Santiago
La Familia
8 July, 2007
The week passed surprisingly fast, as time tends to do the older you get. I'm almost embarrassed to write about what I did, because it will sound like so little. On top of that, I didn't take pictures until something really important motivated me to dig my camera out of a suitcase. This was the arrival of the rest of the family yesterday. For most of the week, I spent a lot of time ruminating over various details and trying to decide how and when to do what. Most everything had some dependency or affect on the issue of getting the truck. How soon will it be ready? Which shopping errands really require it? Where can I park it? Do I really want it ASAP or not?
We're buying a Toyota dual-cab pickup to drive 5 people and a huge amount of stuff from one end of Chile to the other (and eventually through the southern part of Argentina as well). Or more accurately, 5 people for some of the time and 4 people for all of the time as Geoff has to attend college some of the time back in the US. Perhaps his college would be happy to take the tuition payments and accept home-away-from home schooling from his parents and still give him college credit, but we forgot to ask. And we only brought pretty much the same 8th grade curriculum that he already got from Mom & Dad 6 years ago.
The thought of driving a pickup truck with luggage racks on the top in Providencia is cause for concern. The concept of driving it and parking it is almost terrifying, considering the fact that I have no very little clue about the bus/taxi lane protocol and rules along with the parking options and regulations (and the consequences for violating any of them).
I started paying attention to traffic, figured out a few of the traffic rules by observation and a few more by deduction, yet remained uncertain by a handful of other things. I do understand that an circle around an E with a diagonal line through it means "No Parking." I also understand that a large portion of available parking is in multi-level, covered garages where the pickup has no chance of fitting. It didn't take too long to decide I really didn't want to drive a brand new, relatively large vehicle into the bowels of Providencia on my first day driving in Chile.
I was planning on moving to a larger, more suburban hotel right before the family arrived, but I wanted the truck earlier to be able to shop and leave with the camping gear. Eventually, I was confused enough to resort to writing down some of the possible logistic options, all of which included and depended upon the time constraints of the ContactChile rep (who has other clients) and the ability of the car dealer to finish paperwork that they couldn't start until I gave them my RUT#. I concluded that I could pick up the truck on Friday right before moving to the hotel in the less congested neighborhood (where hopefully I could park it). This would take the pressure of the dealer and the ContactChile rep a little, but then leave me with only 1 or 2 days to actually buy everything, but after my numerous scouting expeditions to the malls, I knew where everything was and was pretty sure I could buy it all in one quick trip. This worked out well, because the dealer wasn't finished with paperwork and ready to hand over the truck till Friday anyway.
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Simple things that I could figure out with a 5 minute phone call here at home occupied most of my day here in Santiago. I wanted to look at the parking situation and options at the new hotel. I emailed them and they didn't reply. I've learned that for me, a phone conversation in Spanish rarely accomplishes the end objective. I can explain what I want, but if the answer is any more complicated then "yes," "no," or a number, date, or time of day, I'm left pretty confused.
So I went to the new hotel in person and had a animated conversation with the porters about how and where to store the brown whale I would be buying soon. It was actually quite fun as one of them spoke enough English that we could switch back and forth between English and Spanish when either of us got stuck with what we were trying to say. And yes, they reserved a special spot in the loading area behind the hotel for me!
First thing Wednesday morning, I trudged back to the Police Station, went to the clerk's office, and retrieved my police report. The clerk remembered me from the day before (Tuesday morning when I met him and asked for the first time, but it wasn't ready because some important person still needed to sign it), and cheerfully retrieved the report from the top of a stack of papers. Now "the jefe" had signed it and he proudly pointed at a signature as he handed it over. I scanned it quickly - the date of the actual incident was off by one day, one of the "estimated amount of damages" was off by 100,000 pesos (~$200), and the credit card name and corresponding "amount of theft" were switched. Of course these mistakes could have been prevented if the officer taking my report had let me read it the day I filed it. Or if he had typed correctly (I wrote all the information down on paper for him and I know I didn't make those mistakes!). It's difficult to be insistent and demanding with a police officer when you're not even sure of what it is you're exactly saying.
