The AQ’s Viola Pruss went to Chile for its bright culture and left having witnessed its reality
My first night, I stayed in a hostel in Provincia, a quiet neighborhood of Santiago de Chile, 15 minutes from the city center. Small supermarkets, family-run restaurants and numerous auto-repair shops compete day and night for customers. The streets smell of oil and fried chicken.
In the morning, students linger on the sidewalks of their universities, tugged between residential apartments and corner stores.
I was walking to my hostel when I saw them. They came rushing out of a side street like an angry cluster of ants, covered in black hoodies, with bandanas pulled over their mouths and noses. Their eyes were tearing and red from contact with tear gas. Some were laughing and screaming, others rushing by in silence, their eyes cast into the distance.
Taking cover in my hostel, I watched them proceed up and down the streets, shouting and tossing stones at police cars and policemen, who kept them at distance with water cannons. After half-an-hour, the protesters moved on, taking the demonstration to another place or another day. Within minutes the sun filtered through the fog of tear gas, the shop owners put away quickly placed iron chains from their doors and business returned to the streets.
Until that morning, I didn’t even know the protests existed.
***
I travelled to Chile in June 2011, to backpack the country for a month. It was the beginning of winter, a time when few tourists visit. The smog in the cities worsens, the temperatures fall below zero degrees at night and, at the time, volcanic eruption made it impossible to travel to the southern part of Chile.
South America is best known for its richness in music, dance and its lifestyle. The culture expresses a loud and temperamental love of life and freedom.
Unlike other South American countries, Chile is relatively safe, its economy stable and a flight to Santiago was the cheapest option. It was my first visit to the continent and I knew little of its people.
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In the five months since the education protests began in Chile, thousands of students have marched through the capital’s streets and other major cities. At times, up to 100,000 people demonstrated, occupied dozens of schools and universities around the country and forced hundreds more to stop holding classes.
The sight of school entrances barricaded in chairs and chains and students taking guard inside receiving food from co-students has become commonplace.
The popularity of the president is its lowest level since he took office last year.
At the heart of their protests is a perception that Chile’s education system gives wealthy students access to some of the best schools in South America, while poor students are stuck in an under-funded, state-regulated education system.
Many of the demonstrations end in violent clashes between students and police officers.
***
Chile is commonly known for its beautiful and diverse countryside.
In the east, the Andes mountain chain stretches from the southern tip of Patagonia to the northern borders of Peru and Bolivia. Along the South Pacific Ocean, small fishing villages sell fresh sea food and lobster. Sea lions and pelicans continuously argue over left-overs from seafood stalls at the market.
Further down lies Patagonia, in its center is a vast plateau descending from the Andes towards the Pacific with distant horizons, river valleys and remote lakes. At its southern tip, Tierra del Fuego, the ice fields and granite peaks of the Andes touch with the rugged Atlantic coast. It is home to elephant seals, Magellan penguins and whales that gather to breed.
The Atacama Desert in the far north of Chile is one of the most barren places in the world, a depression covering over 3,000 kilometers, it holds Chile’s greatest saline deposit. The Salt Flats are a waste-land, rough and stained and covered in white dust. Here, a few small lagoons are home to pink Flamingos, living off the shrimp found in the salty waters. At night, the lights of millions of stars shine over the desert, making Chile one of the few places on Earth where the Milky Way is visible to the naked eye.
Someone looking to find the famous South American culture, however, will be at a loss. Chile’s bigger cities and towns are displays of a working class country, the grey buildings seldom rewarding a traveller’s patience after a long day of exploration.
Santiago’s center is conservative and colourless, the bleak towers of the financial district towering over the national monuments and museums.
Other big cities consist of old, rugged buildings stuck together like mismatched pieces of a puzzle. In the winter, famous tourist beaches and seaside towns become littered and dull. People rarely smile and their frowning faces suspiciously glance at foreigners the further they sway off the beaten tourist track. Without proper knowledge of the language, communication is difficult.
***
After three weeks exploring the northern parts of Chile, and one week spent in a rainy, run-down seaside town, I was overcome by travel fatigue. My time in Chile was coming to an end; I explored the country’s natural beauty as far as my budget allowed and my excitement on South American culture had turned into disappointment. My last stop was a naval port city close to Santiago de Chile.
Valparaiso is draped over a set of three-dozen hills. A number of labyrinthine roads and steep staircases connect the lower commercial city center and harbor with an array of colorful, bohemian-style houses. Beautiful graffiti art distracts from run-down and narrow streets. Crisscrossing electric wires contrast with the blue ocean painted on the horizon between the houses.
It was the most intriguing and unique city I saw throughout my trip—the closest to my cultural expectations yet.
On Saturday, July 14, I was high up in the hills of the city when I heard the protests erupting in the streets.
It was the sound of a hundred car horns, a strangely melodic orchestra of hoots and trumpets that travelled over the rooftops of the city. A few minutes later, a man began to sing in a park nearby, his voice mixing with the choir of the cars.
It ended as abruptly as it began. But I felt the call. I needed to see the protests.
By the time I got downtown, the procession had moved on. Papers cluttered the sidewalks, graffiti coloured the buildings, writings on solidarity and freedom, on better education raising critique on the government.
When I finally found them, they had pushed back their hoodies and bandanas and sat on the side of the road. They sunk their teeth into lemons to ease the pain of the tear gas burning in their lungs. A rock band gave a concert on the street. Some danced to the music, while others performed tricks to entertain their friends. They cried and laughed and talked.
A few streets down the road some policemen were still fighting with a last group of protesters. A car burned beside them, yellow flames licking the sky.
There was a cracking of burned steel and beating drums and the sound of pounding feet on hot asphalt. Amidst all this confusion and chaos, I wondered if perhaps I had found what I was looking for.
