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We wake up well rested and I drive back to nearby Tránsito (DMV), which fortunately has Saturday morning hours, to get my permanent car registration. I stop on the way to fill the empty fuel tank, which will later turn out to have been a fortunate move. The registration is issued without any problem, so the car is completely legal until 3/31/20. My sense of relief is palpable and we-re clear to leave Santiago tomorrow morning.
Now that I have peso cash, I need to pay Álvaro about $300 for his parts and labor. With our imminent departure, that means driving to his downtown residence today to hand it to him. The demonstrations are intensifying and, with public transit shut down, traffic will be a challenge, if not an impossibility. We arrange a rendezvous with Álvaro and sally forth into the fray. Traffic slows to a crawl as we near his neighborhood and the sidewalks are filled with demonstrators, many engaging in a traditional form of protest, rhythmically banging cooking pots with spoons. The Chilean word for this is cacerolazo. We have a hard time remembering how to say it – until someone points out that its stem comes, appropriately enough, from casserole. At one point we see demonstrators holding signs and standing in front of a bus to prevent it from moving.
Along Balboa Ave, Santiago
Eventually, we get to where Álvaro is waiting for us on the sidewalk. We hand him the cash, express our gratitude, say our goodbyes, and plunge back into the inching flow of traffic.
Servas host Álvaro, one of the most generous people in Chile
Since we’ve come this far, we decide to proceed beyond downtown to the natural history museum.
Santiago protester. I don’t understand the sign
The shuttered Museum of Natural History
The shuttered Aretquina art museum
Entrance to Quinta Normal park. Seems to mean “Fifth Normal”
Parabolic dish sound demo outside the shuttered science museum
Computerized dynamic fountain
When we reach the far side of the park, it’s late afternoon and we’re really hungry so we scout restaurants in the adjacent Barrio Yungay, enjoying the murals and architecture as we walk.
Since we’re in that awkward part of the day, after lunch and before dinner, most eateries are closed. We finally settle for mediocre Thai food and then walk back to the car. Suddenly, a man runs up to us and asks if he can take our picture. I wonder just how weird we look to attract that kind of attention, but we happily comply and then take one of him, for revenge.
Photographer
We walk back to the car, in a quiet part of the city elsewhere wracked by protest over inequality. Ironically, we pass a number of homeless people sheltering against the park wall.
Homeless encampment against park wall
Driving back to Las Condes, road closures route us to the north side of the Mapocho River. Where we are, there are some relics of last night’s disturbance.
Protest debris on Av. Santa María
Protest debris on Av. Santa María
Protest debris on Av. Santa María
Plaza Italia, the main protest site, is directly across from us and we join others observing clashes between demonstrators and police. From our relatively safe perch, we see water cannons and tear gas being used by the police, but the protestors are resilient and not easily dispersed. I stay with the car at the curb while Susan walks over to the river wall to get a better view and take photos. After a short while she starts feeling the effects of tear gas wafting across the river from the distant plaza and retreats to the car.
Plaza Italia clashes
Plaza Italia clashes
Plaza Italia clashes
Plaza Italia clashes
Plaza Italia clashes
Plaza Italia clashes
Plaza Italia clashes
Plaza Italia protest
We return to our apartment and stay glued to the television news. The government announces a 10 PM – 7 AM curfew, but many protesters ignore it. More fires are set, some stores are looted, and in one 3 people die – not by police action. Chile’s president announces the cancellation of the fare hike that triggered the protests, but the issues have gone far beyond that, deep into social justice and equality. A state of emergency is declared and soldiers are in the streets for the first time since the 1973 Pinochet military coup. Metro announces that damage to the system is extensive and it will take days to weeks to fully restore service.
Late at night, we shut off the television and drop off into fitful sleep.
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At first light in Curacaví, I’m out of bed and getting ready to leave, but I encounter a small problem first. South American homes are generally locked tight at night, with most doors and gates requiring a key to open, even from the inside, a practice which definitely does not comply with U.S. fire safety codes. I neglected to ask Margarita how to exit and I don’t want to wake her up at 5 AM to do it now. First, I have to open one of the house’s two doors. The front door has a key in the lock, but it doesn’t turn. The side door has no key. I start quietly rummaging around the kitchen, looking for likely keys in increasingly unlikely places. I eventually find one that unlocks the side door, so now I’m outdoors but still not free. The yard has two egresses, a locked pedestrian gate and a motorized sliding driveway portal. None of the keys work on the gate, so I start pushing every button on the 3 remotes I’ve turned up, unlocking Margarita’s car, turning on yard lights, and possibly opening garage doors all over the neighborhood. The driveway, however, remains closed.
