Chile – Red Branch Chronicles

Sunday, Bloody Monday.

I was listening to some music recently – ‘ Ever since the British burned the White House down*’ and I was reminded of the time – long ago now – when I burned the British Embassy down! That’s a pretty bold statement and i suppose I’d better backtrack and try to sketch in the situation. Even the most outlandish things can be tempered by the situation. Can’t they?

It was 1972, I think and I was repeating my first year of University in a predominantly Catholic country of the 26 counties, aka The Republic of Eire so I had plenty of time on my hands. We had Protestant neighbours of course – I can remember two different families on the square where I lived, one of which consisted of three teenage girls ranging in age from 14 – 19, while the other family were, to say the least, an odd bunch, with the son, about my age, engaged in taking apart an oily motorbike on the carpet in the bedroom of his three story home. Needless to say, I spent more time with the girls who lived diagonally opposite my house at the time.

Anyway, the ‘troubles’ were on the rise in the six counties, aka Northern Ireland, a legal part of the United Kingdom with England, Wales and Scotland and predominantly Protestant with a sizeable Catholic population. Unbelievably, just over four decades ago, basic civil rights were not equable among the differing religious groups and the situation fermented from its much older republican roots into a civil rights / independence movement. The situation that year continued to deteriorate but I, snug in university life far to the south of the troubles, was rarely impacted by the casual but small time slaughter that was becoming a daily occurrence in ‘the North’. One of my sister’s friends was a nurse working in a hospital in Belfast but came home to discover her fiancé shot in the head while still in bed!

Interestingly, some of my fellow students here in the south were from Northern Ireland and on a better government stipend than most were in the republic but I certainly don’t ever remember discussing politics with them. They were just mates but then we were all safe in The South. As the months rolled on, it became increasingly apparent that the presence of the British Army in the Six Counties as a policing force was not working. And then, on a memorable day – to my shame I can’t remember the day or the month but I think it was around late winter, early spring 1972 – a civil rights demonstration calling for one person, one vote was stoped by the British Paratroopers. I am not sure what happened next, bu stones were thrown and immediately the Paras reacted, opening fire and killing more than a dozen at point blank range. I remember watching on the tv news – both Irish and English channels and seeing a middle aged man, crouching forward, holding up a white handkerchief while he tried to assist someone already wounded. Was he a clergy man? I don’t remember but he was shot too. I suppose it was a taste of what daytime tv could broadcast into your living room – the front line where people fought and died.

I remember the shock we all felt and the next day, all classes were called off by the Student Representative Council (SRC) – we didn’t have a student union at that time – and a protest march was planned for lunchtime, leaving the suburban campus at Belfield and marching into the city centre to protest outside the British Embassy on Merrion Square in the heart of Georgian Dublin at the wanton killings by the Paras at the civil rights march in Derry, (not LondonDerry)

Delighted to be released from the symbolism of something like Moby Dick, I was more than happy to dessert the lecture theatres and the library – God forbid that I’d have been caught there – and join the mob clustering around the student pub near the artificial lake. After some shuffling, griping, moaning, etc, the whole student body began to trudge off. Regular stops became part of the journey as public phone boxes were pillaged and the Yellow Pages torn out, and burnt in piles at significant crosspoints on our way into town. Yellow Pages, apparently, were funded by the CIA who had just engineered the downfall of Salvatore Allende in Chile and that seemed like a good reason.

I had rarely been on a protest or demonstration match before but because of my lusty voice someone from the SRC caught a glimpse of me and gave me a hastily improvised armband of ‘ steward’ and a bull horn.Obviously it was a sombre affair but I remember it as one of fun and expressionism.

There was solid line of Gardai Siochana – the local Irish police force – lined up three or four deep in front of the embassy steps up to the gracious Gerogian building, one linked in an elegant tree-lined square around a private park, reserved, I think, for the nearby Archbishop’s residence.

On arrival at the square, other groups – unions, transport, secondary and tertiary level groups and masses of others – surged around the railings while the implacable police remained impassive.

Speeches were made from the back of ha halfback truck from an emotional man and then as the early dusk and light rain began, the first serious attacks on the building started. Somehow, someone managed to evade the police, scale the railings and climb up the front of the building to one of the first floor wrought-iron balconies.. Swinging what looked like a hammer, he struck at the window only to have it bounce back and strike him in the head, toppling him backwards.

A skinhead kid ran up to me, a dripping brown flagon in his hard.

‘Yis got a ligh’? and obediently, I flicked my lighter and lit my first ever Molotov cocktail. The kid ran forwards but the soft misty rain had slicked the pavement and he slipped as he hurled the flagon which crashed and exploded few metres in front, doing little or no damage but that may well have been a signal for a wave of molotovs which forced the police into a baton wielding charge. That probably gave others the chance to hurl more molotovs into the basement recess areas while someone else managed to scale the first floor balcony and succeed in smashing the window so more molotovs could be hurled inside.

