2010-03-11
I awoke earlier than I should to find that this was the day that presidential power would be changing hands in Chile. Presidente Bachelet, who seems loved by most everyone, refused public cries for another term (after, I think, two and I’m not sure whether there is a legal limit here for such things) to hand it over to some guy who’s name I always forget.
I do know that he’s some kind of bigshot, owner of LAN Chile (airline) and numerous TV stations which he apparently sold off in order to become president. I still don’t know if this was a requirement or just a way of showing there would be no conflict of interest… either way, and I know this is total prejudice because I’m completely unaware of the current political situation or its players, I think he looks too much like the Pope—and therefore, like the Emperor from Star Wars. Let’s say his presence doesn’t inspire me.
The ceremony was shown live on television, broadcast from La Moneda. La Moneda is where all the action is in this city, the capitol, and it happens to be right in the middle of the center. The idea that the president and all the ministers do their jobs so close to all those they are appointed to work for appeals to me greatly. I like to imagine that having the president and minister of the interior and everyone else taking the subway to La Moneda station, or at least getting to work by traversing all the downtown traffic, keeps them aware of who they are working for and why. That may be overly optimistic.
I decided to head down to see a bit of it for myself. As always, I hopped onto the subway to get downtown.
I think I’m in love with Santiago’s public transit system. I’ve yet to try the micros (buses), but they are absolutely everywhere and half the pictures I take of a street have a bus or two wooshing by. But the metro, ah the metro.
Santiago’s Metrored system is awesome. It’s fast. It’s cheap (about 50 cents). It goes everywhere. I’ve been in and out more times than I can count and have yet to wait more than 2 minutes. One of my instant favorites: many stations have free wifi. No strings, free wifi connections… thank you, metrored!
The stations are spacious, all different, and often decorated with grandiose murals. They can get pretty warm, but not overwhelmingly (especially considering that every day is a full blast of sunshine, oscillating between 24 and 30 degrees Celcius) and are cooled by and ingeniously cheap system of fans and mist.
The only thing that has irked me, and this is minor and has become something of a little game, is the turnstiles at the entrance often use different systems for accepting tickets. Sometimes you insert them here, sometimes there… It’s become a competition of who figures out how to get through in the least amount of time.
When disembarking, the important thing is to keep an eye on the signs as there are a lot of “No Pasar” and three kinds of paths: those used to switch lines, those for changing directions on the same line and actual exits. The exit gates are cool little double doors, which need to be opened in sequence to unlock… we presume, as neither of us has dared trying to reach over and pull the outer door open without touching the inner, to see if it’s really locked.
Not knowning what to expect, I left my usual bag-o-gear behind and got off one station east of La Moneda, Universidad de Chile, to get a feel for the vibe by walking west on O’Higgins for a few blocks.
Out and about earlier than usual, it was still cool in the shade in what is the beginning of fall on this side of the equator but the sun was already doing its job and the contrast was enjoyable. I’d missed the actual red carpet ceremory and, though I didn’t know it at the time, the party had moved to the coast at Vina del Mar. Still, I found a stricking gathering circling La Moneda on all sides.
People were lined along the streets, flags and signs in hand, chanting slogans and smiling. Confetti spilled out of the windows of adjacent buildings, and drifted onto the streets. I was surprised that even on this day, at a time when her mandate was officially over, people were yelling “Bachelet, Bachelet, Presidente una autra vece” (Bachelet, President another time) in unison.
All types of authority were out patrolling the streets, police, military, some I didn’t recognize. But even with such a large politically charged crowd, the situation was calm and the mood cheerful.
I headed back to Nunoa, to eat and ensure L was up to see this beautiful day. She was just getting up when I arrived, and we headed out to a nearby market to get a taste of fresh fruit. For some reason, a large chunk of the neighbourhood on the way was in garage sale mode. Not much of interest for us, but seeing the merchandise on display gives you a glimpse into the lives of the sellers. It doesn’t look all that easy, but most seem to have a friendly demeanor and pleasant outlook.
