Isla Negra

Last Friday the entire Stanford group went to Isla Negra, the main house of Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda (he also had houses in Santiago and Valparaiso). He acquired some of his inspiration for poetry at this beautiful spot, although he only really lived here at the end of his life. For many years he traveled the world.

The view of the beach from just behind Neruda's house.

The grave of Neruda and his third wife, Matilde.

View of the house from the beach.

The beach. The tide was coming in when we were there (around midday).

The beach again. It was a very beautiful beach, but too rocky to be conducive to walking on.

Field Trip

This Friday I went on a field trip with Professor Castro's class, Living Chile a Land of Extremes (I am not in the class but was allowed to attend because I have an interest in the material). The purpose of the field trip was to show some of the varied biota and geology of central Chile.

Acacia trees near the town of Rungue. Central Chile has a Mediterranean climate and used to have much more varied tree populations. Humans came in and changed the vegetation, primarily with goats. The goats rip out vegetation, and after the area is cleared, acacia can come back more easily than all other trees.

A field next to the road where they grow palta. Palta being avocado, and being all over the place (It's almost as popular as mayonnaise). Seeing row upon row of avocado trees I begin to understand where all the palta in Santiago comes from.

La Campana National Park, Palmar de Ocoa. The palm trees in the photo are Chilean palms. They are now a protected species and people are not allowed to cut them down anymore (they used to cut them down for palm oil). Palmar de Ocoa contains the largest number of them anywhere, but they can also be found in prominent botanical gardens around the world such as the New York Botanical Garden and Kew Gardens in London.

So what is the largest number of these trees at any one place in the world? 60,000.

View from Cerro de la Virgen (Hill of the Virgin) in the town Los Andes, from which you have a good view of the Coast Range and the Andes. (This is an eastward view of the Andes.)

No Hill of the Virgin would be complete without the Virgin Mary, so here she is. This particular virgin is the Virgen del Valle (Virgin of the Valley).

Here are flowers left for her by devoted followers.

Apparently John Lennon has devoted followers on the hill as well, though they cannot spell his name.

Here is the road down from the hill. There were many scary hairpin turns on the way, and I was exceedingly thankful that the bus driver turned the bus around before we got back on.

A tunnel in which it rains all the time, which is particularly odd in central Chile because the region is exceptionally dry (I think that was the first time I've seen rain since I got here). Fabia (coordinator of the Stanford Center who sometimes seems to know everything) said that water filters through the rocks, and some of it drips into the tunnel, and that 's why it rains.

Monument to the victory of Bernardo O'Higgins against the Spanish in 1817. O'Higgins is the Chilean equivalent of George Washington, and Chile achieved independence in 1818 (though the date they celebrate for independence is 1810, when they first thought of the idea).

Observations Part IV

17) My new favorite beverage is café helado (coffee with ice cream). It consists of cold coffee (which I think is instant coffee made with milk instead of water), vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream on top. For anyone who likes coffee and ice cream, it's just the thing, especially on a hot day.

18) Which leads me to point out that because it is the Southern Hemisphere, days are getting rather hot here. And I have gotten used to putting on sunscreen every day because we're right under the ozone hole.

19) For anybody who wants to know what the climate's like, it's equivalent to Stanford but in opposite months. We are the same distance south as Stanford is north (33 degrees) and, like Stanford, have what is classified as a mediterranean climate.

20) Back to the coffee: most people seem to drink instant coffee at home, and the instant coffee of choice is Nescafé (Nestle).

Observations Part III

12) People here add "ito" onto words a lot. Like a "tazita" (little cup) of tea or "un poquito" (poco = little, so poco + ito means tiny) of some food.

13) When they say "un poquito," it doesn't actually mean a tiny bit. It means A LOT. Like when one of my friends ordered a sandwich with "un poquito" of mayonnaise, and the sandwich came slathered with mayonnaise.

14) Moderation and mayonnaise do not go together here.

15) My cell phone company (Entel PCS) sent me a text message offering to send me a text message every time Chile scores in the Chile v. Argentina soccer game (price 35 pesos). It's not clear why anyone who would care would not already be at the game and therefore aware of the score.

16) The conversion of pesos to dollars is 500 to 1. So when you see 2000, move the decimal over three to get 2, and then multiply by 2 to get $4. Also, they still make 1 peso coins, even though they are worth 1/5 of a penny.

Time change

Something interesting that I had never thought about before is dealing with "springing forward" and "falling back" at the same time. Currently, Santiago time is the same as East Coast US time. However, on the 13th, we spring forward one hour for daylight savings. Then, on November 4th, the states fall back one hour to standard time. So after November 4, I will have 5 hours difference with home, whereas now I have 3 hours difference.

A weekend of museums

Saturday I went to two museums, Bellas Artes (fine arts) and Arte Contemporáneo. Bellas Artes had one permanent exhibition of Chilean art from colonial times to present which contained some very beautiful paintings, but there were two temporary exhibitions of very odd modern art.

Museo de Bellas Artes

The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, housed in a different part of the same building as Bellas Artes, had an exposition of paintings of children dressed up as superheroes and an exposition of Korean art.

View from Museo de Arte Contemporáneo

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo

On Sunday, I went to the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino (Precolumbian art). It has collections of art from prehistoric up to when the conquistadores came to the Americas, and the collections are from all over Central and South America.

Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino

I then visited the Museo Histórico Nacional, which covers essentially the entirety of Chilean history, starting with the first Chileans at Monteverde (the oldest archaeological site in the Americas- surprising because Chile was supposed to be the last place in the Americas that humans reached) and going through until Pinochet's coup. They have on display Salvador Allende's glasses, or rather the half that is left of them. (Allende was the president forcibly removed by Pinochet's coup.)

Museo Histórico Nacional

Cena Bing, Wine Tasting, and Santiago Challenge

On Wednesday night, we had our first Bing dinner of the quarter. For those who don't know, the Bing family funds cultural events on Stanford overseas programs. For the quarter long programs, this includes dinner at good restaurants. So our dinner was at the Restaurant Akarana in Las Condes. The restaurant is very elegant (we were instructed beforehand to dress very nicely). We were provided with drinks before dinner, appetizers, a main course, two glasses of wine, and dessert. Before dinner I tried a pisco sour, which is a famous Chilean drink. It tasted like rather sour juice with a zing. It also is very strong, so I only drank a half a glass of wine (Chardonnay) afterwards. For the main course, I ate salmon, and dessert consisted of fruit and ice cream.

My table at the Cena Bing

Friday morning we went to Viña Cousino-Macel. We tasted vino gris (grey wine), so called because it is made with black grapes and the technique for white wine.

Our tour guide explaining how they make wine.

A wine library- samples of red wine of different types over many years.

In the afternoon we had the Santiago Challenge, which is a sort of scavenger hunt to find landmarks around Santiago.

La Moneda (presidential palace)