In the swirling mess of the light rain, dusk, the smoke and acrid stench of petrol and burning, the crowds pushing and shoving one way and another, I ran like a headless chicken, calling for my friend when suddenly a burly copper loomed in front of me, his baton already on the downswing. I collapsed where I stood and the blow landed almost painlessly on my shoulder as I swerved away in search of Donal. Across the main road away, from the mayhem in front of the embassy, was my father’s hospital in Holles Street, although he always insisted that it be called The National Maternity Hospital of Dublin. I darted in there where the ambulances waited before finally venturing out, my shoulder beginning to ache now. Most of the crowd seemed to hav left although there was strong police presence again in front of the embassy while firemen forlornly tried to hose down the internal conflagration.

I got a bus home and managed to avoid any questions from my parents by leaving my smelly coat out in the tool shed in the garden while I muttered something about a headache from studying and went up to bed.

* Bob Dylan, Tempest, Narrow Way

South America Summary

A rather amazing trip, from Cuba in the far north, down to Ecuador and on to Peru, where I ate guinea pig, alpaca and llama, missing out on Machu Pichu but taking a 22 hour bus ride from Lima up to Cusco in the heart of the Andes. Over then to Lake Titicaca and a boat trip out to the weird, artificial islands of floating reeds and over the border into Bolivia where the bus seemed to climb endlessly and I lay sprawled in my seat, munching coca leaves and gasping for breath as we topped 4800 metres. A gradual descent then, of only 200 metres towards La Paz, only to find the city blocaded by local indigenous people who had thrown up ramparts of earth and rubble blocking the main highway into the city. Eventually we had to stop and take on an Incan guide who showed the bus driver how to thread his way rough narrow, grimy back streets until we eventually arrived, me exhausted and still panting, in La Paz. The next day, the whole city ground to a standstill as angry miners paraded through the city centre, while heavily armed police with pump-action grenade launchers stood on every street corner, heavy steel chains in their hands ready to seal off any street disturbance. The next day it was the turn of the students and again the city centre was paralysed. Enough was enough for me, and, still breathless, I managed to get a bus out and south, although that took unneccesary hours as again we had to thread our way past endless blockades. Finally, a train, one of the noisiest and decrepit trains I have ever been on, down as far as the Argentinian border. What a relief – an ordered, organised city with working traffic lights, freeways and highway diamonds and gorgeous wine. Even better was the black market In foreign currency – the official rate for US dollars being about 9 pesos to the dollar. Unofficially, the rate was about 16 to the dollar, and quite openly so – touts hanging around outside banks and exchanges. Made quite a difference to the budget and was able to afford some very decent wine. On from Salta, on the border into serious wine country, thought the most magnificent canyon and arid countryside to the little town of Cafayate where I spent more than a week eating huge steaks and plundering their bodegas. Down to Tucuman and Córdoba (cities I had never heard of, where accomodation was hard to come by as it was the middle of an exceptionally long holiday weekend. On again to Mendoza , the real heart of Argentinean wine and more steaks, huge 500 g slabs of bleeding cow on a plate washed down with more than a bottle of red wine. Bliss. I seem to have adopted a paleolithic style diet where all I ate was meat – no veg or fruit, just meat and gulped wine.

I made enquirers about a bus over the Andes to Santiago in Chile, only to be informed that all bus services over the Andes between Mendoza and Santiago had been suspended due to bad weather and snow. So more steak and red wine and eventually I managed to get a ticket for Saturday but no guarantee that the bus would run the 8 hour trip.

What a ride! Probably the most exciting and certainly most scenic bus trip I have ever taken.

Finally the end of the trip approaching in the form of Santiago, Chile and I could breath again, altitude a mere 480 metres only. A few days there, more steaks, and yes, more red wine but now that I have arrived in Valpariaso, it is gorgeous seared tuna fish with a salad of avocado, asparagus and tomato and white wine.

I must admit, with tales of the Gringo Trail in mind, I was expecting to be offered tons of coke and weed, but it was a surprisingly sober trip. I bought a gram of coke in Ecuador for $15 and approached it with trepidation, rolling up $100 bills in expectation. I thought it might be best to do it straight and then go for a beer and that is what I did. A tiny bit of speed, maybe, and nothing else.

Bought another gram somewhere else and marginally better – I was only doing this, of course to help with the breathing. Somewhere else, in one of the hostels, got chatting with one of the guys working there, I think he was a Brit, and he invited me to share an actual lump of coke which was – I think – much better but as I stayed up until 5:00 am, I’m not too sure. I then had to face a 14 hour bus trip so I was a subdued little man for a while.

