Chile: A Newfound Love

It was tough to say goodbye to Chile. Although I was excited to move on to Peru, which would be another new country for me, I had grown quite attached to Chile during our two weeks there. I hadn't expected to feel this way! Truthfully, before our trip started, I wasn't as excited about going to Chile as I was to go to Peru. Certainly, Patagonia (where we didn't get a chance to go on this trip) and the Atacama seemed interesting enough, but through my reading and research about Chile before departing, the culture in Chile just didn't seem as vibrant as that of Peru's. Our trip to Chile was planned primarily as a business trip. Peru was to be the interesting portion of our travels.

Boy....was I deceived. Chile has a charm all its own. 

I wasn't ignorant about Chile. My bachelor's degree was in Latin American Studies with a focus on literature. One of the authors I focused on for my thesis was the Chilean writer Maria Luisa Bombal. I'm a big fan of Pablo Neruda and Isabel Allende, and I knew well the turbulent political history of Chile. But still, Chile was an unknown to me. 

Here are a few random thoughts about the Chile I grew to love:

What I liked most about Chile is this: Chile is real. Chile exists for Chileans. This is an increasingly rare characteristic in these days of global, mass-market tourism. Chile does not try to sell itself.  It does not parade its culture, or nature, or lifestyles to earn the almighty tourist dollar (or peso). Never once in Chile were we asked for a hand-out or hustled to take some kind of tour. We would soon meet with the exact opposite situation in Peru. Now, Chile is wealthier than Peru, that is true, so there is not as much poverty creating desperate situations. But still, in Chile, there was something else going on. I never felt like a tourist in Chile; I felt like a traveler.

One thing I noticed was that Chileans were not as gregarious or extroverted as residents of other Latin American countries I've traveled to. They were more reserved, and only rarely did people inquire where we were from. Not to say the Chileans weren't friendly....they certainly were, and exceedingly polite, but there was a reserved and introverted nature that I noticed, and was curious about. I thought it might be a consequence of the Pinochet regime. A few weeks after returning to the states, I had the good fortune to be listening to the Diane Rehm Show on NPR one morning when her guest happened to be the Chilean writer Antonio Scarmeta. He is most famous for his novel Il Postino, which was made into a wonderful movie (The Postman). The show was about his latest book, and about his homeland, Chile. Diane Rehm was taking questions from her listeners so I called in! My question, about Chileans' introversion due to Pinochet, got picked, and I was so happy to hear Señor Scarmeta's answer. He said first, that it was an excellent question and that he wished he had an hour's time just to address that one topic. He said yes, that the Pinochet regime had dampened Chileans' natural effusiveness and extroversion. They lost their natural spontaneity. This terrible time had made them cautious and more prone to speak slowly, and to use diminutives in their speech. This was very interesting to me because I had noticed all of this while traveling in Chile, but I hadn't met any Chilean I felt comfortable broaching such a topic with. I was thrilled to have this opportunity to talk with Mr. Scarmeta.

I loved the Atacama Desert; the best stargazing on the planet; the criollo horses with their fig and apricot trees in their pastoral paradise; Valparaíso and its tango bars; the low-key and friendly Chilean people; the goofy viscachas and demanding alpacas; and the striking contrast of the largest ocean on the planet abutting one of the driest places on earth. Chile is a land of extremes, and I loved it.