Oh well, I scrawled out a hand-written note to the banks explaining everything that was wrong and why I didn't have time to make them fix the report, and faxed it off. I'm not sure if this time the truth was the best approach or not, as they might not have bothered or been able to read any of it anyway.
Wednesday afternoon I visited a bigger and better mall. Although in the same general neighborhood as the mall from last week (Sunday July 1), Mall Alto Las Condes is almost two miles further from ChilHotel. I broke down and took the metro as far as it would go towards the mall, which left a mere 2 mile walk to get there. On the way home I splurged and rode a taxi back to the metro station.
I really like mall Mall Alto Las Condes. It has a sane layout. It has very nice stores and a food court with sushi (OK, it's mall food court sushi, what can you expect...) and good gelato. There are mall directories and store maps on every floor. There is this incredible store called "Jumbo" (the Chileans pronounce it "Joombo," - classic Spanglish with a hard English "J" followed by a long Spanish "U"). Jumbo may be the largest, multi-category, one-stop shopping store I've ever seen. It's like a higher class Costco only perhaps even bigger, and with a better variety of everything (and you don't have to buy bulk!). Banking, cellular service, home appliances, groceries, hardware, garden center, computers and TV's, motor scooters, sporting goods, clothing, fuzzy giant elephants handing out balloons... I'm sure I haven't listed half of it.
I love Jumbo for several reasons: Firstly, almost everything we need is here is this one store, so it's existence has made my life easier. Secondly, I am intrigued by the fact that I can experience such awesome consumerism outside of the United States or Edmonton, Canada. Thirdly, two clerks in the outdoor gear section were very intrigued with who I was and where I was from, and asked me a lot of questions (which I understood!). Admittedly, they spoke in very short sentences using very simple words, but for once I understood someone who really didn't speak any English.
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The quest for a Chilean Bank Account dominated my Thursday. This is not a necessity, but after much consideration and consultation, I realized that if it was possible to get one, it would be good to have one. I'm not sure if it is illegal for a foreigner on a tourist visa to get a personal bank account in Chile. I think the bankers aren't really sure either. With the help of another "relocation consultant" who is also a family friend of Chilean neighbors of ours in Piedmont, it seems I may have succeeded in getting a checking account at a Santiago branch of the Chilean division of the international bank "ScotiaBank," which is of course, as we all know, based in Canada.
After taking a two-hour Spanish lesson in the morning at a language school across from the Museo de Bellas Artes (I should have done more of these classes .... and perhaps visited the museum while I was at it), I met Haydee in the lobby of a ScotiaBank branch in downtown Providencia at noon. Haydee must have some friends and clout at ScotiaBank, because within minutes of arriving we were sitting in the office of the branch manager discussing why I want an account with ScotiaBank de Chile and why they should give me one. Eduardo, the manager, spoke very little English. Haydee translated for both of us when necessary, which was often.
I explained that with a Chilean bank account, I could pay for hotels and groceries and gas in small towns with a paper check (and not have to carry so much cash). We have learned that small businesses in rural Chile refuse to pay credit card service fees - so it's either pay en efectivo (cash), or with paper bank checks from a Chilean Bank. Eduardo started fishing for enticing data that he could use to convince other bankers to give me an account. He was going to have to present my case in front of some sort of committee later in the day or early on Friday.
"Do you intend to do any business while you're here?"
I told him I want to visit wineries and find some good ones, and perhaps help them import into California. He asked me "Are you an importer?"
"No."
"Do you know how much wine the country of Chile exports each year?"
"It doesn't seem like there's very much of it in California, compared to places like Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa," I shrug.
Haydee and Eduardo exchange knowing glances, ("yes, Australia and New Zealand have attacked very hard, and eaten into our market, damn them...").
Eduardo steeples his fingers, "Chile exports over eight hundred thousand billion million trillion pesos worth of wine (or something like that) world-wide every year."
