Chile - 2nd month finding my feet

Viña festival

The Viña festival is reputedly the biggest musical festival in Latin America. It sees artists perform in a open air stadium set up solely for the festival, where the artists are judged by the public and depending on how the performance is rated by the public, given prizes or not given prizes. There are also different levels of prizes depending on how the public rates the performance. The festival goes for 6 nights and due to its popularity tickets sell fast. We managed to get tickets to two of the quieter nights, which were sold out a couple of days before the festival rather than weeks before. We saw Miguel Bosé, Earth, Wind and Fire, Peter Frampton and some Chilean artists. The highlight for me was definitley Miguel Bosé who is a Latin grammy winning Spanish artist. I had never heard of him before arriving in Chile, but my girlfriend has a cd of his in which he performs with other Latin artists, such as Shakira, Ivete Sangalo and Ricky Martin. Si tu no Vuelves, a song he performs with Shakira is presently my favourite song. So when a month after arriving I found myself at a open aired stadium, listening to that song with an eclipsing moon in the backdrop, it was rather surreal to say the least! Earth, Wind & Fire and Peter Frampton were a bit of a let down for me after that, although they were also good, definitely old school!

Valparaíso

After an interview with a finance company just outside of Valpo, I found myself trying to flag down a bus to Valpo, on the motorway where my bus had let me off originally. Unfortunately, I wasn´t aware that this was a favour from the bus driver and buses actually weren´t allowed to stop on the motorway - go figure! So after about 100 busses had flew past me, with a few birds flying there way, I got a phone call from Kathy who had been on one of the buses flying past. Instead of sympathy at my plight, she said admist laughter what kind of idiot tries to catch the bus on the freeway and that the bus stop was a 2km walk up the road. So 2km later I was on the local bus, wearing my suit and feeling like a fish out of water with all eyes firmly planted on the gringo from out of space. Once in Valpo, I donned my backpack, the first time I have trudged my backpack around while wearing a suit, bought what I thought was a hot dog from a street vendor, only to be informed after a few bites that i was eating a cow arse sandwich. Although, I was told, don´t worry, its not made out of cow arse lining any more, its cow stomach lining now - which made me feel so much better. This trip to Valpairiso was my third, but the first time I really explored the hills of Valpairiso. Valpairiso is officially designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and roaming around its streets in the hills shows you why. It really is a unique place, with random art murals, designs, graffitti, stray dogs, drunks, homeless, cable cars, a view of the thriving port and houses coming at you from all angles making for a truly unique combination. The mix of people that live there is also interesting, with the workers from the port, drunks, homeless and the more affluent living in the hills making up a unique community. For me, if I was to stay in Chile for a long time, Valpairiso is where I would choose to live. In a classist society it has been the most egalitarian place I have encountered (at least in apperances) and it has a kind of rugged beauty which I like. Apart from roaming the hills in Valpo, we tried the Valparaiso specialty Chorillana which is a rather unhealthy mix of chips, meat, onions and a few extra tibets. The first time I tried it, the oil to onion ratio was a little on the high side and the onion tasted like something soggy soaked with oil, was foul. The second time I tried it was at J Cruz, a restauraunt that is famous in Valpairiso and specialises in Chorillana. The Chorillana there was a much better representaion and tasted good, although if you have a desire to live past 30 I wouldnt recommend it as part of a staple diet.

Beaches

After Valpairiso we headed north a bit to a beach town called Maitencillo. I had been there the week before and had enjoyed my first good surf in a while and had left my Chilean ID card with the surf school. So unfortunately, there I was one week later having another surf. Maitencillo is not one of the nicest beaches I have been to by any means, but compared to the smog of Santiago, or the packed beaches of Viña or Reñaca, it was a paradise. We stayed the night in Maitencillo, where Kathy bumped into an old university friend and his girlfriend, who we ended up drinking with until sunrise. After a bit of sleep we were off to a beach called Zapallar which was a nice beach for Chiles elite. As I said Chile is a classist society, I imagine rather like England in the past when the divisions were firmly entrenched. My weekend trip away to the beaches just outside of Santiago was a classic example of this. I went to three beaches in close proximity to one another in one day, all of which catered to different classes. For example Zapallar is a beach town where by order of the mayor local busses are not allowed to stop. They can stop a 20m walk away, but can't enter the town itself. The principal reason for this is to stop people who need to catch a bus to get to the beach, from going to Zapallar. The beach was 95 percent white, full of silicon implanted, fake sun tanned people and the parking lot was full of gas guggling expensive cars. Pictures of people at Zapallar also frequent Chiles fashion and womans magazines. The next beach we went to was a beach called Cachagua. This beach is probably the nicest family beach I have been to in Chile. It has a penguin colony and is not too packed, a great place to relax. This beach was probably a notch down in the class system, maybe a middle to upper class crowd. So accodingly the skin colour was darker, although still not representative of Chile's general population and the beach didnt feel so much like a fashion parade. Maitencillo, the beach I surfed at is another notch down in the class system, predominately middle class people I guess. The lower class or people living in poverty dont have the priveledge of going to out of the way beaches, so they are pretty much not represented. Was amazing for me to see, I remember watching a documentary on apartheid in South Africa and couldn´t help but relate it to that, as I had never seen anything like it. There are many other examples of the classist system at work, such as huge disparities in schooling, wages, huge gap between rich and poor, widespread usage of maids, the obsession and the putting on a pedastal by the mainstream media and hence culture of blondes, i.e the majority of TV presenters are blonde yet they must make up 1% of the population (alot of nazis fled here), the general arrogance and belief of superiority the rich openly show, the submission and acceptance of inferiority by the poor of a system that clearly opresses them; but for me the beach example bought it home! Really you would not want to be born outside of the middle - upper class range in Chile as u have slim to no chance of ever bettering yourself - and as I have mentioned before, it is worse in the rest of South America.

Sensation White

Sensation White is a big dance party that started in Holland and is now touring the world. Basically the main thing that attracted me to the party was the fact that you had to wear 100% white clothing to enter, 14,000 odd people dressed totally in white was rather buzzy!Armin van Buuren was the top DJ that played (rated on the internet anyway as 3rd in the world) and the production was amazing. The props included aliens, knights and all sorts of special effects. On top of this due to my smooth talking girlfriend we had free alcohol all night, benefits of working in public relations I guess. There are definitely some kick arse parties over here!!!!!!

Picada de empanadas

Picadas are a kind of restauraunt that exist in Chile and serve only Chilean food. Basically they are the same as restauraunts, usually run by familys with the food usually served in the owners home and the only advertising done through word of mouth. They are known as places with good, well priced food and a family feel. The atmosphere is the same as eating at your family home, so they are not renowned for pampering service etc. Because the only advertising is done through word of mouth your unlikely to come across them as a typical tourist, so I feel quite lucky to have experienced one. Even better being that the food has been free because the Picada I go to is Kathys grandmas! So yeah I have tried the majority of Chilean cuisine for free and it has been might tasty to boot, the only problem being the side affect of my bludgeoning gut!

Work

Getting work at a decent pay rate with secure hours has been a real pain in the arse in Santiago. After the summer holidays officially ended (in March) the citys economic engine started rumbling and the place has come to life. Meaning that all of a sudden I had 7 job offers in two days. So now I think I have a job with decent pay (for Chile) and relatively secure hours so will see what happens. Word of advice to anyone who reads this who wants to come to Chile to teach english. Dont come until the end of February (unless you have savings and want to party) because the nation is on holiday and none of the companies recruit until the end of Feb in anticipation of people starting lessons again in March.

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