The Day the Salami Died

Oh, my word. What’s to be said about Chile? It is one of the most stunning places that I have ever seen in my life. I read in one of the guidebooks that Chile is such a weird size and shape that it is difficult to think of it as a ‘proper’ country. It is 4000km long but only about 120km wide at any given point - and most of the width is taken up by the mountains, so there isn’t that much space for the rest of what usually goes on in a country.

Chile’s towns aren’t much to write home about at all - but the countryside is truly breathtaking.

We arrived in the capital Santiago by way of a bus over the Andes from Cordoba in Argentina. We had managed to book our favourite seats on the top deck right at the front - so we had a panoramic view the whole way over. We weren’t too sure that the bus company was going to take us along in the beginning because the swine flu epidemic had started to reach Argentina and they were being careful about traveling Americans. When we explained that we had been in South America since before it started they did relax and let us stay. It took us just over 2 hours to reach the Chilean border checkpoint, climbing higher and higher into the Andes until we had reached the snowline. This year’s snow hasn’t really arrived, but I could see some stray mounds left over from last year that hadn’t melted yet!!!

In the way of these mountain roads it was bumpy and twisty - but each new bend brought another fantastic vista into sight; the river winding through the floor of the valley, the lone train track that has long been abandoned but still stretches through the mountains and along the valley. Two or three abandoned villages still remain on the Argentine side of the border but mainly the only life is the army’s mountain brigade camp and the odd resort hotel waiting for the ski season to start.

We had been primed by the bus conductor for the Chilean customs because they are VERY, VERY, VERY strict about not allowing any animal or plant products into the country. This posed Brett with a dilemma because he had bought a delicious salami in Mendoza but hadn’t had time to eat it yet. He decided to risk it, arguing that it wasn’t fresh meat and we could always plead ignorance if they found it. This seemed like a reasonable way forward given how often we bring things back to the UK that we aren’t technically supposed to.

However, this strategy began to feel distinctly dodgy when we were actually at the border. There were these massive signs warning about the fines and penalties if you got caught with anything. Plus, they had x-ray machines for everything and sniffer dogs all over the place. Brett (being Brett) decided to stick with the plan. They have a great technique for intimidating you throughout the whole process. First of all they get you to line up with your hand luggage beside the x-ray machine. Then they come along the line and ask you for your customs declaration form and, looking you straight in the eye they ask you AGAIN, “do you have any animal or vegetables with you?”. I was able to answer quite honestly - but when they got to Brett he caved in and said “no, but I do have a salami - isn’t that OK?” The poor customs bloke nearly took a fit - demanding where it was and telling Brett he now had to complete a completely new customs form declaring it. Then we had to wait for his bag to finish going through the machine before he could hand it over.

When the offending salami was unearthed the customs man said to Brett - I show you what must happen - and he pulled out a bottle marked with the skull and cross bones and POISON and slowly poured it over the salami and sloshed it all around.

Well, that certainly broke the ice with our fellow passengers and we heard the myriad stories of their own, their relatives, and their relatives-relatives-friends-second cousin’s Chilean Border stories. Then, in the way of grieving over a loss, we both managed to spend the next 2 hours of the trip laughing over ever-increasingly ridiculous salami jokes and word play. Which was just as well, as what had been promised as a 5 hour journey stretched out to become 7 hours. The journey back down the mountain was just as interesting as on the way up - with an incredible stretch of 25 switchback bends just after the border. There isn’t a lot between the Andes and Santiago - just a couple of really desperate-looking ‘spa’ towns.

As we arrived quite late into Santiago it wasn’t until the next day that we could really get a good look at it. While it is a big, cosmopolitan city it doesn’t have the grandeur of Bs As.

A bit of colonial grandeur.

The Chilenos here certainly have a very good standard of living, with lots of expensive restaurants and bars and shops etc. There isn’t an enormous amount of things to see outside of the pre-requisite Cathedral, Plaza de Armas (I.e the central square) and a few colonial buildings. We did take the teleferico and cable car up to the top of XXXX which gave us a good view of the smog that tends to shroud the city most of the time.