OK, I realize my response to this whole line of questioning is ludicrous. "Well, I might buy some to take or ship home while I'm here... perhaps just a few hundred thousand pesos worth..." Haydee and Eduardo laugh. Eduardo leans back, smiles, and say's he'll see what he can do. Then he gives me an application and shows Haydee and me to a conference room where we try to figure out how to translate the intent of the questions to the situation of a tourist from the USA.
We have to use creative license on about 50% of the form. It starts with "marital status." There are three different types of "married" in Chile. Then "what do I put as my address?" Eduardo informs us that it has to be in Santiago. Who in Santiago will agree to say I live with them? I don't think ChilHotel is a good option. Haydee recently moved out of Santiago. Perhaps the address of the ContactChile office will work. They might be willing to say I sleep on the couch in their lobby at night. After about an hour of "creative translating" with the help of Haydee, we turn in the form, say our good-bye's to Eduardo, and leave to have lunch.
Lunch with Haydee is fascinating. She tells me about living in the USA (Washington DC area) during the 60's and 70's as a young woman from Argentina. Eventually she moved back to South America (only to Chile instead of Argentina with her Chilean husband), after three of her four children had been born in the US. Now she his helping her husband cope with amputation of his second leg, relocating where they live, and also helping her youngest daughter leave the nest and start out on her own in Bariloche, Argentina.
Eventually, as it often does when people are asking about our impending visit to southern Chile, the topic of Doug Tomkins comes up. Everyone wants to know if we're going to go visit Doug and Susie. I can understand why it is a primary association for estadounidensos when they think of Chile, but I wasn't expecting every other chileno to ask as well.
In reality, I know far lass about the Tompkins than I probably should. I'm sure I'll learn much more in the upcoming months. I ask Haydee what she thinks about what is going on. I'm not surprised to find that she is suspicious of the motivations of this foreigner who has bought up such vast tracts of pristine real estate. The Tompkins portray themselves as conservation motivated ecologists who are doing the planet a favor with their intention to protect and preserve a beautiful, pristine, and as yet unspoiled part of southern Chile and Argentina.
Given the surreptitious manner (according to Haydee) in which the Tompkins acquired much of the land, creating numerous "ecological institutes" and "organizations," all of which were in essentially just them, all in order to buy up large adjoining tracts piece by piece (without someone like the government realizing that two individuals were gulping up so much land), and the fact that they have been successful and are wealthy foreigners - I think that now many Chileans and Argentineans feel duped and ripped off. This one couple from the US now controls an enormous percentage of the available fresh watershed for these two countries, and if Mr. and Mrs. Environmentalist ever decide to turn into Dr. Evil and his sinister companion (the two descriptions are already synonymous for some), they'll have a lot of people over a barrel.
Come to think of it, whichever tack they take, holding back or "allocating" (selling?) resources, they already have a lot of native Chileans and Argentineans "over a barrel," and no matter what they do they'll make some people very angry. I can certainly understand why people from Chile and Argentina think their governments should be controlling and deciding this sort of thing vs. a single billionaire from another continent. I, like most people I'm sure, just hope the Tompkins are sincere, and that they have the foresight to set up a sensible and workable manner for the control of their land after they die. I suppose the governments could and eventually might invent and invoke some sort of "eminent domain" gobbledygook and just take the land back, as well.
After all this, Haydee tells me "Oh, but you really have to go see the place, it is supposed to be marvelous!" (what do I do? just give him them a call? I think I've heard or read that they run a eco-lodge/estancia kind of place and in addition to being marvelously spectacular and beautiful, it is marvelously expensive as well...)
After lunch it's time for Haydee to fetch her car from a garage and drive back to her home in Limache (about halfway between Santiago and the coast) and for me to schlep through the drizzle and puddles back to my hotel. Thursday night I pack up everything to prepare to leave ChilHotel in the morning, and start getting anxious about picking up the truck and then driving it in Santiago.
