Today’s story came from Luis after breakfast. He told us of his father, an orphan at age 11 with no one to care for him. Somehow he managed to survive, marry and father a family. With little education he took whatever jobs he could find. This was in the 1950s and 1960s when, according to Luis, Chile was a country of abject misery and suffering. His wife was uneducated and so he taught her how to read and write.
Luis’s father took a job as a janitor for a Santiago newspaper. This was at the time of the military coup in 1973 that unseated the democratically elected Marxist, Salvador Allende. Unfortunately the newspaper was a leftist publication. Luis’s father was swept up in the cleansing of Marxist-leaning citizens and spent 10 years in a concentration camp. Somehow he survived and all of his children graduated from university. His father died at age 68 of cancer. His mother is still living.
We have a local guide, Alejandra, who conducted our two hikes yesterday. She is licensed to guide not only tourists like us but also trekkers – those who do Appalachian trail kind of outings. She’s very knowledgeable, interesting and a good hiking companion. She, like yesterday, gave us three options for today’s hike: stay home, a short walk or a long walk. Judy and Sharon chose the short walk and dawdled their way back, admiring nature, sitting by a babbling brook and taking pictures. I, of course, chose the challenge trek. The only problem was that when we reached our goal Alejandra informed us that what was supposed to take 45 minutes took us an hour and a half. Too much admiring nature, sitting by a babbling brook and taking pictures. they arrived back at base camp 15 minutes before we did.
Alejandra sat with us after our (third) bag lunch. She said (paraphrasing), “I am the daughter of the military dictatorship. It had certain advantages. I to this day don’t have a taste for anything sweet. As a child we had no sugar. I learned how to live without, not a bad lesson for anyone to learn.”
This afternoon we went horseback riding around the estancia for an hour. Judy (horse allergies) and one other stayed home. The horses were mostly well behaved although one of our number took a tumble when her not-so-faithful steed started galloping to catch up with the group ahead. She wasn’t hurt although she said she’d probably feel it in the morning. Otherwise it was an enjoyable adventure.
Before dinner, Luis gave us a carefully prepared history lesson, starting from the misery of the 1960s and 1970s, the Allende Marxist government, the military coup (ending the longest-lasting democracy second only to the U.S.), the Pinochet dictatorship, and the reestablishment of successive democratic administrations, successively socialist and conservative to the present time. My bottom line, which Luis seemed to agree with, is that today Chile is in a much better place than it was pre-Allende. The suffering that got Chile to its present condition was immense and there could have been much better ways to reach today but, nonetheless, the suffering endured by Chileans, including Luis and his family, is perhaps partially rewarded by today’s Chile.
Tomorrow we hit the bus for what will probably be a nine hour ride to Calafate, Argentina. Adios, Chile!