General Observations

Cuba – very fat ladies squeezed in to tight Lycra pants; very generous measures of rum; great music in the bars, mildewed buildings.

Ecuador – organised and efficient, gorgeous ceviche, panic buttons in this taxis, dry Sundays!

Peru – no pepper in restaurants, crap coffee, grey Pacific, rum served with whipped egg white, coca leaves for chewing with a lump of stevia (to help with altitude), super clean wet markets, amazing displays of fruit, veg never seen before, enormous servings of meat, inca women with very long plaited hair, shawls and bowler hats perched on their heads

Bolivia – a shambles, road blocks condoning off La Paz from the outskirts, erected by local indigenous in protest at …, huge street protests in La Paz, seriously armed police with pump action tear gas shotguns, trouble breathing most of the time.

Argentine – easy border crossing with no paperwork at all, bus searched by troops at a military checkpoint, huge highways and flyovers, a modern country (compared to Cuba and Bolivia), a black market in U.S. Dollars.

Chile – Lovely wines – Colchuagua Valley (despite the fact that I never made that pilgrimage) being one of my favourites.

Lounged my time away in Valparaiso and small coastal towns like Viña del Mar, bravong myself for the long flight actoss the pacific to Sydney na d onwards to perth.

Cuba and Beyond – part 6

CHILE

I arrived in Santiago after I dragged my beef and wine sodden carcass on to a coach in Mendoza for the most amazing and hair raising bus ride over the Andes to Santiago in Chile. Definitely one of the highlights of this trip so far, with the coach following the original route of Los Liberadores. They first crossed over the Andes on their march to kick the Spanish out of Chile way back in January 1817, gallantly led by San Martin and his illegitimate half-Irish sidekick, Bernardo O’Higgins. The Paso Los Libertadores is now the main transport route connecting the city of Mendoza to the Chilean capital, Santiago via Aconcagua, aka ‘High Mountain’.

I didn’t really notice the bus climbing up into the Andes, it was all so gradual and easy, faraway snow capped mountains seemed like they were from another planet and then we were in the midst of them.

Upstairs in the very front of the bus with two spacious seats to myself (super executivo class), the views were absolutely breathtaking while we weaved and slithered through snow-capped mountains.

An easy crossover at Las Cuevas the border point between Argentine and Chile and then, from the Chilean side, the most, incredible series of at least 30 sheer hairpin bends where the bus was reduced to a 5kph crawl with snow and ice on both sides the road, one of which was a sheer drop to the bottom of the world, while the mountains towered over and all around us. Mind blowing and me panting away as usual.

A magnificent central Plaza des Armas in Santiago that my taxi from the bus station was unable to completely navigate, for reasons best known to its surly driver. Decided to celebrate my safe arrival in Chile by having a boozy seafood lunch in the central fish market in Santiago. I have almost got tired of my semi-Palaeolithic diet of red wine and huge, thick and juicy steaks with an occasional cup of coffee so have decided to move on to the fish. I started off with a Pisco Sour – no sign of the egg white here – and then a bottle of Chilean Sauvignon Blanco Leon de Tarapaca, to accompany this huge plate of albacore covered in a salsa Santa Margarita, which appears to be small prawns and rings of squid in a white sauce, bread and a spicy dip of toms and onions and god knows what else.

Disputed with the waiter as to whether the fish was albacore, aka Spanish Mackerel. It certainly wasn’t the usual, across the backbone, cut of albacore with the central spine bone. See how wrong you can be! The waiter graphically explained, much flashing of sharp knives and glinting teeth, that my cut was “un filetto“, vertically along the spine. Not sure I liked his grazing the back of my neck with his filet knife, so I agreed with his conclusion of “Bueno, bonito y barato.” He then presented with a gratuitous, but vile looking, glass of green stuff, “una menthe,” as a digestivo.

Plaza des Armas – where I’m staying in this funky place right on the square -seems like a mad place. Last night as I wandered around it was packed with punters, hop off my thumbs, jugglers, tricksters and fly by nights – wonderful. Fountains, palm trees and mad fellas – a bit like Hyde Park corner.

Despite my sudden change of diet to fish and white wine, I decided to have a relaxing afternoon, sitting by the open window of my 4th floor hostel looking out over Plaza des Armas in the very centre of Santiago while enjoying a bottle of superb Viu Manent Cab Sauvignon from one of my favourite vineyards – Colchagua Valley and thinking about where to go for my last week of semi indulgence.

