Back in the Saddle of the Huaso

I’ve decided to continue with my blog for this summer as well, because once again I am beginning it in Santiago de Chile and planning to end it in California. After a somewhat arduous year at Princeton University, I have four months to regroup, recuperate, and collect my thoughts before returning for more in September. Concretely, I am planning to use this time to read books from the list of works that I will be tested on in my general exams next May, look around Chile for dissertation ideas, travel a bit in July (in Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay and possibly Brazil as well), and think. So once again this blog will serve as a travelogue and also as a place to jot down my thoughts on my surroundings and then submit them to cyberspace for reactions.

The problem is that aside from my long (really long) flight from New York to Santiago, I’m not really planning to stray that far for the next two months. So I’m hoping to use this space in the meantime more as a place for thoughts than as a travelogue. Which brings me to my first question, one I’ve kind of been turning over in my mind these days as I’ve shuttled around Santiago with dear friends, revisiting places that are at once familiar and quite foreign: by traveling to Chile, to Santiago, am I really traveling? Or just moving from one home to another? I lived here for two and a half years, after all, and only left just over a year ago. This is a place I love (and hate); this is a place I know. And yet, even a short time away from it blurs it in my mind, placing it out of necessity on the back burner, in order to make room, and to process stimulations and situations that require more immediate attention. My intimate knowledge of Santiago is always mediated by this distance. Things that used to be routine for me, things I did day in and day out for years, are once again strange: for example, making sure you have your fruit weighed and labeled in the produce section of the grocery store rather than at the check-out counter, and looking for the ATM in the airport, even though it’s in the same place it always was. Now, when one “travels” to an “exotic place” (and Santiago de Chile could be considered exotic by the standards of most gringos like myself), one expects to encounter the unknown, the unfamiliar. And what I’ve encountered here isn’t exactly unfamiliar, but it’s not familiar either. So have I “traveled,” or have I just returned?

After all, this is Chile! The people hurry through the streets in their practically-identical dark coats, talking on their cell phones and looking intently ahead of them. I spent years doing just that. The gleaming stores, monuments to this country’s neoliberal economic achievements, under constant renovation, bringing in new goods and slashing the prices of what goes unsold, pricing it to move. All of it under the constant vigilance of security guards, looking down from their perches one floor above, protecting and enforcing the system, but also joking with each other in their high-pitched voices. The cranes along the skyline (just below the jagged line delineating mountains from Chile’s cielo azulado), building apartment complexes at alarming speeds and casting shadows upon the tin-roofed shacks down the block.

I’m afraid that I’m going to catch myself being overly critical of my beloved adopted Chile this time around, after a year of full-time training in how to spot the flaws, the dark spots of the past that neoliberalism tries to erase, as Idelber Avelar says. Chile focuses constantly on commodifying whatever’s new on the showroom floor and sweeping away last season’s goods, just as it sweeps away painful periods of its history into oblivion, to be replaced by the gleaming haze of “consensus.” Is the security guard watching for shoplifters from above analogous to the often-violent vigilance of the military regime that installed this free market “paradise”? Despite the fact that Chile is now a democracy, how much has really changed?

How much have I changed, since the last time I was here? In a way I feel like a huaso, a Chilean cowboy—sometimes a word used in Chilean slang for a clueless yokel unable to cope with “modern” things. I have moments where I have no idea what I’m doing. Other times I’m afraid that I know too much.

Conclusions, Part 2

Some people have requested that I put up a Top Ten List of my favorite places along the way. Here they are (in order from South to North):

-Humberstone, Iquique, Chile (because it was awesome to walk around this mining ghost town and imagine what it was like during its glory days)

-Codpa, Chile (because I had such an awesome time hanging out with my friend Tibor, eating grapefruits still warm off the vine and stargazing at night)

-Coroico, Bolivia (because I loved the place I stayed, and I loved the tropical feel to it, and I was reading a really good book at the time)

-Isla del Sol, on Lake Titicaca, Bolivia (because of the sunset over the lake the night before in Copacabana, drinking coca tea on the hotel balcony, and because it was awesome to imagine the Inca kings on retreat there)

-Guayaquil, Ecuador (because I had such a good time with Carlos in this cosmopolitan, orderly port city)

-Quito, Ecuador (because it was easily accessible, and because of the awesome shawarma and the gilded Jesuit church)

