Santiago
Jay was nice enough to spend the next day being a tourist with me. He had heard of, but not been to, a large mansion downtown that dated from the turn of the century and had been built by Chile's richest man at the time. We headed off towards it on the Metro, and after we got off and were walking down the street we walked past the Military Geographic Institute. It had a public entrance so we went in. There they sold maps of all of Chile. I looked and found great topo maps of the Futaleufu, but because of the way the split in the maps occurred, I would have had to buy 4 sheets to get most all of it and at $12 each, and that was a bit much for me. Instead, I bought a larger scale map that had the whole region on one sheet. It was a neat place, though - I hope the Army Attache from the American Embassy has been there and bought copies of each map, in case the U.S. military ever needs it.

The mansion was just down the street, and we arrived just in time to join a tour that was starting. (My journal taking fails me here; I forgot to write down the actual name of the place. Send me e-mail if you know) One thing that was a great idea - they had little fuzzy booties that they made everyone wear over their shoes to protect the floor. Of course they didn't expect people my size with giant feet, so mine didn't fit too well. The house itself was beautiful though. It was an example of what could be done with unlimited money at the time. The bottom floor was original; the top floor had burned off in a fire in the 1960s. The place was very ornate; the floor made of every different kind of stone you could imagine. The rooms were cleverly divided so that they had glass windows between them; rooms on the end had mirrors instead to make it feel much bigger. The house also contained the first Chilean elevator which was hydraulic and worked up until the time of the fire. I wish I could have taken pictures, but it wasn't allowed and the ones they sold were poor and expensive.

 The inside of the cathedral Jay and I visited.
After we left there we walked over to see a cathedral built in 1917 that apparently has terrific acoustics, as the national symphony plays there on occasion. I was amazed by this cathedral - not because it was any bigger or more beautiful than any other I've seen, but because the inside was very beautiful. The stone work was very nice and the stained glass beautiful in the summer light, even if they face were not those of biblical figures or angels, but rather of political and religious leaders of the time. That was actually kind of creepy. The thing that made it so interesting to me was the contrast between the inside and outside of the building. The outside was ugly and looked like the outside of a very large, poured concrete bunker, complete with bits of rebar sticking out and such. What a contrast! I wonder if this was considered nice architecture at the time, if they didn't care about how the outside looked or if it was some sort of statement about the bunkers built along the battle lines of World War I, which was happening at the time. Maybe it was just cheaper. The bunker like exterior.
We rode the metro back home and ate the lunch that Sofia, Carol's maid, had fixed. It was a Chilean food called umhitos that were somewhat like really mushy tamales, but were really good. In the afternoon, Jay drove me up to the top of the ski resort nearest town. Of course there was no snow since it was summer, but the view was terrific and the road up there was an amazing feat of construction - it climbed probably 9000 feet over some ten or twenty miles. There were more than 40 switch backs - major ones - and at times you could see eight or ten pieces of the road you just drove up lined up below you. At the top there was a nice ski resort - closed, of course. It was pretty amazing how much we had climbed to get up there - I was light headed and dizzy from the altitude. There was also some empty creek beds that are going to make nice first descents when the hard core hair creek types get out there some spring when the snow is melting. Jay and I talked a lot on the ride up and back. He is a really interesting guy. He was an academic, then became a university administrator and later President of the University of Alaska. When he left that, he worked for AID doing consultations and evaluations of universities overseas. I really enjoyed talking with him about his experiences - it gave me a perspective of university life completely different from my worm's eye view.

That evening we all went out for dinner at a fantastic Peruvian restaurant. I tried ceviche there for the first time, and it is great. It is fish that is soaked in lime juice until it is cooked chemically. Very tasty. I also tried pisco sours for the firs time. Pisco is a liquor that is made in chile, and it is pretty potent. The rest of the food was great as well.

Up at altitude at the ski resort.
My last day in Santiago was pretty quiet. We went to an outdoor farmer's market in the morning, and I bought Carol a big bunch of flowers as a very weak thank you gift for letting me stay with her. After that we drove around and looked at the new, American style townhouses that were being built, and I ws horrified to see a Chuck E. Cheese pizza place. I can't believe that we have rule against exporting crytosystems but not against exporting bad culture. Most of the day I read a book titled "Chile and the Chileans" in english by a chilean author. If you can ever find a copy of this book and are interested in Chile, I recommend it highly. It is a series of inter-related essays, each about some aspect of Chilean life or culture. I found the history part most interesting, as I had been completely ignorant of Chilean history, and it is very unusual. I learned that southern Chile, below the Bio Bio had been an independant Arucanian (also called Machupe) Indian country until the late 1800's. Even during this time, though, there was quite a bit of inter-breeding between the Spaniards and the Indians there. One Spanish military officer had acknowledged more than 50 sons by Indian women; the book conjectured that he had not acknowldged more and had probably had equal numbers of daughters, which would mean fathering at least 200 children! In another example, a Spanish led military raid into Indian territory had liberated over 1000 Spanish women who had been captured by and were living with the Indians. The government did not know what to do with them as most were captured as children and did not have a recollection of where they were from. Very interesting history, but the book will behard to find; no copies are available through the UC library, for example.

Dinner was an excellent Spanish paella and potato omelete. I ate so much while I was there. I packed, and in the morning Carol and Jay took me to the airport to start my paddling adventure. I really liked Santiago, though, and am looking to get back to visit sommoree.

The outdoor market.

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