The day we almost saw Pablo Neruda's house
Yo, american, hijo
de la inmensa soledad del hombre
vine a aprender de ustedes la vida
y no la muerte, ya no la muerte!
Pablo Neruda
Been having a hell of a time in Santiago, it actually does feel like hell. Its so bloody hot that one sweets just standing. Sam and I have been trying to find cool things to do, so we've ended up taking in a few movies, catching us up a little with the pop culture back in the States and checking out the Salvador Allende museum. This being the highlight of our stay in Santiago.
For those of you who may not know, Salvador Allende was the first Marxist President of Chile who was elected democratically back in the early 1970s. But the good ole' CIA instrumented a coup and bombed the building he was in on September 11, 1973 (interesting parallels here with the date) and killed him. After which Pinochet came into power with his reign of terror, eradicating anyone he thought or considered a communist (anyone who didn't agree with his ideology).
The Salvador Allende museum, interestingly is housed in an old government building used by the secret police in the 1970s as a torture center. The Allende family just recently bought it from the government and had it refurbished as the Salvador Allende museum. The museum consists mainly of paintings donated by different artists from around the world. The pieces are mainly protests pieces and some were quite powerful. It also has some momentums of Salvador Allende.
Santiago in general has been a pleasant surprise (minus the heat). It is a charming old colonial city, with colorful buildings, and surrounded by snow capped mountains. These area a little hard to see with all the smog but the city is no more polluted then say Cochabamba, Bolivia. We took a trip to Isla Negra (not an island) today to visit Pablo Neruda's favorite house on the Chilean cost. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we weren't able to tour the premise since we hadn't booked a tour ahead of time. However as Sam pointed out to a very disappointed Sepi, "why would you want to subject yourself to a tour of an overly crowded house and not really get a feel of the place Pablo Neruda recieved so much of his inspiration from." Instead we walked down to the beautiful cost and watched pelicans playing in the wave. Getting a good feel of how and why Neruda found the place such an inspiration. It was also a good deal cooler by the water.
Tomorrow we embark on a 24 hour bus journey to San Pedro a town on the border of Bolivia and Chile. Its supposed to be a beautiful area and hopefully we will finally get to see the famous Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia which we missed.
Happy New Years a todos
de la inmensa soledad del hombre
vine a aprender de ustedes la vida
y no la muerte, ya no la muerte!
Pablo Neruda
Been having a hell of a time in Santiago, it actually does feel like hell. Its so bloody hot that one sweets just standing. Sam and I have been trying to find cool things to do, so we've ended up taking in a few movies, catching us up a little with the pop culture back in the States and checking out the Salvador Allende museum. This being the highlight of our stay in Santiago.
For those of you who may not know, Salvador Allende was the first Marxist President of Chile who was elected democratically back in the early 1970s. But the good ole' CIA instrumented a coup and bombed the building he was in on September 11, 1973 (interesting parallels here with the date) and killed him. After which Pinochet came into power with his reign of terror, eradicating anyone he thought or considered a communist (anyone who didn't agree with his ideology).
The Salvador Allende museum, interestingly is housed in an old government building used by the secret police in the 1970s as a torture center. The Allende family just recently bought it from the government and had it refurbished as the Salvador Allende museum. The museum consists mainly of paintings donated by different artists from around the world. The pieces are mainly protests pieces and some were quite powerful. It also has some momentums of Salvador Allende.
Santiago in general has been a pleasant surprise (minus the heat). It is a charming old colonial city, with colorful buildings, and surrounded by snow capped mountains. These area a little hard to see with all the smog but the city is no more polluted then say Cochabamba, Bolivia. We took a trip to Isla Negra (not an island) today to visit Pablo Neruda's favorite house on the Chilean cost. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we weren't able to tour the premise since we hadn't booked a tour ahead of time. However as Sam pointed out to a very disappointed Sepi, "why would you want to subject yourself to a tour of an overly crowded house and not really get a feel of the place Pablo Neruda recieved so much of his inspiration from." Instead we walked down to the beautiful cost and watched pelicans playing in the wave. Getting a good feel of how and why Neruda found the place such an inspiration. It was also a good deal cooler by the water.
Tomorrow we embark on a 24 hour bus journey to San Pedro a town on the border of Bolivia and Chile. Its supposed to be a beautiful area and hopefully we will finally get to see the famous Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia which we missed.
Happy New Years a todos
posted by Sepi & Sam at 3:59 PM
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