-San Agustín, Colombia (because of the sugar cane juice with lemon, and the tour of the sculptures, and the heaping bandejas of Colombian food)

-Playa Blanca, Islas del Rosario, Colombia (because of the snorkeling, and the beautiful beach...and because next year they're going to build some homogenized resort there and I got to see it before they do that)

-Monteverde, Costa Rica (because we saw quetzals there, and howler monkeys and an agouti...and also because of the Tarzan swing)

-Tulum, Mexico (because we had a beautiful white beach practically all to ourselves)

-Chichén Itzá (and the cenote azul), Mexico (because we got to Chichén Itzá before the crowds did)

-Mexico City, Mexico (because it sent me into sensory overload)

Sorry, that's 12. I couldn't narrow it down. But that's the cool thing about having your own blog: you can make up the rules as you go along.

Conclusions, Part 1

It's good to be home. You can get the best of both worlds (north and south) right here.

The fact is, I can gain access to all the cultural goods of Latin America, even when I'm in the US, so I'm never too far from Chile. Or at least, from Spanish. I have the internet. I can watch Univision, and Telemundo. "José Luis Sin Censura" (Google it, you won't be disappointed) is on every day at 6:00. "La Esclava Isaura" comes on every night at 9.

I have learned the following things from my little trip.

1) If you are familiar enough with the culture of one Latin American country, you can manage in all of them. Even if the culture you're most familiar with (Chile) is the most un-Latin American country of the bunch.

2) Travelling is a good time to catch up on your reading. I read some really good books along the way, and I would recommend these ones in particular:
-Los detectives salvajes, by Roberto Bolaño (translated into English in the US as The Savage Detectives)
-Noticia de un secuestro, by Gabriel García Márquez (Translated into English as News of a Kidnapping)
-Assassination on Embassy Row, by John Dinges and Saul Landau
-What is the What, by Dave Eggers
-Calibre 39 (an anthology of Colombian authors under 39)

3) I love cities. The grittier the better.

4) Latin America will only leave poverty behind if other countries do what Chile has done, economically speaking. I saw no other viable alternatives.

5) You can't travel from Chile to California in just three months on a small budget, unless you plan really well. You need to either have money, or more time (or both), to do it right.

6) There are very few cheap "travellers' paradises" in Latin America anymore. The word is out on most of the nice places, and locals have jacked up the prices accordingly (as well they should). There are still lots of unexplored places, but I didn't have the time to take the risk to see if there were cool things off the beaten track (in most places). Next time.

7) I have a lot of faith in the people of Latin America. Its greatest resource, far more valuable than all its minerals put together, are its human resources: clever, resourceful, warm, friendly people--extremely highly trained, in some cases. I have faith that the people of Latin America will find solutions to their problems, and that these solutions will have a human face.

The Border/La Frontera

(En español, abajo)

I flew to Tijuana, and then crossed over the border into San Diego. From there, I called my brother David, who lives in downtown SD. No sooner had I sat down to a "Meat Lovers' Breakfast Burrito" (god bless America) at a Jack in the Box just over the border, when a familiar-looking minivan pulled up outside. My parents and my brothers picked me up, and we had a nice day in San Diego before driving back to Camarillo.

My parents had been following my progress on a bulletin board in the breakfast nook. I hope I inspired them to see some of the places along the way. When are you going to Colombia, Mom?

Así que volé a Tijuana, y crucé la frontera a San Diego. De ahí llamé a mi hermano David, que vive en el centro de San Diego. Mientras lo esperaba, fui a un Jack in the Box (una cadena de comida chatarra) y pedí un burrito de desayuno (en gringolandia los burritos se comen a cualquier hora). Lo hice en español, a todo esto, porque la señora en la caja no entendía inglés. En fin. Una vez sentado y comiendo, entró una señora, gringa, apoyada por lo que parecía su marido. Tenía la cara hinchada, muy grotesca, y llevaba bata y pantuflas. Entraron al restaurante y fueron derechito al baño. Hubo una pausa en la conversa, y todos los parroquianos nos mirábamos. Un mexicano sentado delante mío de repente dijo: "¡Una fantasma!" Y todos nos reímos a carcajadas. Supongo que muchos gringos cruzan a México a hacerse su cirujía plástica porque ahí ahorran algo de platita.

