[014] Concón & Valpo
I'm travelling in South America. Here's what I'm up to, some photos and other bits
I’m out of Patagonia now. I’m out of my tent and into suburbs of the Chilean middle classes. I left Patagonia as I loaded plates into the dishwasher, padding around the tiled kitchen floor with the family pets whilst the dad of the household curated an American Rock playlist from his iPad.
I’ve been staying with my friends from Patagonia National Park in their home in Concón, a town which touches the Pacific Ocean two hours west of Santiago. The newer part of the town is American Suburbia: nice lawns and a Starbucks drive-thru. The original town perches cutely above the ocean, bungalows connected by unpaved roads.
The town is abutted by magnificent dunes to the south which are visible from 15km across the bay in Valparaiso. Over the last decade high rise apartments have encroached onto the dunes and degraded the coastline in order to make someone a quick buck. Last year the coast road collapsed along with a few (thankfully) uninhabited apartments. A sad lesson in what happens when you build on shifting sands and why we need land protected for nature. Apparently the project is ploughing on…
But the coastline retains it’s beauty. A quiet road winds in and out of wild rocky headlands interrupted by sandy beaches. From elevated points you can watch sets of a Pacific swell roll onto ‘La Boca’ beach in the north. The beach break raises a sea spray which sits over the marshland stretching north.
From the beach you can see the peak of Aconcagua to the North East. It is the highest mountain outside of Asia at 7,000m and clouds swirl around the top on a clear day. It sums up Chilean geography that you can look across 11,000km of uninterrupted Pacific Ocean to Sydney, then with a head turn gawp at Aconcagua (which actually lies in Argentina).
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My days were quiet. We took picnics on the rocks and watched the waves and the birdlife. There are huge pelicans which take flight from the water with zero grace, then the more agile Inca Terns which fly like a Tern but are black with red bills and white moustaches.
I tried bouldering. I swam when it was calm. I ran. Sometimes we hung out around the house. Sofi’s parents were always hosting friends in the garden. Her dad mastered the asado. We passed a board of steak around the table and ate with our fingers. They spoke in Spanish and I strained to listen.
The Chileans are a friendly bunch. They are open to new people. In the UK I feel we spend a great effort to understand who a new person is when they first join a group. What do they do, who do they know, how do they justify their presence? On my beach days a community of people would come and go. Greetings would be made. They’d sit down. A maté would be passed around, sometimes a joint (like Bill Clinton I didn’t inhale, but I do have an embarrassing story which you can ask me about over a beer). Some food would be shared equally amongst everyone. We’d watch the ocean and nothing would be expected from each other.
As my friends were leaving the beach one evening I started talking to a guy who’d come for a swim. I think he knew the others, maybe he didn’t, but we started talking about the football and it turned out he was a Bayern Munich fan. We spoke for two minutes then he took my instagram so we could go for a drink one evening. It feels possible to make friends here.
My mind carried me away. I started looking at rental prices and found my new favourite website: WeatherSpark. It has great data visualisation which allows you to compare the climate of different places. The climate in Valparaiso is dry and temperate. The website tells me that in London ‘the wetter season lasts 8.3 months’.
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I must finish this blog post with two notable mentions: Torta Amor and the city of Valparaiso. Torta Amor is many layers of thin crispy pastry filled with dulce de leche and raspberry and topped with meringue. It fills my dreams. Val-para-iso is a charismatic, seedy city with street art and beautiful sunsets. After dark the street are dingy and there’s an air of danger. I imagine it as a grubby Naples.
I’ve crossed back over the Andes into Argentina, enjoying the north of Mendoza, Salta and Jujuy. Yesterday Huddersfield Town were relegated back to the third tier of English football after a twelve years in the big time.
My love
George
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Re-entered my cycle of listening obsessively to In Rainbows this week and I’ve found some great stories on the New Yorker fiction podcast