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Friday morning comes and I start by walking over to the ContactChile office to look at the boxes of schoolwork and books we've been mailing them (to try and figure out which ones we can leave for later). Jasna is going to drive over to my hotel to fetch me and my luggage and then we'll go get the truck. I want her to bring only the boxes we need right away (as we'll swing back through Santiago again in September). I've been agonizing over how much stuff we're bringing to Chile. Most of it will arrive along with the family on Sunday, and I've been taking a careful look at the spec sheets for the truck and asking my family to measure suitcases and duffle bags.
The initial sanity check, using crude measurements and approximations, says the volume of our stuff is a little bit bigger than the available space, and this is without considering all the camping gear I'm supposed to buy. This makes me a little nervous. The truck seemed so huge when I was originally shopping for vehicles, and now, at least on paper, we're already overflowing it even before we've started shopping for souvenirs! I know we can cram very well, and we've probably over-estimated the volume of our luggage and gear, but it's obvious we'll be loaded to the max. People like Jasna ask me "what are you bringing that takes so much space?" Clothing is part of it, but not that much. In addition to 5 bodies and cold-weather clothing for all of them (it gets cold at 4000 meters altitude at night), there's camping gear, school papers and books, various portable science experiment and project stuff, cameras, a fancy telescope, camcorder and... Hmm, it seems like we're going to be a Jumbo store on wheels.
After I walk back to ChilHotel and lug my luggage down to the lobby, Jasna shows up with her car and we stuff my two large duffels and one normal-sized suitcase into the trunk and back seats of her small sedan. I am relieved that the tires don't rub on the wheel-wells. The weather is grey and dreary but only spitting an occasional tiny speck of drizzle, so I'm relieved that I won't have to perform my "driving in Santiago" initiation in the rain.
At the Toyota dealership, we sit and chat with our salesperson, Pedro, while he has an assistant bring us three cafe cortados. Pedro goes over all sorts of insurance stuff and rules for leaving and re-entering the country and driving in Argentina and how to open and close all the different doors and luggage racks and spare tire holders, etc, etc... As we talk, he methodically hands me more and more important papers, assorted keys, manuals, and bags of accessories. Pretty soon I'm fumbling in all my pockets and spilling 20,000 peso notes, US cash, the various sets of new keys and my passport and credit card and title documents all over the place, nervous and overwhelmed. Pedro and Jasna laugh and suggest that I need a wallet (it was stolen - but perhaps I can buy another!).
Signs in the showroom of the Toyota dealer advertise a security laminant for car windows that supposedly makes them almost impossible to break. I ask the dealer about this product, how well it works and how much it costs, and after he tells me I decide that I may very well want it. Of course it takes a whole day to install. No problem, I'll drive to the mall Sunday and buy everything (after the family arrives and we see just how bad the "fit" problem is), then take the truck back to the dealer on Monday to install the film and sign the "Liability Insurance for Argentina" papers while I'm at it (which the dealer hadn't thought of to arrange beforehand because he didn't know exactly what I needed). Then we can leave Santiago on Tuesday as planned (after we're up all night Monday trying to cram everything in the truck?).
Jasna and I have been at the dealers for about two full hours before I'm ready and about to climb in the truck and drive it off. Just before I do, the dealer says one quick last think to Jasna and she looks over at me.
"There's another thing we forgot about. You have to get a special pass to drive on the highway" (she knows I'll need to do this to pick up the family at the airport and also to leave the city a few days later).
"What? How?" I stammer.
"I'm not sure. We all just buy and use our annual passes, but I know you can buy a pass that let's you drive on the highway for one day. I'm just not sure where."
I try to place the situation in the boundary of extremes. "What happens if I don't have a pass? Is there a gate or toll booth that prevents me from entering? Will sirens sound and someone chase and arrest me?"
"No, it's nothing like that, they just take a picture of your license automatically if you don't have the electronic tag." OK, I get it. No problem actually making the trip but I'd end up with some sort of outstanding freeway-use violation on record. Pedro (the dealer) takes my email and promises to mail me a list of where to buy a "Pase Diario," and finally!, I get in the dang truck, start it up and drive. Of course the tank says "E" (how curious that it doesn't say "V" for "vacio").