Bueno, después de un ratito llegó una minivan que me era familiar. Mi familia entera salió y nos abrazamos en frente del Jack in the Box. Tuvimos una tarde agradable en San Diego, antes de emprender rumbo a Camarillo, nuestro pueblito en los suburbios del mero sueño americano.

Resultó que mis viejos habían estado siguiendo mi viaje en su sala de estar (véase foto del mapa, arriba). Así que estoy en casa, descansando. Preparándome pa' la próxima aventura.

DF, DFondo

Un gran "órale" a mis cuates en los países hispanoparlantes. Les cuento que estoy impresionado con México, pues todo este tiempo lo tenía al lado y nunca tomé el tiempo para conocerlo. Es una lástima porque es una cultura tan, tan rica, muy latina y a la vez muy cercana a la mía. Aquí estacionar es "parquear," y arrendar es "rentar." Hay más velocidad y más comida rápida, más tallarines ramen y más de lo cosmopolita. Más gente. México realmente está en el mundo, con una cultura globalizada, con hechos que van mucho más allá del discurso globalista (pero más que nada, comercialista) de Chile. Sí hay más pobreza que en Chile, pero menos de lo que hay en la mayoría de los países que he visitado. Y está la esperanza, se siente en el ambiente, de que todo se va mejorando.

Con la excepción de Oaxaca (hay que agregarlo), donde la atmósfera era más que nada una de conflicto social. Justo el día que nos fuimos de Oaxaca, estallaron desmanes relacionados con las demandas de los profesores de mejores sueldos. O por lo menos, así comenzó la cosa; ahora abarca las demandas históricas de los pobres en una región desigual, latifundista y aún gobernada por el PRI.

Bueno, como puse en mi último posteo en inglés, DF me instó a un estado de delirio. Ya había estado viajando tanto tiempo, pasando por tantas cosas (mi abuelita se murió, me dio una infección de estafilococco, de la que recuperé), tanta logística (que adónde va este bus, que cuándo partimos para Chichén Itzá, que si el taxista me está estafando, que hay que empacar la mochila por enésima vez, que este hotelucho no sirve, que ese camino en bus será de 22 horas aunque cubre una distancia de como 200 km...), tanta cerveza...

Así es que llegué a DF con las defensas un poco en baja, cuando realmente tienes que estar en forma para enfrentarlo. Es una ciudad maravillosa: el Museo de Antropología tiene unos artefactos impresionantes, el sol azteca para empezar. DF estaba celebrando el centenario del nacimiento de Frida Kahlo con una exhibición en el Palacio de Bellas Artes y otra en la Casa Azul, que es donde vivió ella (y donde vivió León Trotsky hasta que tuvo un affaire con Frida, se enojó su mujer y tuvieron que mandarse a cambiar a una casa cercana, que es donde un asesino catalán lo mató con una piolet a la cabeza, pero esto es otro tema...). Disfruté mucho del Templo Mayor, un gran templo azteca sólo parcialmente excavado al lado de la catedral, en el Zócalo de la ciudad.

DF, o por lo menos las partes turísticas, tiene una estética única. Tiene elementos de lo futurista kitsch (lo que pensaban que iba a ser el futuro en los años 60, onda Tomorrowlandia), lo azteca guerrillero de las ruinas, lo colonial de la llegada de los españoles y lo decimonónico afrancesado del Porfiriato. Es una mezcla inolvidable, y por más dispares que parezcan los elementos que la componen, es una mezcla que funciona. Esto es el encanto de México, para mí: el hallazgo de la coherencia en una variedad muy rara e improbable de elementos.

Y claro, no me puedo olvidar de los pirámides de Teotihuacán. A sólo una hora de DF, pero en otro mundo.

O sea: desorientación y delirio. DF me agotó. Y llegué a la conclusión de que no me quedaba otro remedio que irme para la casa, ahora ya. Y me fui.

Frida Fever

I think Mexico City induced a sort of delirium in me. It's a fairly disorienting city in the best of scenarios, but when you've been traveling for close to three months, you're a little nervous about grad school (coming up as soon as you cross that border), and you've been through the death of your grandma and a staph infection in the process, the existing chaos of DF takes on kaleidoscopic and phantasmagorical qualities. The clowns doing entertainment on the Metro for spare change become grostesque. The smog gets into your eyes, and your subconscious.

