TranSantiago : Knots and Nautica

Spent most of 28^th Feb wandering around central Santiago. It feels like any Australian city - a grid of streets with a couple of pedestrian malls. The streets are lined with old, solid-looking colonial buildings and poplars. At the centre is the Plaza de Armas – where the city was founded in 1541. Its ideal for people-watching as Shridhar would say. Shoe-shine hobos, smart office-types, some kids practicing their wolf-whistles, bewildered tourists clutching guide books, wide-eyed Chilenos from outside Santiago, beggars, mothers with strollers, busy street-side stalls selling greasy completos (hotdogs)- all in 30 minutes on a plaza bench.

The visually stimulating and aesthetic Museum of Pre-Columbian History is around the corner. The high point for me was a huge display of the ‘quipu’ – an Inka financial recording system. It was designed to keep track of Inka revenues from across the empire and relied exclusively on threads and knots. The quipu I saw was about 1m high and 1.5m wide. At the centre was a large knot representing Cusco and radiating from it were hundreds of threads of differing lengths with knots at various places. Apparently another version uses yarns of different colours and knots of varying thickness to serve as a memoir of events, society, poetry…In some ways, the Inkas almost seem too sophisticated - over-engineering everything!

1^st March was spent mainly in Barrio Bellavista (Beyavista as they say!). Now quite trendy and bohemian but originally had working-class roots. Familiar story…

Went to Pablo Neruda’s house. La Chascona is one of 3 houses Neruda built in Chile – the other two are in Valparaiso and Isla Negra - on the coast, some 100km from Santiago. La Chascona was built for Neruda’s third wife, Matilde. La Chascona means messy-haired woman (so you know what his wife looked like!). Nice tour but was accompanied by a sour-faced Aussie who just grunted out a greeting and disappeared after the tour as quickly as he could. The house itself is designed as a ship – different buildings at different levels in a sea of green, symbolising decks. At the top was Neruda’s library – the Captain’s room as he called it. Seems to have been totally egotistical!

The house is full of knick knacks he picked up from across the world. Interestingly, he spent a significant part of his youth in SE Asia as an honorary consul. A couple of interesting pieces – the first a massive wooden Rajasthani elephant he picked up on one of his two trips to India. My guide – a long-haired Latino with a mobile face – took pains to point it out to me and told me it wasn’t an original antique, but Neruda liked it so he picked it up. The second was a painting of La Chascona by Diego Riviera, Frida Kahlo’s husband and a good friend of Neruda’s. It is a portrait of a Medusa-like La Chascona with two heads, and in one of those Medusa locks is a profile of Neruda’s face. It was considered ingenious and witty by his circle of friends – since N and LaC had a clandestine affair for many years before finally getting married. A pleasant afternoon…Also got a nice photo of a whitewashed window framing a painting inside the room. My being Indian was a major event – looks like my guide mentioned it to the others - they all came out smiling as I was leaving!

Travelled everywhere on Transantiago – the city’s public transport system. Santiago has an efficient metro – although it seems to have built lines 1, 2 and 5 but not 3 and 4. Apparently work began on L 3, 4 and 5 at the same time but L5 finished earlier! Better than having platforms 1 and 2 missing like Wynyard in Sydney!!

Santiago might have a European feel, but the one lasting impression I have of the city is the sheer number of stray dogs! They’re everywhere and have apparently been the subject of numerous articles in the papers outlining bizarre suggestions, good-natured schemes of animal welfare activists, even political platforms…and have survived the lot.

Photo album for this post available at: http://picasaweb.google.com/shivmoulee/Santiago