Parque Municipal/La Virgen

I left the Fine Art Museum with my back feeling really stiff, so I headed for a walk through the adjacent Parque Forestal. The map showed a Museum of Visual Arts and Archeology at the other end of the park, but I mostly just wanted to walk. The slow browsing of museum stops was not working for my back at this time. I also have a general self imposed tourist rule: No more than one museum per half day. The brain can't handle it very well. In the park there are small installations honoring various literary and historical figures in Chilean past. Here is a tribute to Ruben Dario, Chilean writer.

At the end of Parque Forestal I saw no museum (thank God) but across the Rio Mapuche

appeared to be a bustling college neighborhood. Sure enough, there was an artisans' corner and even a sign saying this was Santiago's bohemian community. I strolled the street past countless promising restaurants and bars to come to El Parque Municipal, a bit of a tourist spot it seems, with a cog rail car going up to La Virgen on the hill. I grab an empañada from a street vendor and contemplate the map

I kind of wanted to hike to the top, but was told that it was like 5 kilometers so I paid the fee for the "teleférico", about $4.

There is a zoo on the way up, but I skipped it and went to La Virgen. At the base of the virgin is a candle vigil spot where people make their prayers for miracles

The pope made a visit here a few years ago, fo the place is all fixed up in papal style!

I decided to forego my return ticket and hike down, which took about 45 minutes. I picked a street cafe/bar to have a "churrasco completo" and a beer. The beer only came in one size, a liter! I figure there is only one way to find out just what a "churrasco" is...

So it's thin slices of beef on a bulky roll with tomato, onions, mystery sauce etc. It takes me a while to finish that beer which gives me time to look at my tourist map and realize that I am just a few blocks from the Pablo Neruda house/museum that had been highly recommended by one of the local profes at Portillo. My back feels better now after the hike, the rest and the beer, so...off we go!

Santiago: Bellas Artes/Bella Vista

Sábado,por la mañana, después de desayunar en el restaurante a la terraza del hotel, fui andando por unas cuadras hacia el rio. Pronto me encontré en frente del Museo de las Bellas Artes. Solamente cobraron 600 pesos por la entrada ($1.35)...pues fui adentro.

No podía sacar fotos en las salas de expisición, pero me gustó mucho la de José Basso. http://www.josebasso.com/ Habían tres otras exposiciones y la colección permanente en la gran sala.

La Foresta Hotel

I have been recommended this hotel as an inexpensive, comfortable and centrally located spot.

It's an older building with a "French" theme (old sofas in the lobby with signs saying don't sit on this fragile work of art). There is a doorman and the lobby help is friendly. Across the street is a forrested hill (un cerro), called Santa Lucia. There is a path to the top and, I believe, a gazebo of sorts on top where music is played. However, they close it around 7pm and I have yet to get in there when it is open, but I did hear music the other night. The hotel is about 5 blocks from La Plaza de Armas, the center of the old part of the city. My room is on the 2nd floor, above the bar. It's cute in a funky way, with a living room (parlor)

, then a hall with bath

that leads into the bedroom.

Nothing is square and the bedroom window looks out onto the street. The parlor window looks into a ventilation pit. I stretch my sore back a bit and work on the computer eventually to reckon with the fact that it is cold in this hotel. Asking downstairs, they tell me the heat comes on at 9pm. All very well, but it only seems to catch up with the cold building around 2am! I run the trickle of hot water for about ten minutes and eventually get a temp I can take a bath in. The upper safety drain has been patched and there are rust holes in the tub there. After I get comfy in a hot tub, the phone rings and they tell me that my bath is causing a leak in the ceiling in the bar!

I head to La Plaza de Armas for some local fare. It's Friday night and the plaza is crawling with people. There is an elevated gazebo-like thing, but the people are not playing music, but chess! Most of the food I see is some kind of a Chilean hot dog, varous kinds of pizza (not Italian), or these things called churrascos. The churrasco is on a bun with thinly sliced meat, onions, tomato, mystery sauce etc. It's a lot like the "cemita" I had in Mexico, but the meat looks more trustworthy. They also are big on a dish with french fries and grilled, shredded beef and bacon on top with a creamy sauce, onions and possibly a fired egg. "Lomo Pobre", the poor man's steak, is similar: a bed of french fries with a piece of steak and a fried egg on top. All this is in the range of $5-$15, depending on the size and whether or not you get a beer with it.

La Bajada

La bajada: On my way down from Portillo... We've already made several switchback turns and look what's left! Riding in a Sprinter van (1998 with 590,000 kilometers) with no rust! It's slow going in low gears. I catch a bus in Los Andes for about $3 to get to Santiago. It's supposed to be 2 hrs, but ends up taking 4.5. Glad I left early. I get to Santiago by 6pm.

La clase de portugués

Dos horas al día, cinco días a la semana, por tres semanas nos reunimos a La Posada

(sin califacción) para apreder u n poco de portugués. La profesora vino del norte de La Argentina, cerca del Brasil. Ella es un a profesora muy buena y siempre nos habló en portugués.

Todos en la clase conocían el español, pues la clase fue predicada en este conocimiento. Ambos dos lenguas son muy semejantes, pero hay que cuidarse porque algunas palabras que parecen ser cognadas son muy distintas. Palabras que suenan semejantes a las de español pueden estar deletreados muy distinctos. Otras que están deletreados casi lo mismo como en español, pueden sonar como griega. "de" tiene el sonido de "gee" y "ti" o "te" suena como "chi" o "che". El "ñ" está escrito "nh". "Me llamo" = "me chamo"; "Yo" = "Eu"; "soy"="seu". No pronuncian la letra "m" cuando cae al fin de una palabra..."tem" tiene el sonido de "teng"; "bem" sueña como "beng"

Nuestra profesora de portugués, Gabriela

Al fin, terminamos con una prueba en forma de un diálogo y una fiesta con bebidas brasileñas llamadas "caipirinhas", hecho com mucha vodka, azucar, y limón.

¡Otra Asada!

Cuando los profes de Portillo tienen una fiesta, algunos bajan a Los Andes, el pueblo abajo de la carretera, para comprar la comida y las bebidas. Cada uno de nosotros pagamos 5.000 pesos y otro 1000 pesos para los que cocinan. Vamos a La Posada y hay un buen fuego donde asan las carnes.

Tenemos ensaladas, la carne asada, y mucho vino, cervezas y u poco de Pisco. Pisco es una bebida como coñac, hecho aquí en Chile. Siempre hay música y la gente baila mucho. Esta asada sirvió para la última fiesta para los profes que vinieron por el mes de julio.

The focus is fast becoming how to get out of here... In Portillo style, another "Tormenta" is approaching and the "prognóstico" says snow Thursday night, then again on Friday night through Saturday, the day I am scheduled to leave. But when it snows, they close the road and no one comes or goes. So I may try to leave on Friday afternoon, but my contract says I work until 4:30 and the last van departs at 5:30. In between, I must pack up my skis, turn in my uniform and collect my pay from the bureaucrat who sits in a bare-walled room with a single light bulb and speaks a version of Chilean Spanish that seems to come from another planet! My prayer is that I will not have to work the afternoon shift and that it will all work out. Otherwise, I may get snowed in until Sunday or Monday and when it snows like that, they don't even run the lifts until they can both see the top, groom the novice trails and blast off the avalanche potential. By then the road will be open.