is strong, but I did not run into it at all in Italy.

Argentine food is very bland.  We saw immense fields of excellent oregano at Tunuyan, but they use it only on pizza.  The use of chili peppers is unknown; red pepper flakes to sprinkle on the pizza do not exist.     I ordered a pizza that was said to include aji, a yellow chili from Peru (the only chili that does not cross-pollinate with others).  It came with such a light dusting of aji that you could not really taste it.  

The only tasty sauce is chimichurri, a reddish, oily sauce for grilled meats.  It is very tasty, but even here there is little or no chili flavor.  

Masa, and therefore tortillas and tamales, are totally unknown, even in "Mexican" restaurants.  Canned corn kernels are a frequent addition to salads, but I am not aware of any other use of corn.  

Maté is the major drink here, as advertised.  On our tourist van excursions, many Argentine couples carry a bag of dried maté, a thermos of hot water, some sugar, and a bombillo with a silver straw.  They fill the bombillo to the top with dried maté and sugar, and pour in enough hot water to wet it down.  The silver straw has a little bulbous filter on the end.  You blow a few bubbles in to clear the filter, then suck up as much maté as you can before the filter clogs again.  They pass it all around, then pour in more hot water many times, until finally the maté mush is exhausted.  Then they scrape it into a plastic bag and begin again.  I tasted it.  It is extremely bitter and grassy.  You have to be raised on it to appreciate it.  The Wikipedia

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(beverage)

says it contains caffeine (and god knows what else).

Beware the parilla libre

I described the parilla libre, an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of grilled meat.  We found a place that would sell you a single serving for 40 pesos, and we ordered it to share between the two of us.  It was a small steak (about half a pound), a slab of grilled beef short ribs (rib bones maybe an inch tall), grilled shortbreads, a chicken breast, a pork sausage, and a blood sausage.  With chimichurri to slather over everything.  I would not do it again.  The meat was all precooked and waiting on the parilla, where is it slowly overcooked and begins to dry out.  If you want good Argentine meat, go to a parilla where they start with raw meat and grill it to your specifications. 

Last night we went to the local art movie house (in the theater of the University of Cuyo) to see a new film by the Spanish director Carlos Saura.  He has done several movies on indigenous performance styles:  one on the Argentine tango, one on Gypsy flamenco, and now one on Portuguese fado.  The language was all Portuguese, but with Spanish subtitles, which made it interesting.  The movie is so great we were actually seeing it for the second time, two nights in a row.  The first night there was a live fado performance after the movie, but it was so pale beside the movie that we left after about four numbers.  But many in the audience were staying and cheering.

To put it very crudely, fado is the Portuguese blues.  It is supposedly uncomposed, spontaneous music sung to a repetitive accompaniment, often guitar and/or mandolin, but it could be anything; violin, accordian, piano; anything.  The repetitive background  is usually fast and ornate, and the singers use a fado scale that gives all fado a certain unity.  It's the subject matter that is the focus of the fado.  Heartbreak and longing are always good, but there was also a fado on the greatness Lisboa, another on the conquest of the Cap Verde islands, some fados with African themes from Angola or Mozambique, one about an African guy in London (major heartbreak) and some historic film clips of fado performers now long gone.  Saura created fabulous visuals for all the fados, most of them with a wonderful dance troupe and giant mirrors set at vaious angles, so you could see the dance from several views at once.  We recognized one singer, a beautiful blonde woman called simply Mauriza,  from a live fado concert in Detroit at the DSO.

The best was a cinematic recreation of a fado cafe performance where many in the audience were fado singers, getting up to perform as the spirit moved them, both men and women.  Two of the men got into a fado exchange on fame, a deep concern of everybody in fado. Without fame you have no audience, but with fame the spirit of fado may evaporate.  This exchange really had the dueño, as they say in flamenco; i.e., the performers owned the music.

Tonight they are showing an older film of Sauros's, called Tango.  That will be three nights in a row at the same theater.