Less than two years ago, one of Chile's most iconic poblaciones (the common term for poor neighborhoods or barrios) marked it's first half-century - 50 years since the very early morning of when a thousands of residents of the most destitute parts of southern Santiago moved to take an overgrown fairground that the government had slated for the construction of a wealthy housing community. The dawn of October 30, 1957, found over 3,000 people already setting up tents and organizing resources after having crept past the cordon of policemen charged with keeping these very pobladores from realizing this populist project, which had been brewing for over a year as the conditions in the city's poorest communities deteriorated rapidly.
Nearly 52 years later, the residents of the Población La Victoria - named for "la victoria contra la miseria" ["the victory over misery"] - still frame their history and their present identity in terms of "la lucha", or "the fight". There is an enormous pride that comes from living in this barrio, despite it's economic poverty - an enormous pride to being a "victoriano", which, besides signifying someone from La Victoria, translates roughly to "victor" - "one who is victorious". Murals plaster the walls of the población, documenting the community's vicious fight against the dictatorship of Pinochet and its militant leftist leanings, and the barrio is also home to South America's first community TV station, which runs a pirate signal with programs and documentaries about the history of La Victoria, the resistance during the dictatorship, and political events and movements today, in addition to running a small community communications night-school which focuses on training young victorianos how to tell the stories of their community and how to keep memories alive.
I've been lucky enough to spend almost all of the past week in this incredible community, observing and participating in the elementary school that the victorianos founded two years after the creation of La Victoria. Despite its nationalized curriculum and all of the red tape required by the state to run the school and receive the money for its operations, this school manages to retain the sense of being "victoriana": the kids are proud to be from this community, and moreover, the gate to the school is almost always open. Parents move freely throughout the school, kids run in and out of the director's office all day, and the community itself still takes enormous pride in what the school signifies for La Victoria and in the principles it was founded upon - the idea that education is in itself a part of the fight against the forces that drove the pobladores to organize and create this community 52 years ago - a fight that reached its peak under the dictatorship but which continues to be relevant in a country with one of the highest indices of economic inequality in the world.
When Charles Darwin landed in Valparaíso on the coast of Chile in 1834, he headed inland to a bell-shaped summit that, at 1,880 m (or some 6,200 ft.), jutted up from the ridges of the Andes that make their way from the border with Argentina towards the coast. From the top of this mountain, Cerro La Campana, he said that you could see Chile "as in a map", so it was to the park built around this peak, Parque Nacional La Campana, that I headed with a friend to finally take a serious trip into the Andes and break in all my new gear before I set out traveling and backpacking for 5 weeks when my program ends June 8.
From Santiago, the park's gateway town, Olmué, which is a lovely little place in it's own right, is only a 2-hour bus ride that costs about $10 round trip. From there, after some empanadas and fresh fruit juice (I decided to go for the "tuna", a sweet cactus fruit with a flavor kind of similar to honeydew), you can catch a smaller bus (60 cents) to within a kilometer of the entrances to 2 of the 3 sectors of the park: Sector Cajón Grande and Sector Granizo. After an accidental detour to the Cajón Grande entrance, we headed to Sector Granizo, planning to camp Sunday night and possibly head up La Campana on Monday until we found out that the last third of that particular trail was closed because of the earthquake. Still, we set up our tent and explored a little before cooking up a delicious dinner of curried rice with mushrooms and sautéd onions and bell pepper and hitting the sleeping bags.
I have to hand it to CONAF, the Chilean government's parks and conservation branch: they've done a wonderful job with this park. The campsites in Sector Granizo are strung out along a series of trails and usually built in rough terraces so that they're spacious without intruding too much on the landscape, and the actual trails achieve a similar effect: well-kept and well-planned without feeling too touristy or too intrusive. And between the wildlife - we saw a giant, tarantula-like spider, some wild cows, and a variety of hawks - and the incredible views, you could really spend a few days here even though the trail system isn't all that extensive. But since the route up La Campana was closed, we headed up Sendero Portezuelo, where the trails from all 3 sectors of the park meet in a saddle right below a huge, rocky peak, offering incredible views back towards the east and into and past the valley of Sector Ocoa (see picture above), one of the two places left in the country where you can see wild Chilean palms.
Unfortunately, we were a little pressed for time and had to bound back down the way we came, but with the park opening up to ridge after ridge of dry, arid mountains, I'm hoping to make every effort to make my way back before I head back to the States. For now, I'm back in Santiago with happily backpack-bruised hips and a small taste of what I'm in for when I head out on my own a month from now.
[So the picture here is entirely irrelevant, I just like it. It was on the wall in the radio station that I talked about in my last post. I guess in some way, the poster is somewhat related to what I'm writing about, but we'll see how it turns out.]
Unfortunately, preparing for a camping trip here in Chile (or at least in Santiago) isn't quite as easy as making the hop over to LL Bean or, in Asheville, as dropping by Diamond Brand, Black Dome, or even Mast General Store to pick up a large spoon to cook with or a canister of white gas. "Outdoors" stores here are "[insert a general topic] and Camping". "Deportes y Camping" [Sports and Camping] or "Armería y Camping" [Firearms and Camping]. In the last 5 hours, I've been in 2 fishing stores, 2 firearms stores, and a host of general athletics stores only to realize that the stoves and faded sleeping bags stuffed into the corners of their displays are the only "camping" equipment that they carried.
That said, walking back from the grocery store, where I managed to find a spatula and the ingredients to make brownies for my host mom's birthday tomorrow (she's been asking me to make them ever since I got here), I was thoroughly frustrated. The display in a pharmacy caught my eye - kitchenware - so I slowed my angry power-walk a little, went inside, and headed toward the back, where I managed to find absolutely nothing that I needed. It was only about 5 minutes after I had left the store when I realized the ridiculousness of what I had been doing and started to laugh: there I was, a pale, crazy-haired gringo (I hadn't showered yet) in the kitchenware section of this cramped pharmacy towering about a foot (at least) over clustered chilean women who were just trying to buy some silverware or pick out a good kitchen set while I was scrambling through every corner trying to find a large spoon, with my backpack, heavy with the brownie-fixins, swinging around and probably connecting with a few unfortunate ladies.
So, now that I'm happy again and laughing at myself, I'm going to put off working on my independent study project and go rummage through a bunch of shady auto-parts stores to try to find some white gas for my camp stove.
Less than two years ago, one of Chile's most iconic poblaciones (the common term for poor neighborhoods or barrios) marked it's first half-century - 50 years since the very early morning of when a thousands of residents of the most destitute parts of southern Santiago moved to take an overgrown fairground that the government had slated for the construction of a wealthy housing community. The dawn of October 30, 1957, found over 3,000 people already setting up tents and organizing resources after having crept past the cordon of policemen charged with keeping these very pobladores from realizing this populist project, which had been brewing for over a year as the conditions in the city's poorest communities deteriorated rapidly.
