Valpo Part 2 -- Musings on music, food & Neruda

While exploring the market I was amused to hear Bob Marley - Redemption Song playing, a song I heard just hours later while eating an once (which literally means 11 but here refers to a late-afternoon tea (in the British sense, meaning tea or coffee with snacks). In fact, I’ve been amazed at the near-ubiquitous presence of English-language (usually American) music here in South America. In Cuzco the wandering minstrels we befriended played a lot of American rock -- and classic stuff at that: Beatles, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Chuck Berry, etc.

In fact two of our Peruvian friends met while playing in a Beatles cover band in Lima. (Strangely enough the one who can speak fairly decent English can’t seem to pronounce English lyrics while singing, while the one who speaks almost no English nails the pronunciation of the lyrics.) In my travels to Asia and Europe I never heard as many songs that were familiar to me, so it has been a real surprise. Not to say the artist Manu Chao (who actually was born in France to Spanish parents but strongly identifies with South America and most often sings in Spanish) isn’t ridiculously popular here -- and deservingly so, I have come to adore his songs; but he’s also very popular in the States with Latinos. During our time in Cuzco we also heard many of our friends play well-known Argentine songs (the musicos from that country seem to have an amazing amount of talent) but I remain extremely surprised at the popularity of American tunes.

Despite reading that Chilean food doesn’t have a distinct identity, I’ve sure had some tasty treats. My once completa today consisted of un café (which wasn’t instant -- a real rarity for this country), sopaipillas (batter-and-squash fried concoctions), chicken-and-palta (avocado) and jamon y queso sandwiches, and a piece of chocolate cake, all for about $6.50. Chile is the most expensive country in South America, though, so while that was a good deal for here, it would be pricey elsewhere on the continent. Not like Niki and I didn’t treat ourselves to good meals in Cuzco, though -- at least at first before we became semi-permanent residents!

I did the same yesterday after walking for hours on just the bread-fruit-and-ham breakfast the hostel provides. I conveniently realized I was by Caruso, a seafood bistro by the well-known chef Tomas Olivera, so I stopped in about 3:30 p.m. for the empanada plate (which came with a mixture of fillings: cheese, ground beef & onion, and my favorite -- seafood) and chupe de mariscos, a seafood casserole cooked in a clay bowl with a gooey sauce of butter, cheese and spices topped with a breadcrumb crust. It was too much food, but I knew I was blowing my food budget for the entire day (and indeed, I never did get hungry the rest of the day) so I ate all of it. The strange thing was, though, that they didn’t offer any white wines by the glass -- only reds -- which I found quite odd for a restaurant that specializes in seafood. So the waiter recommended Tiger beer, which when it came I realized I had drank before and was from Singapore. Ha, so there I was washing down locally caught seafood with a beer imported from Asia.

Another strange beverage story was when I stopped into a café in El Plan, the flat part of Valpo, last night and asked for a particular Sauvignon Blanc from the nearby Casablanca Valley. The waitress had it, but not cold, so I drank it at warm temperature, which is actually what a lot of wine professionals prefer since chilling whites mask their flavor. It was good and makes me look forward to the wine tour I’m hitching a ride on manana. But both of these culinary experiences -- along with the wi-fi and water troubles -- serve as reminders that as much as Chile is modern, it’s still in the developing world, and as much as Valpo reminds me of the Bay Area, it doesn’t have our well-developed foodie culture.

The last stop of my last two days walking about Valpo was La Sebastiana, the home that native poet, diplomat, and Nobel-prize winner Pablo Neruda kept in this city. The five-level house (which was actually only four levels when Neruda and his mistress used it; the first floor is now the greeting/informational area) contains very small floors filled with oil paintings of famous European royalty and ships, glassware, maps, stained glass, tile mosaics and distinct furniture -- including custom-made wicker table and chairs patterned after a set Neruda saw in Asia and La Nube, the poet’s beloved armchair that he would sit in for hours and survey the bay. A pink-walled alcove contains a bar with a motley array of glassware (bottles, glasses, and goblets abound) as well as other knick-knacks. Neruda loved to spend New Year’s Eve in La Sebastiana and during those and other parties would personally serve as the bartender. His love of parties and entertaining his friends extended to him appearing in disguise -- often several in one night -- during the festivities.

But he wasn’t just a hedonist, he was also a politician and diplomat who helped anti-fascists take refuge in Chile during the Spanish Civil War and was elected to the senate as a member of the Communist Party. He was exiled when the president outlawed the party in 1946, growing a beard to disguise himself as he fled on horseback through the Andes to Argentina. He then spent time in Europe and Asia and eventually when the political climate changed he returned and was a presidential candidate in 1969 before pulling out to support Salvador Allende, who after he won appointed Neruda ambassador to France. Neruda also served as served as an ambassador to Burma and Spain. Just days after Pinochet’s 1973 coup during which Allende was killed, Neruda also died, technically of cancer but also often thought due to a broken heart over the fate of his country falling into the hands of what would become a brutal dictatorship.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm to see much of Santiago, I will definitely make Neruda’s house in the capital, La Chascona, one of my priorities. Unfortunately no photos were allowed in La Sebastiana, and upon trying to sneak a few I managed to turn off the function on my camera that shows the display and didn‘t figure out how to turn it back on until hours later. Karma is such a bitch…