At this point, I give up and seek help. Since I had helped Gerhard and he’s not my host, I knock on his bedroom door and ask, “How the hell do I get out of here?” He’s only slightly less befuddled than I am and we search together. Noting the key in the door that doesn’t turn, he suggests I remove it and try it on the front gate. Voila, it works and I’m out on the sidewalk! Free at last. I hop in the car and start out for Santiago by a very roundabout toll free route. On vacation, I generally avoid tolls (even though it costs me more in fuel and wear) because it satisfies my rebellious streak and often leads to more interesting routes. Today, though, I have a more practical reason — headlights are required 24/7 on Chilean toll roads and I have a dead one.
It takes me quite a while to reach Santiago and since it’s now open, I drive right to the municipal Tránsito, the department of motor vehicles. Here I buy my annual obligatory liability insurance — only about US$15 annually — and a one day temporary registration for about US$4. Momentarily legal, I have to interrupt my quest to help Susan get our stuff transferred to new lodgings. Although happy where we were in the downtown apartment, it’s not available for a 3rd night. Now that we have the Subaru back, it would also require expensive garage parking, so we have reservations at a more suitable location, a family run guest house with free parking in the Las Condes suburb.
We have to get everything we brought on the plane down six floors from apartment to car — except I can’t park or even fully get the car out of the traffic lane on the narrow, busy downtown street below. The only possible plan is for Susan to pack everything herself and shuttle it down to the sidewalk single handed while I watch nervously for the police. This is no small task for her as we have five bags, one of them a 45 pound suitcase, and miscellaneous smaller items. As she brings each bag out, I dash across the street, grab it, stuff it in the car, and return to my vigil. By this high stress method, we’re eventually able to drive off to our new digs. It feels really good to be back in the Subaru together on the road in South America, but there’s still a very busy day ahead of us.
Drunken stupor apartment damage?
As we drive away, Susan warns me that she woke up this morning to find a broken bedside lamp. She doesn’t remember knocking it over, so she’s forced to attribute it to possible after effects of yesterday’s enormous Pisco Sour. We get a laugh out of this because she never drinks enough alcohol to even get high, much less get sick or black out. We text the apartment owner, apologize, and offer to pay for the lampshade. Fortunately it was a cheap one.
Travelers House bedroom
Travelers House garden
Travelers House kitchen
The new place, Traveler’s House, is very different. Homey, but less new and modern, it’s a small apartment squeezed onto the grounds of a family home and garden on a quiet residential street. The owners welcome us warmly. Without even transferring our belongings into our quarters, I resume my car quest. First stop is Álvaro’s car accessory shop on the south side of Santiago. Here, one of his employees works with me to replace the failed headlight and a few other lamps, install the new tail light assembly I brought from the U.S., and replace my expensive, broken rooftop cargo box with a new, functioning one. With the car now able to pass inspection, I race over to the inspection facility, Planta Revisión Tecnica, and hand the car over to them shortly before their gate closes for the day.
Robotic inspection of Subaru front lights
Chilean auto inspection is a very interesting process. It takes place in a giant shed while drivers observe through large windows from the waiting room above. It’s highly automated with the technicians mostly manipulating car controls as prompted from a computer screen at each station. The car is driven onto various embedded floor plates which then test things like alignment, brakes, suspension, steering, and exhaust emissions. There’s even a mobile robot that scans across the front and back of the car to check the various lights. At the conclusion of the tests, I notice them drive the car somewhere other than the exit lot but don’t attach much significance to it. A few minutes later, though, my name is called and the clerk tells me “No aprobado”, the car has failed inspection. This is disturbing news as it could mean immediate, expensive repairs or perhaps that the car can never pass and be registered. The clerk walks me over to the station manager who looks over the paperwork, says something to me in incomprehensible Spanish, and signals me to come with him. We walk outside to an area I immediately realize is the “purgatory lot” where the failed vehicles are parked. Further conversation clarifies that one of the tests is seat belt function and the technicians couldn’t do that because all the seats were still filled with hastily loaded baggage and gear. I clear everything out of the seating areas, the manager checks each belt, gives me a big thumbs up, and proudly says “Everything good!” in English. What a relief! It’s too late in the day to go back to Tránsito for my permanent registration, so I head back to Travelers House to unload the car and get ready for our 8 PM dinner appointment with Brian and Pablo.