Sunday night was a bit quiet here, rather like Ecuador. I went out around 10 pm for a quiet drink in the only place open in Plaza de Armas. I ordered a pint of beer for a change and was absorbed reading in a cafe with maybe four or five other tables scattered around. I rather rudely ignored some mad punter who came up to my table and started jabbering away at me. I didn’t even look up until suddenly he grabbed my pint and started swilling it down. (Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks – “you’re drinking my beer and I’m gonna punch your teeth out”). I rather surprised myself by erupting, like an angry belch, up on the hind legs and grabbing him by the shirtfront, one arm raised to punch his lights out while roaring, in English of course, “I’ll f@#king kill you, you c**t”. Startled by my violent reaction, he twisted away while other punters at the outdoor cafe applauded and the waitress bustled over apologising and whisking my (nearly finished) pint off for a fresh one. No harm done, I suppose and a free pint, so I can’t complain. A promenade around the square later on, a surprising number of punters wrapped up in rugs, sleeping on the long park benches, despite police patrolling fairly regularly.

Probably going to stay another night here before heading off – perhaps- to Valparaiso. I suppose I could end up anywhere in my last few days. A different ball game to all the places that I have been to so far. First impressions, a bit of a laugh here, I like it.

One hour forty five minutes by bus from Santiago and arrived in Valparaiso shortly after12 noon. The first guest house was looking for 36,000 pesos a night so I moved a bit down market, private room with bathroom across the hall for 15,000. I’ll stay two nights and then look for something else – maybe at Viña del Mar, just down the road. Lovely to be beside the ocean again, although I am looking down at it as my hostel is up quite a steep hill but with no altitude, no problem.

Drinking a 750 ml bottle of Altamirs Amber ale, lovely but a bit pricey at $15 Australian. Waiting for a “tun de mediterraneo” for lunch. “Que rico” (as they say here.) The place looks great, hundreds of hills and houses clustered around, all the colours of the rainbow. Pleasantly warm at the moment, t-shirt weather.

Valparaiso must be one of the most perpendicular cities I have ever been in. Hugging the coast, it clings to sheer hills that are accessed by elevators! Everywhere is a blaze of colour from the murals – think Banksy – on walls and hoarding and even the steps leading to my pensione. A stroll along the beach at Vina del Mar where the pelicans clusters at Castillo Wulff before returning to a tiny bar to watch the rugby between South Africa and New Zealand. Managed to swill down three pints in the company of a few South Africans.

Rather a nice dinner later that night but then at a bit of a loose end – choices – drink more here or somewhere else, go to bed (it’s only 10:15pm) wander around lost, find a cafe and drink coffee and read my book or back to the hostel to hang around until Lethe wards I sink

Leaving Valparaiso tomorrow for Santiago to catch my long haul flight back to Perth. I may very well have to go on the dry for a few days to recover my lissom figure. Goodbye South America probably for the very last time.

Ceviche

I mentioned in a previous post somewhere that I had been looking forward to trying a Peruvian national dish, cuy al horno – roast guinea pig – but overall, I’d have to say I prefer the dish more commonly eaten down on the coast – ceviche. Chunks of white fish in a spicy lime marinade – tiger’s milk – served with an variety of corn kernels and chopped veg. Absolutely gorgeous and so perfect for a hot summer’s day.

Here’s my take on it. For this particular serving, this is exactly what I used: 320g of firm white grouper fillet, two tomatoes, 1/2 a red, 1/2 green capsicum, one small Lebanese cucumber and 1/4 of a red onion, three limes and one lemon with 1/4 teaspoon of coarse sea salt crystals and one chopped red chili, corn chips and popcorn

The basic ingredients, which remained the same as far down as Santiago in Chile, are:

Any firm, white fish with ½ cup of lime juice for each 500g or pound of fish.

Red onion, chopped and as much seeded capsicum (any colour), toms, red onion and cucumber as you like, lime juice, salt and a red chili, coriander or mint or both, corn chips or popcorn and sliced avocados.

Check the fillet for skin, bones and the dark red bloodline, if any. Depending on thickness, cut the fish into large, even chunks or slice into thin pieces and put into a glass or ceramic dish along with enough lime juice, (approx. 1/2 cup per 500g fish), sea salt and finely chopped chilies to completely cover. Set aside and chill.

I put the chopped veg in a separate dish, sprinkled with olive oil and a dash of freshly ground pepper. I didn’t want to put the veg and fish in the same dish so as the veg can keep their colour and not blanch in the lime marinade.

When the fish becomes translucent, whiter in color and opaque, drain off the marinade and mix the fish gently with the chopped veg.

I gave the fish about 90 minutes and then straining it and reserving the marinade. A thick chunk of fish was cooked through to the consistency of medium rare meat. If you like it more well done, give it up to four hours in the lime marinade.

I spooned some of the veg mixture into a bowl, ladled a scoop of the drained fish on top, and sprinkled with chopped coriander and popcorn, with corn chips around the dish. I forgot the avocado!

I suppose some might be put off by the amount of limejuice – too acidic, I can hear people say. However, limes and lemons while acidic of course, somehow become alkaline when consumed and besides use only as much of the strained marinade – tiger milk – as you feel comfortable with.