A new song...
This was a significant weekend. I returned to Concepción from Santiago late last night with Natalia. We drove to Santiago early Thursday morning in a rental car packed to the gills with all our belongings - well, all the belongings that we would like to have in the US that wouldn't fit into a backpack. When we began packing the car, Natalia was not a little skeptical that everything would fit. In the end, with surfboard strapped to the roof, the trunk requiring two people to close, and the back seat brimming with bags, boxes, and random loose items, we hit the road. The seven hour drive went smoothly until we reached the greater metro area of Santiago.
As a veteran driver who for years has navigated the pitfalls of Boston’s big dig and the perils of Manhattan traffic, I thought I would be ready for anything. Driving in Santiago gives “chaos” a new meaning. Lanes start and end without warning, reparations and new construction make the entire city one big detour, there is no logical pattern to the layout of the streets (which are mostly one-ways), and there are gaping craters every few hundred feet that make New York potholes look like cosmetic pockmarks. Add to this post-war-type wreckage a swarm of frenetic drivers with turretic outbursts and towering buses that threaten to unflinchingly roll over anything in their path. Once you lose your cool, surviving this mess seems even more unlikely as you try to blink through the strobe effect of your life flashing before your eyes. Nevertheless, we made it.
Now, to give some insight into our planning… After some research, we decided to send our things via air with a shipping logistics company called ABX. Although slightly more expensive than sea freight, shipping by air entails less red tape with US customs and less risk of damage. For over 2 cubic meters (350 kilos), we are paying about $900, which is only about $130 more expensive than if we were to send it by sea. Also, shipping by sea takes roughly 18 days, whereas by air takes only two days. Unfortunately, this means my mother will have to trek to JFK airport, pry open a large wooden crate, and schlep over 750 pounds of stuff back to her apartment without our help. Sorry mom! I feel slightly unsettled that we left our belongings in a large warehouse with no official record of receipt from the company – apparently we must first make a money transfer from a bank in Concepción before the company can process our shipment. I’m hoping that they are trustworthy and that in the interim all our things remain intact. Unfortunately, Chileans have earned the reputation of being less than honorable in business dealings, which adds to my anxiety.
While in Santiago, Natalia and I also visited the medical clinic of Las Condes, which was an impressive facility. We met with Dr. Guillermo Acuña who is a specialist in travel medicine and vaccinations, and Natalia received several important vaccinations (Hepatitis A&B, Typhoid, and Tetanus/Diphtheria). We also picked up Lariam for Malaria, and Cipro for gastro issues. We both still need to get the vaccination for Yellow Fever, which is only offered at the “vacunatorio” at the medical center in Santiago. Unfortunately, it was closed after we finished with Dr. Acuña, so we will have to make a visit when we pass through Santiago at the start of our journey.
Before we returned to Concepción, we also seized the opportunity to do some last minute shopping. We bought long underwear and thermal socks for the cold nights in the Bolivian Altiplano and an LED head lamp, since I donated the two that I brought to Chile to the Viracocha Expedition. While at the Parque Arauco mall (which is reminiscent of the Third Street Promenade in LA), we also caught a movie – Something’s Gotta Give (with Jack Nickleson and Diane Keaton), which we both really enjoyed. The highlight of the day was finding a Starbucks and introducing Natalia to the glory of Chai Tea. I didn’t realize how much I had missed Starbucks!
Exiting Santiago was just as hectic as entering, but we made it back Concepción with no trouble and in good time. When we entered my apartment, we received a small shock. My couch and three tables had disappeared! Her family came the day before to pick them up. I’ve also been auctioning the remainder of my belongings through a Chilean version of ebay (www.deremate.com). So far I’ve sold my refrigerator, my rugs, my bookcase, and my vacuum. So now I’m sitting on the floor with just a television and a high speed internet connection. We were also surprised to find that my water has been turned off since, in all this chaos, I am about a week late in paying my bill. I’ve never heard of a utility company cutting service for a week’s delay in payment, but such is Chile. I suppose this is not an uncommon problem and the only way for them to protect themselves from major losses. So, I’m about to run to Natalia’s house for a quick shower and will probably sleep on her living room floor tonight.
Although my apartment is bare, I have virtually no clothes left here, and I don’t even have water to shower, I couldn’t be happier. These inconveniences offer tangible evidence that my time here is drawing to a close. This coming week will be my last at Inchalam, and then Natalia and I will be wrapping up other loose ends and spending some time with her family before we depart in the first week of March. Today Natalia asked me how I’m feeling… I explained that sometimes I hear a song on the radio that I really like, but after a short time I either feel like changing it or am just waiting for the next song to start. Living in Chile has been a lot like that. At first, I was really enjoying myself and absorbed in learning new things. After a time, the novelty was replaced by an anxious longing to close this chapter and move on. At long last, the end is near, and a new song is about to begin.
Prologue
A light is dawning on the horizon. The reality of leaving Chile is now becoming palpable.
Although an interesting and in some ways valuable experience, life in Concepción, Chile has been anything but enjoyable. Concepción is a depressed industrial town about 270 miles South of Santiago that is culturally and aesthetically vacant. Without launching into an insensitive and angry rant about the people and "society" of Concepción, suffice it to say that it is a city deeply rooted in the status quo and devoid of dreams.
The landscape and architecture are as impoverished as the culture. The typical panorama is an overcrowded and partially paved road, clay/dirt fields demarcated by half-buried tires, dilapidated concrete buildings with tin roofs held in position by tires unfit for burying, and crumbling walls covered with graffiti. Maniac bus drivers jockey with horse drawn carts in a miasma of black smog. Commuters lean on car horns in their frenetic exertion to get wherever, and then undergo a Jeckel & Hyde transformation from driver to pedestrian: the very same person who surged with fury and absolute urgency reveals himself to be a listless and sessile vegetable when not behind the wheel. This paradigm is perhaps most pronounced during morning rush hour - the streets are consumed in a violent stew of traffic violations just so that people can arrive quickly to work and shift into a vacuous idle. It's unclear whether this metamorphosis is stimulated by sheer laziness or by the paralyzing morass of bureaucratic policies that plague every sector of the nation's economy. As I remarked on one occasion, just imagine living inside the Registry of Motor Vehicles for over a year, and then you'll have a reasonable insight into life in Concepcón.
So... what have I been doing here for over a year? Well... that's a long story that involves a posh dinner club in Boston, a giant reed ship, a team of professional adventurers, a disco named Heaven, a kitten named Gatsby, a bit of HTML, a lot of nails, and infinite patience. Truthfully, I never planned on being here - and once I arrived, I never imagined I would tolerate such an extended stay. Nevertheless, as with most things that are without reason or design, love has something to do with it. I fell in love with a Chilean woman named Natalia, and she has been my sole beacon of light here for the past 15 months. We recently got engaged, and we are now looking forward to our journey to the United States and the future we will share together. To add to our excitement, I discovered just two weeks ago that I was accepted to Stanford's Graduate School of Business - my first choice MBA program. I will absolutely attend, and Natalia is bursting with excitement to settle down in Palo Alto.
So, with a little bit of background, we can now begin the story: Our over-land trek from Concepción to New York City.
I am just beginning to plan my eventual trek back to the United States from Chile, and am establishing an online journal to record the entire adventure.