In the course of describing my day, I’ve omitted the background events simultaneously transpiring in Santiago. Yesterday, students and others were demonstrating in the streets against a newly imposed 3% transit fare hike. As various Santiagueños explained to us, this small increase was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Chile, by all accounts is the most prosperous nation in South America and also has massive economic inequality. The current president is a multi-billionaire and ordinary people are living on the edge of financial ruin. The standard of living in Chile has actually been rising for everyone but, as in the U.S., the rich are reaping almost all the benefits while the middle class and below are seeing microscopic gains.
In this context, the fare hike demonstrations which started yesterday have grown larger and more violent throughout today. Metro subway stations were vandalized and set afire, some buses were burned, and some stores looted. By afternoon, the Metro system citywide was completely shuttered due to the damage downtown. Brian and Pablo let us know that they would understand if we canceled dinner because of the transportation problems and expanding unrest. Since we now have the car mobile (and, until midnight, still legal) and there is little in the way of violence and police action in Las Condes, we make the short drive and the four of us have an excellent dinner, elegantly prepared by Pablo.
Chef Pablo
Pablo, Susan, and Brian 8 floors up
Throughout the meal, we’re all watching the increasing chaos on television news. Some of their rental apartments are in the heart of downtown. One of them faces what we see is a raging fire in the high rise headquarters of the electric utility, Enel. It’s obvious the protests are getting very dangerous. We leave after dinner while Brian is on the phone talking to nervous guests seeing police and protesters from their apartment windows while smoke pervades the neighborhood.
Late night protetsters outside shuttered Santiago Metro station.
Las Condes, fortunately, is quiet. We see only one small group of protesters near a closed Metro station while I hit an ATM for Chilean pesos and our drive back to our lodgings is uneventful. With the car off the street behind a locked gate, we eventually drift off to sleep to the accompaniment of TV news footage of fires and violence.
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I’m counting on today to retrieve the car and get it documented, but I haven’t heard from Álvaro, on whose property it’s stored, for over two weeks. It’s been parked for 8 months at his weekend home in Curacaví, about an hour’s drive from Santiago. The property is high up on a mountain, fenced and locked, so there’s no way for me to get to the car unaided. He usually responds quickly to my messages, but now he’s gone dark and I’m helpless to proceed. There’s nothing to do but wait, so I sally forth from the apartment on a successful search for pastries and milk. We then hear from our friends Brian and Pablo, who are nearby servicing one of their fleet of Airbnb rental apartments. Pablo is a field archaeologist and Brian, the ex-pat son of one of my long time clients, makes a good living via Airbnb rentals. Administering what is, essentially, a distributed hotel keeps them very busy.
While Susan is taking a bath, I walk several blocks to where they’re setting up a new location for the coming tourist season. Once they finish up, the three of us drive to our building, pick up Susan, and head to the Plaza de Armas for drinks at a sidewalk cafe. Susan wants a Pisco Sour. When the waiter explains there are two sizes, in keeping with my universal rule – buy the product with the lowest unit price – I urge her to order the big one, the Catedral. The name turns out to mean a drink of enormous size, loaded with alcohol. Susan enjoys it and dutifully nurses it to its conclusion, which leads to unwanted consequences during the subsequent night. In the course of our conversation, Pablo and Brian invite us to dinner tomorrow at their elegant high rise apartment. I finally hear from Álvaro who tells me I can ride to the Subaru with his cousin at 6 PM. Relieved, I leave the others and head for Álvaro’s auto accessory store on the other side of Santiago via Metro to meet up with him and his cousin, Fernando.
At the store, Álvaro explains that he had to relocate the car on his property and discovered that the battery had died during the winter. Since he sells them. he sends a new one along with us in case a jump isn’t adequate to revive mine. I’ve brought along a new taillight assembly from the U.S. to replace the one I damaged during the last trip. It still functions fine, but definitely won’t pass inspection. About 6:30 PM, Fernando and I head slowly out of Santiago in rush hour traffic and eventually arrive at Álvaro’s property. His mother is already there, along with Gerhard, a German friend of the family who, by coincidence, is also picking up his stored car after just arriving back in Chile.
