Tramp Royale (14 page)

When we reached Santiago, the young man in front of us, the train butcher, the assistant conductor, and several passengers all told us that it was time to get off. "Taxi" and "Hotel Carrera" were all the words we needed. During the ride to the hotel we could not see much of the city as it was after dark, but it was evident that it was a big, bustling, modern city. The Carrera itself is a hotel equal to any anywhere in its standards of luxury, modernness, and convenience. It differs from similar hotels at home in that the service is better and the prices are less than half what we would have to pay at home. The doorman spoke fluent English with an Irish brogue, the night manager, Señora Falco, spoke English with an Oxford accent, and we had no more troubles. Not having had time to get other advice I asked the head porter himself how much to tip him and his assistants; his suggestions were most moderate.

Our room was quite large and beautifully furnished. The night maid bustled in and turned down the beds. When she had gone I heard Ticky's voice from the bathroom. "Bob! C'mere!"

I came. She was pointing at the fourth fixture in the bath. "Look at that!"

"Well," I said, "surely you have heard of them. You didn't think it was a drinking fountain for a dog, did you?"

"I've heard of them," she said thoughtfully, "but I guess I didn't really believe in them. I don't think I would dare use one. Look." She fiddled with a valve.

"Don't splash the ceiling!" I said hastily.

"That's what I mean," she said, shutting it off. "I'd be afraid of being blown through the roof."

III
First Steps

We managed to do quite a lot of sightseeing in Santiago and outside it but I don't see quite how we did it; the routine does not provide for it. It starts to get out of step with our habits at dinner time. The first night we were there we washed up quickly and got down to the dining room about half past eight, starving, as the sample of tea aboard the train had not substituted for the hearty dinner at five p.m. we had grown used to in the
Gulf Shipper.

The dining room looked like an undertaker's parlor ready for a funeral-banks of flowers, hushed quiet, sad-faced Indian waiters, maitre d'hotel immaculate and dignified in white tie and tails . . . no diners, no cheerful sounds of food and drink.

But I was assured that we could have dinner although it was evident that our arrival was unexpected. "Perhaps M'dame would like a cocktail before dinner?" M'dame would, and so would M'sieur; it restored the tissues, soothed travel-weary nerves, and helped to kill the time while the chef was coping with the emergency. Presently food, wonderful, lavish, beautifully cooked food, was spread before us. I had a mixed grill which contained eight or nine things I did not recognize but wanted to know better and Ticky had a steak that had died happy. There were soups and salads and a variety of breadstuffs, too, and other things I can't remember, and delicate light wine and the inevitable bottled water served in tiny glasses. They were used to gringos and there was no trouble in getting
agua sin gas.
Afterwards we had to make a Solomon's choice among desserts.

I was tempted by pineapple slices drowned in champagne but finally settled for "happy cherimoya"-
cherimoya alegre
, thin slices of the fruit in orange juice and powdered sugar. We were both happy, the cherimoya and I.

By the time we were sipping coffee the room was filling up. By the time we left, somewhat after ten o'clock, dinner hour was in full blast. We had come to the right place; we were simply too early.

This late dinner hour throws the whole day out of gear for a
norteamericano.
We were not used to going to bed on a full stomach; with dinner over about eleven at night that meant lights-out not earlier than one in the morning, and still later if we chose to do a little dancing. We did not do that very often as my Coolidge-Era foxtrot does not fit a rumba beat too well.

But even without night life the late dinner hour means getting up late. Breakfast plus formal guard mount last until about ten-thirty. We were not required to watch formal guard mount, of course, but there it was, right under our window in the Plaza de la Constitution in front of the presidential palace, complete with army band in dress uniform, small boy to pretend to lead the band along with the director, and small dog whose international duty it is to help out with parades everywhere.

