Terremotos and Completos

The last few weeks have made us a bit road weary, every night or two we've been in different places, every day experiencing new things. While the excitement has been fairly unsurpassed, we've become a bit tired. We headed to Santiago, to meet up with Sebastian, who we met along with his friends in the backwoods near Segundo Corral when we were drenched and crossing the border from Argentina.



It was a welcome relief to be picked up from the bus station after a cramped 10 hour ride. We got a last minute discount when we purchased the tickets but forgot to ask if they were cama, and our legs were hurting a great deal from the lack of movement. At his home they welcomed us with breakfast, and just a couple hours later, a huge and delicious Sunday lunch. We talked for a while with his parents (most youth live with their padres until they are either married or finished with college), and got an interesting insight into Chilean culture and their views on the change in the country under various administrations. There seems to be quite the controversy in views on the Pinochet administration: evidently he advanced the country to be the first which is pretty much considered 'First World' in Latin America, in many ways by mimicking the United States, but this came at the expense of the disappearances of approximately 20,000 people. It is interesting because many people don't seem to talk about things as openly or overtly, whereas in Argentina everyone had a strong opinion about their tumultous history. It seems as though people want to forget about the disappearances in order to maintain their path towards abundance, but there are still the families of those that disappeared, maintaining reminders of how the Pinochet administration achieved its goals. People from the administration are still under trial for their actions during that time. Indeed, in Santiago, it feels quite a bit like being in the US as far as the luxuries that are abundantly available and flaunted. Whereas I felt like we could begin to grasp the complexities of the influences of Argentina's recent history, Chile's still seems masked and difficult to understand.



Santiago is not the huge crazy conglomeration of busyness and thrill that Buenos Aires presents; instead, it is clean and relatively mellow, considering its 5 million inhabitants. Here, you are not constantly bumping up against someone else, and fighting for space on the sidewalk, and can breathe the air with a bit more ease (though the water is terrible after leaving the glacial melt of patagonia that we have been spoiled with for the past two months).



Its been so nice to just relax and be shown around, and take care of homework (like getting our Bolivian visas, which we accomplished today). We drank terremotos (a drink consisting of cheap white wine, ice cream, and a splash of Fernet, translating to earthquakes, because 'it makes you feel like the ground is shaking when you get finished'), ate sushi, and ate Italiano completos (a hot dog smothered with tomatoes, avocado, and mayo). We visited the General Cemetery, remniscent of Recoleta in Buenos Aires with its mansionesque mausoleums, though this included contrasting apartment-style high rises of slots containing people and families and histories of Santiago.