I am sure that there are some interesting corners that could be found, but I was anxious to get out of the city to see more typical Latin American life so we were quickly on our way again.

My first ever shoe shine (50p a go)

The guidebooks and various locals were keen to point us in the direction of a small seaside town called Valparaiso so we made that our next stop. It is a port town that used to be the first city of Chile but is now a cross between a port town and a seaside resort. Most of the resort bit of it is 10 minutes up the coast with various high-rise hotels. For the rest, it is a town that is built into the hillside as the mountains reach down to the sea at this point. We had pre-booked a B&B up on one of the hills which meant that we had a great view over the town. The building was a great original wooden structure that the owner had lived in for 16 years and had restored quite beautifully.

Some of the houses in the town were perched quite spectacularly on the hillside - and those that had seen far better days looked as if they could come down at any given moment.




Out of town the houses are all built into the hills

Faded grandeur.

The 'real' Valparaiso

While there were a few picturesque streets in the centre - that had been prettified for the tourists - in the main Valparaiso was a dirty, congested and fairly squalid place that we were quite happy to leave behind. Not least because it was so blooming cold at night. Chile is lucky in that most of the country has quite clear skies most of the time - which means that it is lovely and sunny during the day - but once the sun goes down it quickly gets very, very cold. We were surprised that there was no heating in our B&B (which we now know to be the case EVERYWHERE). They did rustle up a big gas heater for our room, which was just as well otherwise we would have frozen to death. We did ponder the pros and cons of potential carbon monoxide poisoning versus certain hypothermia briefly before we sparked it up - but in the end we went with having some heat at night. However, I think that meant that we had pinched the heater for the breakfast room because everyone had to eat breakfast wearing their coats as it was so cold in there in the morning. Ah well, can’t have it all I suppose!!!

Note the 'fire escape' coming out of this children's nursery!

The transport system here was an introduction to what was to become the norm for us and consists of hundreds of ‘collectivos’ which are shared taxis that ply specific routes through the city and ‘micros’ which are small minibuses that do the same for a slightly lower fare. The collectivos are a bit more expensive as they only take on 4 passengers whilst the micros do stop more often and squeeze in as many people as they can. Transport costs here are amazingly cheap; about 35p for the bus and 50p for the collectivo. If you really want to live it up you can get a private taxi and even these are only ever about a pound for an average journey. From the balcony of our B&B we could watch the steady stream of the collectivos winding their way up and down the adjacent hill; which was quite a sight at times particularly at dusk as there was a snaking line of headlights winding around the bends.





We had been hoping to find some of Chile’s famed sea food by the coast - but we were bitterly disappointed. The first night we were here we found what might have been a lovely little local restaurant which was physically only 10 metres from the sea. However, the food was fairly dreadful. Brett ordered fish soup which, while it was chock full of mussels, clams, prawns etc. was so devoid of taste that it was like eating boiled sock snippings!!! We did look for other sea food restaurants in the town, but the ones we found looked like they all came with health warnings so we gave them a wide berth.

Another integral part of life here is the dogs. Most of them seem to roam freely - consequently you need to be very vigilant where you put your feet! It seems that everyone feels the need for guard dogs, which often leads to surround-sound barking from dusk to dawn. Sometimes you come across a big pack of dogs which is a bit scary, plus you often have dogs chasing the cars down the street even in the centre of towns. All in all, it seems like a problem that no-one really wants to address. Many times we wondered how long it would be before someone was seriously hurt.
This local dog decides to try to get a better view of whichever mutt he is barking at!

It is hard to visualise just how limited the space available for living is here. Most people live in the relatively few big cities within 30-40 kms of the coast. All in all, our stay here was confirmation of the widely-held recognition that Chile’s towns and cities are best avoided by tourists except for using them as transport hubs into the countryside.