Hola Chile

We have arrived in South America.

The last couple of days we spent in Santiago or en route (overnight flight, overnight bus - notice a trend?) and now we are about to embark on a barco, for a four-day ferry ride through the fjords of Chile, from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales.

Bella Vista
Santiago has a bohemian underbelly located in the Barrio Bella Vista. We loved walking through the graffitied streets, theatres, shops and bars.

We came across a Coca-Cola themed bar and radio station, where all the interior decoration was made of Coke cans, bottles, and packing materials.

Bella Vista is set at the foot of the metropolitan park (and zoo) on a steep 1,200m hill, which you climb with the aid of a funny-killer (funicular), to attend mass an outdoor amphitheatre church and see the statue of the pregnant madonna on the top.




She is much beloved of couples who leave messages (dummies, baby socks, photos) thanking her for her assistance in their conceiving.

At the traffic lights there are no windscreen washers - here drivers are entertained by jugglers (and ninjas) while they wait for the lights to go green.



Poetry in the park
We took a snooze break in the Parque Forestal (still suffering from jetlag), where there is a lot of comfy grass, and also public facilities for the very large, calm wild dog packs which live side by side the people everywhere we have been so far in Chile.

We also purchased a poem "le jardin" from a final year poetry student who decided we were giving off a romantic vibe, and needed to pay his tuition.


Guillermo Nunez
We saw an exhibition of Guillermo Nunez, who made light-hearted pop art in the 70s, before he was arrested, tortured and exiled during the Pinochet years. When he returned his art had taken a decidedely more dark and broody style. He is still making and exhibiting work now, at age 85 which explores the impact of torture and exile.