After guard mount there is time to sightsee before lunch but it is also the best time to go up to the swimming pool on the roof. This hazard can be avoided by staying in a hotel which does not own a
piscina
, at least not one on the roof-but who wants to avoid the temptation? The view from the open-air restaurant & swimming pool seventeen stories up in the Carrera is the best in Santiago, whether you look out at the city and the mountains, or inward at the señoritas swimming and sunning themselves. For thirty-five cents you may use the beautiful pool yourself, or you can sit and drink Coca-Cola or what you will and ponder on the fact that you are nearer to heaven than you are ever likely to be again.

You can sit right there all morning and have lunch there, if you choose, and it is a good choice. Santiago sits in a big level bowl with mountains all around it and the main range of the high Andes crowding close to it on the west. The lights and the cloud formations on the snow-covered peaks are always changing and the city below is a Christmas window display of toy automobiles and ant-sized people. You can see from here that many, many roofs in Santiago have roof gardens; anywhere a Chileno can poke a flower and coax it to grow he will do so.

Whether you lunch there or make the effort to go two blocks down the street to the world-famous French cuisine of the Crillon, after lunch is time for siesta, not for sightseeing. The shutters ring down in the small shops, the doors lock in the big shops, and even the traffic policemen go home. Why bother to direct traffic when no sensible person is on the streets.

So we return now to the Carrera, start to write a letter or a few postcards-then find ourselves overcome by the spirit of siesta. How can one stay awake in the drowsy afternoon when a million and a half people are sleeping?

When at last we come to, awakened by the post-siesta increase in traffic noise, the city is wide awake again. But now it is time for tea, a meal not to be skipped in a country which allows nine hours between lunch and dinner. Tea may be had on the mezzanine with live music, or on the roof with sunset over the Andes. After tea the shops are still open until seven p.m. or later, and the interval from tea to dinner is also the favorite time to go to the movies. It is also a wonderful time to stroll along Alameda Bernardo O'Higgins, a boulevard of smart shops and mansions. (Do not be misled by the County Cork name: O'Higgins was the George Washington of Chile.) Or one can wander through the park by the river, a few blocks from the hotel. Any of these activities, done not too strenuously, will give one an appetite for the late dinner and keep one away from the hazards of a two-hour cocktail hour.

After dinner it is much too late for sightseeing; it is a choice of night life, letterwriting, or reading, then to bed.

You see? A day broken up by four meals and a siesta leaves very little time for anything else. The Chilenos themselves put in an eight-hour work day, from nine to one and from three to seven, but a tourist, already geared down by the holiday spirit, finds this broken up day lapping over on itself.

Nevertheless we saw a great deal. One day we drove down to the beach through a different valley from the one we had come up by train and ended up at beach resorts about twenty-five miles south of Valparaiso. Most of the route was rolling hills and farms, then one drops rather suddenly to splendid beaches and lovely summer homes. The flower gardens around the homes are startling in their banked profusion and unreal, Kodachrome color. Even in Southern California or Florida we do not attempt to grow flowers in the bursting quantities which a Chileno householder seems to take for granted. Driving back we passed many huts of extremely poor peasants; in every case the tenant had splurged some part of his precious irrigation water to put a flower garden around his humble home.

On the trip back we passed a number of vassos, which helped to satisfy Ticky's desire to see colorful natives in colorful native costumes; the blanket and hat of the vasso are indeed colorful. (U.S.-cowboy & ranch; Chile, vasso & fundo; Mexico, vaquero & rancho; Argentina, gaucho & hacienda.)

We visited a dairy fundo as we neared Santiago and were shown around by Señor Quirigo, the
gerente
or manager-in Argentina he would be a majordomo. It differed mainly from one of ours of equal size in that hand milking was used rather than power milking; sanitary precautions were up to standard and pasteurization was used. The home of the Quirigo family and that of the owner were in the style we call "California Spanish" with white walls and red tile roofs.

I had only feeble French in common with Señor and Señora Quirigo, but Ticky used botanical Latin. To become a ranch manager in much of South America a college degree in agriculture is usually necessary, which includes of course a firm scientific grounding in botany; Ticky and Señor Quirigo would agree on the Latin name for some tree, shrub, or flower among the profusion in the garden of the fundo, then would exchange the common English and Spanish names to their mutual great satisfaction. I stumbled along behind, agreeing that yes it was a pretty tree,
lindísimo
in fact.