One Mexico City personage who experienced the delirium of this city and externalized it even as she suffered it was Frida Kahlo. Some of you may have seen the recent Salma Hayek movie? Well, this year is the centennial of her birth, and Mexico City is celebrating that by capitalizing on the mounting international attention that Frida received both late in life and since her death, even when she was lesser known in Mexico than her husband, the muralist Diego Rivera. The result was a special exhibition of her art at her house in the southern Mexico City district of Coyoacán, and a huge solo show at the capital's Palacio de Bellas Artes. So me, my Stanford friend Nick and his girlfriend Desha had a Frida day once they arrived. We went to the Fine Arts Palace, and then to Frida's house (the Casa Azul, where she grew up and which she later lent to Leon Trotsky when he was in exile in DF), and then to the house that Diego and Frida shared, nearby in San Ángel.

Frida suffered in life. She was run over by a streetcar, which left her incapacitated, on and off, throughout her life. It also probably led to her early death, in 1954. She was in a lot of pain, and many of her paintings reflect on the delirium that pain and suffering can cause. The tricks they can play on our minds. Frida painted many self-portraits that showed her suffering in very novel ways. Having spent a lot of time in the US, she also reflected on popular culture and fame. Many images come to my mind now, two in particular. One: a painting of two Fridas next to each other, bound together by veins, one of which is being cut with scissors by one Frida, causing it to bleed on her white dress. Two: a painting of Dorothy Hale, a movie star who jumped to her death off the Empire State Building. Frida gave the painting to the star's mother.

Diego Rivera's murals are another iconic example of Mexico City's rich visual arts scene. Using a number of themes, which were often Marxist, Rivera painted huge scenes taking in a variety of themes, including man's and science's triumphs over nature, war and peace, fascism, death, work and leisure. Fascinating and overwhelming. Diego and Frida's relationship was one for the books. Though tempestuous, he was the love of her life, and she his.

In Mexico City, I found that I couldn't just take things in without getting intensely involved in them. This is probably because the city's monuments and sights are so wonderfully imperfect, or layered, or conflicted, and therefore quite accessible. You don't see the slickness of the Louvre, or the manicured perfection of Versailles. But this doesn't make DF's sights any less important. Its cathedral is just as impressive as any European one, but it's sinking into the ground. It's actually a bit crooked (Mexico City used to be a lake, after all). Its National Anthropology Museum has amazing archaeological artifacts, dramatically displayed. But you can't look at these Aztec runes without thinking balefully about how Cortés came in and basically wiped this amazing civilization off the map of living cultures, denying its achievements and trying to replace it with one that was far inferior. These layers of presentation were spell-binding for me.

It was just too much. I came to the conclusion that I just needed to go home. I had travelled long enough. I'll come back to DF when I'm a little less worn-down, because it needs my undivided attention.

DFinitely not for the faint of heart

I have reached one of the most highly-anticipated parts of my trip (by me): Mexico City. I think this entry is going to have to be about expectations vs. reality. Let me start off by saying that I have even dreamed of going to Mexico City. Literally. Several times. And I was super stoked to get here.

So I'd love to say that it has totally lived up to them, but the jury's still out, even after a day and a half (an eternity in this fly-by-night, speeding through Latin America trip). Right now I'm just sort of on sensory overload. This city is noisy, and smelly, and literally I have a headache from straining to see everything there is to see. It's just so big! It's also been raining since Anne and I got here yesterday, so that has definitely colored my perception of things as well. In addition to weaving and ducking among all the crowds (crowds...everywhere...), I've also had to weave to avoid all the puddles and the busses that spray you on the sidewalk.

This is a very vibrant city, though, and in its glory periods it has built some impressive monuments to itself, and to the country as a whole. There is a huge Frida Kahlo exhibition on, as it's the 100 year anniversary of her birth this year, and the city is constantly putting on a number of different cultural activities. There's definitely a lot to love. It's even a bit like Santiago, in its own sprawled-out, smoggy little way.

It has a whole French vibe as well, particularly in the centro histórico. Wide boulevards, wrought iron. The Metro is also very much like the one in Paris; it even smells the same. It's a lot more crowded though. There's a section of every platform where only women and children can stand to wait for trains, the idea being that they can then have a whole car to themselves (though no one seems to respect this).

But there is a lot of poverty. There are massive slums on its outskirts, that stretch out literally to the horizon. The whole city is sinking, as well, and I'm pretty sure that one tower of the cathedral is higher than the other. And everyone's in everyone else's grill, all the time.

I'm trying to like it.