I drive as slow as I can without getting honked at, and aside from almost inadvertently getting on the highway once (without a Pase Diario!), I make it to Hotel Director without incident and without running out of fuel. The porters remember me and honor their commitment to take care of me and my shiny new traveling companion, "Joombo the four-wheeled brown whale" - whew!
Up in my room, I fire up the computer and turn on the mobile phone. There is a voice message from Eduardo telling me the bank account is approved as long as I can fax him a copy of my last tax return (I've only done this twice already - but he personally probably never saw it. It's probably on the ScotiaBank public website by now...) At at this late hour I wonder to myself "how will I get checks and an ATM card before leaving Santiago?" He told me they'll have to mail them to another branch in some city we will be visiting soon. It remains to be seen whether this will end up being worth the trouble, but for everyone's sake, I hope it does. Both Haydee and Eduardo put in a lot of effort trying to help and to make this happen for me, and I think Eduardo has stuck his neck out a little. I don't want to let them down, so if the checks and debit card ever arrive, I'll try to use them often.
Within an hour there is an email from Pedro listing the locations and hours of operation for the places to buy a Pase Diario. Only one of them is less than a mile from my hotel, and after a short walk I've discovered that this office is in a supermarket that is closed for renovations. Dang! I'm going to have to either drive somewhere or walk all day Saturday to hunt one of these passes down!
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Saturday turned out successful in almost all respects. The only negative I can think of is that it was dreary again, but still not raining. The locals tell me they desperately need rain, and that to date it has been the driest winter in over 60 years. I drove to the "good mall," entered and exited the parking lot without getting stuck in a covered lot and scraping the luggage racks off the top of the truck. I bought two Pase Diarios at a SirvPac booth under the Joombo (one for Sunday and one for Tuesday), filled up the tank on the drive back to the hotel, walked to a grocery store to buy some fruit and snacks, talked to my parents on the phone, and watched the little icon of an airplane traverse a map between San Francisco and Atlanta on the Delta flight status website, hoping that Lynn, Geoff, Anna, and Tom were safely aboard.
I also studied all of my maps very carefully trying to decide which of the two obvious and seemingly simple routes to take to the airport. Since I would be driving there at 7am on a Sunday morning, I probably shouldn't have been worrying - and when I myself arrived in Santiago almost two weeks ago, the first thing I noticed when I left the airport was a large, open-air, single level, outdoor, uncovered parking lot!
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Finally, they arrived, at 8:15am in the Santiago airport after an overnight flight; disheveled, jet-lagged, cranky, and muddle-minded.
I'm so happy to see them all!
The recently arrived foursome crashed shortly after I made them eat breakfast back at the hotel. I coaxed Anna out of bed at 1pm and after she showered, she and I went to Mall Alto Las Condes and finished the shopping. Back at the hotel, Tom, Geoff, and Lynn reported that they had enjoyed an excellent and large gourmet afternoon dinner at the restaurant around the corner while Anna and I were eating fast food at the food court in the mall. I hope Anna and I can find something good to eat later tonight!
The Vitacura neighborhood of Santiago - a little greener and quieter than Providencia, but still with a lot of traffic on the streets!
Joombo the brown whale.
Anna the jet-lagged teen.
The Jumbo store.
For a someone from the Northern Hemisphere, all you have to do to function properly in the Southern Hemisphere is think backwards (and in a different language if you happen to be in the America's). Summer is Winter so you drive north to go where it's warmer. The moon looks like it's a "C" when it's waning and a "D" when it's waxing vs. the other way around ('cause your' looking at it from the other side). The sun traverses the sky from right to left instead of left to right. Fortunately a right turn on the road is still the same, and Chilenos sensibly drive cars with left-hand steering wheels down the right side of a road. Hey - perhaps I'd better go check which way the water swirls in the sink. I had forgotten to notice before now. Pause..... Well I'm a bit confused to report that, according to what I have been told is a scientifically proven, well understood, and easily-explained phenomenon, the equator must run through my hotel bathroom. The water in the sink swirls counter-clockwise and the toilet flushes the other way.
-Rolf