We were welcomed warmly by Marta's family: Mom and Dad Mebel and Jaime, and sister Mebelita.
Lots of tasty foods. One of my favorites was Machas Pil Pil--muscles in a spicy tomato cream
sauce. Mebel helped us with laundry. Jaime took us all over town to find the best deals to
get the car repaired. It took us a couple of days and about $50 US. One place did the body
work and paint, and another put in some new glass. Driving around town was a lot of fun.
Occasionally, even on the buisiest roads and freeways, we passed horse-drawn trailers. They
still find a nitche somehow delivering fruits and vegetables to small stands and running
other small arrends around town. The streets were ruled by the micro busses. There are
countless companies and routes. Each bus for a specific route has a particular paint job. One
can get to within a couple city blocks of anywhere in town on a micro for less than 50 cents.
Grafitti is everywhere. When Pinochet ruled 10 years ago it was a very disciplined society.
Brutally so. People are rebounding now with enthusiastic self-expression. Went out dancing
one night. It began Karioke style to some local favorite Chilean music. Then it moved on
to latin and world pop and hip-hop. One favorite song is titled "La Mayonaisa"--they love
their mayonaise down here! You do the butter-churn move to the song, like you are stirring the
mayonaise. We only stayed out 'til 2 am and people were just getting warmed up.
Another night we went to a party at a friend of Marta and Mebelitas. Fun to meet
some local kids. We watched some Latin MTV. I like the music and fun to
see latin fashon and standards of coolness. We went to the beach one day. It was a lot like
northern Cali or Oregon. Big haystack rocks and rocky points with sandy beaches and coves.
Pelicans dive bombed the ocean a few hundred yards out. Seaweed washed up and dried in the
sand. Went to a museum there too. It had a few things from all over the
world. Each room was dedicated to a few countries or a continent. It was perfect--you got a
flavor of
the diversity of the world in under an hour! Talked with Jaime a lot. He gave me a compaq (CD)
by a chilean band called LLapu. They left the country during the Pinochet regime for fear of
imprisionment or being murdered and went to France. Jaime's favorite song was "Vuelva a Vivir"
(Return to Live). Its a song they wrote on the plane from France back to Chile and has the
power of a nation ready to get on with life. It's a live recording and you can hear
the croud singing almost as loud as Llapu. Jaime also loves soccer (as well as almost everyone
else in Chile). He has a local favorite team that he goes to watch often. He has a little
team flag on the windshield of his car and wears a ball cap with thier name on it. I think
chileans like soccer so much because anyone
can become a top athlete. Even very poor kids can play at a very young age in bare
feet with anything as a ball. I like it because normal people can play it, not the monsters
that dominate gringo sports. Also, the soccer World Cup has a more
worldly feel than USA sports where the teams only come from the US and Canada. The
soccer World Cup encompasses 3 continents--Europe, Africa, and South America. Soccer fields
are everywhere, even in the smallest pueblos in
the most remote areas. You are as likeley to find a soccer field in the woods in Chile
as you are to see a deer in the woods in the USA. I asked about the Olympics and they weren't
very excited. I
think they see it as a very expensive proposition to field an Olympic team, and they could
put the money to use at home to help their own people. More fabulous food and hospitality
at the house of Jaime and Mebel. When we left after a few days I like I'd just spent a long
Thanks Giving holiday with family. We stopped again in Concep the day before we left on our
way to Santiago. We shared tales and photos from our trip, and drank "punche de pico roco", a
drink Jaime learned
to make from a fisherman. It is made from barnacles, egg white, Pisco, and wine with a little
cinnamon on top.
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