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Published: August 15th 2011
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Our eyes are streaming and the back of our throats are dry and scratchy. The effects of tear gas. In our hunt for food on the night of our arrival in Chile, we have walked into a riot.
We learn that there have been demonstrations for weeks over the standards of, and funding for, education. In an effort to stem the dissent, the Government has deemed today´s march on the capital illegal. This seems to have had the opposite to the desired effect, bringing many more protesters out on to the streets. Those we see are not limited to students - there seems to be genuine and widespread anger.
We think we´re away from the main sources of trouble. Though the tear gas lingers, the streets we walk are pretty much deserted. We pass a few armadillo-like clusters of riot police, who we ask whether it´s safe to go this way or that. They seem relaxed, as they point with their batons. We find the cafe bar we were looking for and enjoy a lovely, if somewhat surreal, meal.
Our walk back to the hostel is more eventful. Burning barricades block the roads we walked earlier; the armadillo
clusters are roaming with intent; and the flashing lights of police vehicles dart about. We see new forms of protest - such as the flag-bearing joggers running relay ciruits around the presidential buildings. We understand that the flags haven´t stopped for days. The runners are supported on their way by the constant tooting of horns from the passing cars. Before long the car horns start to blend with a pulsating rhythm that seems to come from every direction. Could it be the intimidating thud of batons on shields? Or the war-cry of protesting drums? It gets louder as we approach the hostel. Louder and louder. We´re able to discern that the instruments aren´t uniform - it´s like an eclectic steel band whose members are all playing a different tune. But the rhythm remains steady, and it´s not long before we come across our first percussionists. A huddle of students, armed with saucepans and spoons, are bashing out a clack, clack, clack-clack-clack rhythm. We look up to see people hanging out of the windows of their high-rise buildings, doing the same. We learn that this form of resistance carries a lot of meaning. During Pinochet´s era, nobody was allowed in the
street after 6pm and at 9pm every night, Chile´s mothers bashed their pots for an hour to rail against the injustices of the regime. Tonight they do so again, this time on the streets, along with their sons and daughters. Those without pans hit sticks against signposts or dustbin lids - equally effective in getting across their displeasure. We feel strangely unthreatended by the protestors - they either ignore us or smile reassuringly. Yet we know it may be a false sense of security and, as the crowds begin to gather again, we make our way into the safety of our hostel. It is a wise decision - tear gas is fired again into the crowd. It seeps through the hostel windows. We watch the running battles between the more aggresive protestors and the police from the windows of our dorms. Each time the crowd is dispersed, it takes only minutes for someone to emerge from the shadows, armed with a saucepan and wooden spoon. We can´t claim to understand the complexities of the arguments - what we know is based only on snatched conversations in poor English or poor Spanish - but it is very powerful to witness such
an engaged, active community unite like this, and equally disturbing to see the use of tear gas in areas where it can´t distinguish between its victims, whether they be protestors, expectant mothers, or the elderly.
It is remarkably calm when we walk out of the hostel the next day. The burnt out barricades have been cleared and people seem to be calmly going about their everyday business. A tinge of tear gas still hangs in the air - Santiago sits in a bowl surrounded by mountains. A layer of smog permanently sits above it like a layer of custard skin. It will probably take a while for the gas to clear completely. The city itself is pleasant - we find the streets and buildings cleaner than BA. People seem friendlier too - we make eye contact and they beam, we ask for directions and they take us to our destination. Unfortunately though, this is our only full day in the capital. Once we´ve begun to get our head around a new currency (we now have pounds, US dollars, Argenitian pesos and Chilean pesos unhelpfully bumping into each other in our heads) we realise that Chile´s much more expensive than
we had either hoped or planned for. We have a broad budget for our time here, closely monitored by Kate a.k.a The Comptroller-General. She is aided in her task by her faithful assistant Gloria (a notebook so named because it is made by a brand called Gloria). Our frequent consultations with Gloria result in the slightly disappointing news that we need to head on to cheaper Peru as soon as we can.
Our full day is spent on a free walking tour of the city. Our group is small - a result, our guide thinks, of the majority of tourists´ reluctance to venture out after the demonstrations. As with all South American cities we´ve visited, city planners have opted for the Milton Keynesian grid formation, so its easy to navigate. We learn a new spanish word at the crossroads - ´PARE´. Argentinians did without the extravagance of stop signs.
We start with a circuit of the presidential offices and Government buildings, frequently being lapped by protesting joggers. The buildings are similar to those in Whitehall. We then walk through the city´s main squares, stopping at it´s museums, churches and historic buildings. They have all invariably been rebuilt many
times, the result of numerous earthquakes. The threat of earthquakes looms large here, and parts of the country are still being rebuilt after last year´s 8.8 magnitude quake and resulting tsunami which shook the pacific coastline. Our guide tells us that quakes are so prolific that Santiago will experience an average four tremors a day, though the vast majority are not discernable to its inhabitants. Iv nevertheless has the odd green-bag moment, convinced he is in the midst of a violent tremor before realising that he´s standing next to the entrances to one of the city´s many tube stations.
We pass numerous, blacked-out coffee-shops whose clientele are served their espressos by scantily-clad waitresses (known here as ´coffee with legs´); we take the obligatory tourist photo with a bemused city llama (who thankfully doesn´t spit on us); and we pause to see dozens of pairs of older cityfolk lock their horns over chessboards in one of the main plazas. Our guide recommends some of the best galleries - its seems the city´s cultural side has exploded post Pinochet.
After the walk, we´re glad of a couple of hours rest before heading out to a restaurant in a bustling part of town. The restaurant´s heaving, the menu endless, and the food - which is Peruvian - is absolutely delicious. Iv has his first taste of authentic pisco sours (a mix of pisco, lemon juice, sugar, egg whites and bitters). Pisco is Chile´s national drink, derived from sweet muscatel grapes grown in two of its provinces. Only specified distilleries have the right to call their liquor pisco, though Chile and Peru continue to dispute its real origin. So it seems fitting, and diplomatic, to try our first examples in a Peruvian restaurant in Chile´s capital.
We plan to go straight to bed on our return to the hostel - it´s been a long day and we have an early start. Iv pops down to the reception to check on the availabilty of luggage storage and returns at 3.30am having been distracted by a couple of friendly Brits, some beers and a crazy gang of Brazilians singing karaoke. He never found out about the luggage storage. Kate wakes him gently at 7.30 the next morning, in readiness for a visit to the Concha y Toro vineyard, before a long bus trip North. Oh dear!
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