The car is parked facing up a steep grade and I see that all the tires are very low on air, but not quite flat. Although I brought my portable tire inflater from the U.S., I didn’t think to bring it with me tonight, so I’m going to be risking tire damage for a while. The battery is, indeed, dead, so Fernando drops the new one in and the car starts right up. Margarita, the mother agrees to lead me to a gas station with air, so she convoys us out of the high subdivision in the darkness toward the center of Curacaví. I’m driving very slowly, of course, to reduce the chance of ruining my almost flat tires. The first 2 stations do not have a working compressor but on the far side of town, we find the one that does.
I’m now faced with a number of bad options. The car is completely illegal at the moment: unregistered, uninsured, uninspected and I have only tomorrow and Saturday morning to get everything done before everything shuts down until Monday. I’m in a Catch 22. I can’t drive without registration, I can’t register without an inspection, and the nearest inspection station is back in Santiago. Margarita tells me I can get a one day registration to get me to the inspection station, but that would mean waiting until morning and shortening the available time to complete everything. I decide, instead to drive illegally back to Santiago during the wee hours, so I can be at the inspection station first thing in the morning, presuming I’m not stopped by the police for any reason. This plan is derailed when I realize I also have one non-functioning headlight, which would greatly increase the chance of a police encounter during a night drive.
In view of this, I make a quick modification. I’ll sleep in the car on some quiet street and head for Santiago at sunup, when headlights can be left off. On hearing of my plan, Margarita says “absolutely not” — I will sleep in one of her guest rooms until I’m ready to leave. Remember, this is someone who just met me an hour earlier. Gerhard, who is Margarita’s occasional travel buddy, is also staying there and the 3 of us talk for a while before heading for bed. I’m able to save Gerhard a lot of trouble by telling him what we found out from bitter experience last November, that in the north of the country, Chilean Aduana (Customs) will absolutely not permit a Chilean car owned by a non-resident to leave the country. It makes no sense, since in the central and southern areas, the same customs agency doesn’t care about that at all. Having saved Gerhard a likely 1500 mile dead end, he decides to reverse his planned route, entering Argentina first where it’s safe, and re-entering Chile in the north, which is also no problem.
Midnight is approaching, Gerhard is suffering from jet lag, and I’ve had a long unsettled day of problem solving, so all of us gratefully hit the sack.
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Here we are, Susan and I starting our third (my fourth, actually) South America road trip since December 2017 in our trusty 2007 high mileage, much abused, Subaru Forester. We arrive in Santiago, Chile after a hectic departure from home — because for me, every departure is hectic. Important pre-trip tasks don’t get done until the last minute and I end up packing in the final hour before heading out for the airport. The absolute last thing I have to do before stepping on the plane is go to the German Consulate at United Nations Plaza to submit the application for my German passport, itself the culmination of a long story, which includes recognition — at age 69 — of my lifelong dual US/German citizenship. Why now, finally, 20 years after I found out? Hint: it’s primarily for the benefit of my two kids and their future offspring. The German bureaucracy is especially kind to me and everything goes very smoothly.
The red eye flight is long, cramped, but otherwise uneventful. The short stopover in Houston breaks it up somewhat but, unlike the old, pre-terrorist days, flying is merely a means to an end. It’s a miserable, authoritarian, physically torturous experience in which you’re treated as a criminal suspect and subjected to the whims of every tin pot dictator-wannabe you may encounter among the numerous staff manning the gauntlet of transportation access. Admittedly, I make it worse because I really react badly to being told what to do and flying demands obedience to a seemingly endless sequence of mandatory instructions. Back in my Alaska days (1975-1985) flying was actually fun. You looked forward to it as part of the travel experience. Now I feel lucky if I’m not pulled out of line for a body cavity search. I’d rather drive from New York to San Francisco than go through airport security — and I’ve got Global Entry, despite my substantial ethical objections to government selling preferential access to those who can afford it.
Dawn over the Andes, just before beginning descent from 37,000 feet to Santiago airport
The dawn approach to Santiago airport is magnificent, with dramatic clouds highlighting the sun rising over the distant Andes to the east. We arrive 30 minutes early thanks to a hellacious tailwind at 37,000 feet, step off the plane in Santiago, collect our voluminous luggage, and clear immigration and customs without hassle – except that the drug and food smelling dog flags my backpack for extra inspection. This requires a trip through the Xray tunnel (the bag, not me) and a complete unload of the big cargo pack. I already know why. I’m carrying 100 U.S. supermarket corn tortillas, the chemically enhanced kind that can sit around in heat and darkness for years without developing a speck of mold. Why tortillas? Because when we stay with families and other hosts, I like to cook a meal for them. Tex-Mex style tacos are one of my regular choices and prior experience has shown that corn tortillas are rare to nonexistent in South America, especially the immortal kind. Flour tortillas are often available but that just doesn’t cut it. For me, tacos require corn tortillas. Once the inspector satisfies herself that I have no contraband, say a brick of fentanyl, a fresh apple, or slab of raw steak, I’m left to the 15 minute job of repacking everything.
