Valparaíso: Ascensor

"Oda a Valparaíso" by Pablo Neruda

Valparaíso, / qué disparate / eres, / qué loco, / puerto loco, / qué cabeza / con cerros, / desgreñada, / no acabas / de peinarte, / nunca / tuviste / tiempo de vestirte, / siempre te sorprendió / la vida / te despertó la muerte, / en camisa, / en largos calzoncillos / conflecos de colores, / desnudo / con un nombre / tatuado en la barriga, / y con sombrero, / te agarró el terremoto, / corriste / enloquecido, / te quebraste las uñas, / se movieron / las aguas y las piedras, / las veredas, / el mar

Translated by: Laney Sullivan and Lonely Planet

Valparaíso, / how absurd / you are / what a crazy / insane port. / Your disheveled head / you haven't / combed your hair, / you've never / had / time to get dressed, / life / has always / surprised you /  Death woke you up / in your undershirt and long underwear /  fringed in color / naked / with a name / tattooed on  your stomach / and a cap / the earthquake grabbed you / you ran / mad / broke your fingernails / it moved / the waters and the stones / sidewalks / and seas

Pablo Neruda got it right: Valparaíso is disheveled, crazed, chaotic, more dirty than clean (except for the very respectable Cerros Alegre and Concepción), and much poorer than its respectable and manicured sister up the road, Viña del Mar.   I head over from Viña to Valpo every day on the Metro after dropping Z off at school, and I work at PUCV just beyond Muelle Baron,  but I don't spend nearly enough time exploring the city.  

It's a port town.  Before the Panama Canel, it was the port of call for ships after they rounded Tierra del Fuego.   Darwin spent a lot of time here and spoke highly of it, and the British have left an indelible, though fading, mark.   Despite its down-on-its-luck appearance, it is a vibrant place of commerce and art, and it is one of the most intriguing places I've ever visited.  

One of the most original and probably best known features of Valpo are its many ascensors or funiculars--45-degree elevators built in the early twentieth century to get people up the San Francisco-like hills that rise up the Plan. Here's a 30-second video of an ascensor that I took early in my stay. For 100 pesos (20 cents), you can walk through the original turnstiles and board what seem like the original cars operating on the original tracks using, perhaps, the original cables,  not always with the greatest of confidence in the safety of this means of conveyance.

Ascensors are not just quaint relics of the past, though.  Modern buildings in Viña and Reñaca have included ascensors as part of a peculiar-looking buildings along hillsides.

Santiago

Santiago: yes, with smog but also a great public transportation
system, parks, museums, the tallest building in South America,
the Andes towering over all.  From the top of San Cristobal park.

Lots of songs list cities;  immediately (before my wi-fi disappears!) I'm thinking of  "Dancing in the Streets" (I grew up with Van Halen's version) and Melissa Ferrick's "Welcome to my Life,"  but the song I'm thinking of in terms of Santiago is Steve Earle's "Fort Worth Blues," because it has the line "Houston ain't that bad a town."  Well, I don't think Santiago is either.  Ok, I'm not an authority on the capital of six million souls, but I've been back and forth enough to know that it has as many redeeming factors about it as Atlanta or Detroit do (which presupposes that I don't think they are that bad either).

I guess growing up in Detroit then traveling to other cities, and reading about New Urbanism has lead me to experiencing cities and thinking how they function.  I've always liked thinking about the "syntax" of streets--how the different properties and the building/landscaping on them work together or not.  I have come to understand that mixed-used development was the organic pattern of cities until the proliferation of the private automobile.  I have no delusions about cities:  I know they are magnets for the economically disenfranchised as well as the entrepreneurs, and I know that those two groups aren't mutually exclusive, but that great poverty prevails in huge cities.

Santiago has a few major factors working against it besides it being the hub of this ridiculously elongated country.  The first is that it is in a bowl, like L.A.  Sitting in the bottom of a valley between the coastal mountains and the Andes, pollution is generated in Santiago and stays there. And then there are the earthquakes that periodically erase things.  Still, it has the bones of an exceptional place.  The Mapocho River runs through the city and provides for various bridges that cross the admittedly unappealing channel.  The river also has provided for ample boulevards lined with continuous parks.  San Cristobal is an impressive urban park that gives panoramic views of the city and offers the super ascensor/funicular as well as a running and cycling haven.  Santa Lucia is also an incredible park wedged into the most interesting part of the city.

Skirting Santa Lucia is my favorite street in Santiago--Calle Lastarria.  It is short and meandering.  From La Alameda (properly called O'Higgins), it is easy to miss Lastarria as a minor side street across from Pontificia Universidad Católica, but turn the corner and you are in a European-flavored Latin America neighborhood street of shops, restaurants, pedestrians, calm traffic, bikes, and funky buildings.

The cousin-It building on Calle Lastarria

Co-workers speak of Santiago as I speak of Atlanta (I know I contradict myself), but I think that my repeated trips to it have provided me for a case to appreciate a real city that functions in a difficult location and for a country that has very different circumstances than those that are home to the world's great capitals.