It’s very family/community oriented around here, and from what I gather a lot of folks spend almost all their time within a few blocks of home. One thing that makes that easy is that you need only take twenty steps in any direction to stumble upon a home that makes something or provides some kind of service.
Within five hundred meters, there are at least eight miniature corner store type businesses, five homes offering empanadas, humidas or some type of prepared foods, a fruit market, four houses devoted to entertainement (arcade machines, a trampoline, slot machines), and more.
We came back from the market with at least three pounds of strawberries and a large watermelon, for close to nothing. Even though we did our best to wash our berries with store bought water, con gas, things didn’t work out so well on that front.
I think I mentioned this but bottled water here is, for the most part, mineral water. I’m sweating salts out of every pore by now. You have a choice of aqua con gas (bubbly, or “with gas”) or sin gas, without. Anyhow, even after doing our best with the berries, we both ended up “con gas” ourselves. Ah well, the water’s impossible to avoid completely and I think we’d been building up some immunity gradually so it wasn’t so bad.
After doing a bit of dining and family socializing, we decided to head back out in search of reliable and comfortable internet access and a touch of action.
As we were getting ready, we had our first taste of tremblor! Chileans know their quakes, so I’ll trust them in that this was a “tremblor” (aftershock) rather than a full blown “terremoto” (earthquake), but at 7.2 it was something to be felt.
Lasting 15 or 20 seconds, the sizable waves had a period of close to a second and it felt like being on a boat. A huge, country-sized boat on a sea of molten rock. The weirdest part was the slight dizziness I felt. It was like there was a super low frequency sound, too low to hear but enough to seriously mess with you inner ear. After that, smaller aftershocks were felt throughout the day, sometimes so small that I’d only notice it because of the slightest hint of nausea it would enduce. An odd feeling.
Though L’s family had a strong reaction to the tremor, we agreed it must be due to the trauma of the recent large quakes and decided to go on with our day as planned. No, waves in the Earth’s crust won’t stop this train! Heh.
Back to our now familiar haunt of barrio Brasil, we mistakenly headed south into a beautiful area filled with private professional schools and universities of all sorts. This is where I finally caught onto the fact that, even when the sun is almost directly above, you can tell which direction you’re going because shadows always point south.
Heading back up passed O’Higgins and into the Brasil area, we tried our luck at the Blondie snack bar (zona wi-fi!) but no go as it was closed. We were directed back up towards Plaza Brasil, for a promising cafe: Universitas ciber-cafe.
It was our first taste of real coffee in a long time, and quite a relief. Chileans have a strange relationship with coffee, prefering instant preperations of Nescafe to anything else it seems. Not sure whether its a question of price or taste, the fact is that it’s bland, watered down and totally lacking oompf. Anyhow, Universitas had an espresso machine and I promptly ordered a double. It was a real treat.
Getting internets was another affair. I’m still surprised at how little wifi is available. The are signs everywhere with the promise of ‘net access, but the vast majority of these relate to renting time on a wired system. Setting up an access point is dirt cheap, compared to setting up and maintaining a work station, but it seems that wlan-enabled devices are still out of range for most here so it isn’t worth it yet.
L rented some time on one of their boxes and, with a little difficulty, I managed to get a cat-5 I could hook into. I have a touch of paranoia when it comes to protecting my passwords and keyloggers are just to easy to install… In any case, no funcciona. And my spanish is still a little too rough (a little! Yeah, right) to explain that my DHCP discovery packets are being ignored. Seems I should’ve tested my wired connection with this little netbook, as I’ve come to the preliminary conclusion that my troubles are originating in my ethernet card, driver module or the Ubuntu network manager.
The quest for usable wifi continued as we took in the sights and headed downtown. Back around La Moneda, we decided on a Starbucks. I usually avoid the chain (not in particular, really, but because I avoid most) but this was actually a welcome change. Perhaps I was feeling a bit homesick, but the coffee, the brownie, the decor… even the “normal” bathrooms, with soap and toilet paper and everything, were a welcome relief.