Traveling tortillas
We’re past all the barriers by about 10 AM and since our initial rental apartment doesn’t want to see us before noon, I use the time to locate the airport Aduana (Customs) office to resolve a nagging question I have about car travel. When you take a vehicle out of its home country, you’re generally required to return it or face illegal export charges. What I want to know is what happens if the Subaru is stolen, or totaled, or otherwise impossible to return to Chile as the law requires? Will my name eventually be on a wanted list, meaning I can never take a chance on returning here lest on some future arrival the lettuce sniffing dog grabs my leg and drags me off to detention? I’m eventually referred to a very friendly agent who, to my pleasant surprise, totally reassures me. Even better, she speaks English well, relieving me of the chore of having to conduct a complex legal discussion in Spanish within an hour of my arrival. Señora Astorga tells me that if the unfortunate happens, to send her a police report or mechanic’s letter explaining the car’s fate and she will issue a waiver of return on it. She gives me her direct phone and personal email and assures me there will be no problem, no arrest warrant, no massive fine. I am much relieved because the car is really getting old and might very well give out somewhere along the way. If only all bureaucrats were so friendly and helpful. U.S. Homeland Security, take note!
The cheapest way to get downtown with our mass of belongings — the substantial carrying capacity of the Subaru makes it tempting to over pack – is by Uber. With Susan minding our pile curbside, I call via phone app for a ride. The message is “arriving in one minute” and I’m quickly in contact with the driver as we try to coordinate a specific pick up point at the busy terminal. He tells me where he is and I’m scanning cars for the provided license plate to no avail. After several minutes, I figure out why — he’s on foot right next to Susan. No, this is not some developing country version of Uber where he’s going to carry us and our luggage to our destination on his back. Uber is illegal in Chile, despite its dominance in ground transportation, so the driver leaves his car in the remote parking lot, meets his fares on foot, and accompanies them and their luggage on the free shuttle bus to the vicinity of his car, thus avoiding unpleasant interactions with airport police. I’ve used Uber on rides to the airport, where there’s also a dodge employed — the driver gives you his first name and instructions to back up his story, if the police ask, that he’s just dropping off a friend rather than a paid ride. As you approach the ramp, his Uber sign disappears under his seat and anonymity prevails. By the way, although Uber quotes you a price before ordering a ride, they can upcharge you without notice. This ride cost 18% more than the price I was given before I said OK. Bastards.
A little after noon, we arrive at the downtown high rise where we’ll be staying. I’ve gotten pretty good at finding accommodations, usually via booking.com, that meet both my criteria (a cheap place to sleep) and Susan’s (clean, comfortable, quiet, private bathroom). This apartment is no exception and after shuttling our luggage from car to curb to elevator to apartment door, we’re met by Norita and Rosita, the on-site greeters who orient us to our two-night home, one of nine apartments in the building owned by Raul, whom we never meet face to face, as traveler lodging. After today, I have just two workdays to accomplish everything it takes to retrieve and document the car. Anything I don’t get done by Friday at 5 PM will have to wait for Monday. The rest of today is my only chance to rest between the trip down and the car project. As the afternoon progresses, we head out on foot to find dinner. To our great good fortune, we see a Chinese restaurant just 200 feet down the block. A quick perusal of the menu indicates price, ambience, and food selection make it worth a shot. Indeed, our “menu for 2” choice is quite tasty and we even take about half of it back for lunch tomorrow. The rest of the evening is spent reacquainting ourselves with the historic Plaza de Armas neighborhood. The central square of most Hispanic South American towns is so named because, originally, the community’s weapons were stored centrally so everyone could run there and form up quickly in case of attack. We browse a bookstore, ogle beautiful public gardens locked behind high fences, people watch, and generally kick back before falling into bed with a lullaby of steady traffic noise six floors below.
Chilean Chamber of Deputies, Santiago. No entry to the publiBookstore near Plaza de Armas, SantiagoUsed clothing, known in Chile as Ropa Americana, SantiagoIguana Sculpture, Santiago