Our driver had simply driven into the fundo and stated that he had some
norteamericanos
who would like to see a fundo; the Quirigos entertained us as if they had been waiting for the privilege.

The shops in Santiago are, if anything, poorer in most respects than those in Lima. The country is undergoing a disastrous inflation and has never recovered from the blow of the collapse of its nitrate industry. As yet they have very little manufacturing of their own and anything that must be imported is tremendously expensive in their currency. This shows up in a rather startling fashion with respect to paper. We use paper and paper products of all sorts in lavish, wasteful fashion; I doubt if there is a single paper napkin in all of Chile. Kleenex cannot be purchased. Wrapping paper is scarce; a clerk appreciates your willingness to accept a purchase unwrapped. He will wrap it if you wish but he uses precisely the minimum of paper necessary.

Linen napkins are freely available; Chilenos are not afraid of the labor of laundering. But a cheap paper napkin is another matter.

It is distressing to see a decent, industrious people in such straits. This is not a country kicked around by revolution after revolution, with each new boss looting the treasury; they have a tradition of stable, democratic, free government as strong as ours. It is simply that they are faced with real physical economic problems. But I am convinced that they will overcome them; they work hard and they are honest.

We attended an outdoor, free symphonic concert in the grounds of the Palace of Fine Arts in Santiago. By accident, we happened to be coming out of the palace (a fine gallery, with an amazing number of European old masters hanging) just as the seats were being set up. By spikking the macerated, lacerated Español that I had acquired-a Pidgin of no tenses, numbers, genders, or other non-essentials-we found out what was about to happen and got seats early . . . which was a good thing as all of Santiago and cousin Jose from the country showed up.

The program presented one number by a Chileno composer, one by George Gershwin, and several by traditional European composers, with none of the atonal modern stuff, which pleased me as I am as black a reactionary in music as I am in art. It was pleasant to see Gershwin classed without apology as "symphonic" even though the notion may strike some of our own highbrow critics as terribly bourgeois.

In the midst of the concert a little boy about five, very well dressed, came pushing through our row, stepping on feet and hurrying. He really was in a hurry; there was a tree a few inches from my right knee and he wanted frantically to use that tree. He used it, sighed with relief, buttoned up his fly and went back to his parents in less of a hurry. Ticky and I did our best to keep our faces straight and pretend that we had not seen anything; we were both aware that South Americans are much more casual and frank about such necessities; anyone with eyes could not help but be aware.

No one around us in this polite and well-dressed crowd paid any attention, except a señora on Ticky's left. This unfortunate lady, having spoken with us, was aware that we were
norteamericanos;
it became at once evident that she was sufficiently cosmopolitan to see the incident through the eyes of a North American, and she was distressingly, terribly embarrassed.

Anything at all that we could have said would only have made things worse. There was nothing to do but let her suffer. But I can see that a compounding of such harmless incidents will in time and a rather short time cause the fierce pride of all South Americans to drive them into ending this carefree custom lest they be laughed at by the gringos-as sure as the missionaries put Mother Hubbards on the pretty Polynesians.

The French, on the other hand, don't care whether we laugh or not.

There are two
cerros
in downtown Santiago, each of which is a park; a
cerro
is somewhat more than a hill, somewhat less than a mountain. Cerro Santa Lucia is the smaller but in some ways the more charming. It was once the headquarters of the Spanish conquerors but is now nominally given over to a museum of Chilean history. I say "nominally" because its real functions are to provide in the daytime a lovely study hall for the many students in Santiago and to provide in the gloaming a perfect place for lovers to court.

It is a series of terraced gardens and winding paths and garden seats. Admission is a cent and a half, our money, which makes one wonder how they can support a gatekeeper even if they let him keep all the admissions. In daylight hours it is crowded with hundreds of students, highschool and university, all studying, none loafing. Quite as many are strolling as are sitting down, but the studying never stops.