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Here we complete a circle, by going back into a line. Back into this linear, mysterious country.

Things have metamorphosed while we’ve been gone. We left at the onset of winter, and now it’s going into full-blown spring!

We’re not done here yet. I get the feeling I’ll never be done here. There is so much to experience, so much to find out. Right in front of your eyes, there are things you do not see. Every day, people tell you things you do not know. What they tell you is just the tip of the story, and it leads to another story. And it is all connected, somehow, all in circle…or in a line.




Volcán Villarica is a steaming volcano that rises in Chile’s southern Lake District, above the towns of Pucón and Conaripe. The Mapuche Indians called it Racupillán, which means “House of the Spirit”. If you walk up to the crater and stare inside, you can meet the spirit: a rare, active lake of red-spitting lava.

Down in town, the volcanic activity alert station gave us a green light, which means normal and safe volcanic activity. This station is located precariously close to a main street intersection. I wonder if any accidents have happened when someone thought they had a green light for their car, when it was really a green light to visit the volcano.

So up we went to a wonderful and low-key ski area on the volcano’s flanks, where lava chutes form natural half-pipes and attract snowboarders. We lucked out on the weather, which held all day in a swirling cloudy/sunny/misty pattern. Villarica even showed its top, for about a minute. I took care to cover up despite the clouds, having snow-blinded myself here in similar conditions in the summer of ’94. That time, I spent a day in the tent with a damp rag over my eyes, and then wandered around for a few more in a blur.




Volcán Villarica lies in the heart of Araucanía, the Spanish name for the unconquered domain of the Mapuche Indians. The strong and stubborn Mapuche held this region, autonomously, all the way up to the 1880s.

The Inca were the first to try to subjugate the Mapuche. It didn’t work out, and they had to settle for a militarized border with the Mapuche at the Maule River, well to the north.

The Spanish had a similar and more grueling experience. Pedro de Valdivia, the Spanish “Captain General of the Conquest of Chile”, arrived from Peru in the 1530s. He founded the village of Santiago, and got a subway stop there named after him. Pedro set out to conquer Arauncanía, in the 1540s. He didn’t conquer it though. Rather, it conquered him.

Pedro de Valdivia made several attempts to establish bases in Mapuche territory, including the spots where the towns of Valdivia and Villarica now stand, only to see them vaporized within a few years. Pedro got captured by the Mapuche on New Year’s Day, 1554, and was sentenced to death according to tribal law. One rumor has it that they executed Pedro by pouring molten gold down his throat (the Mapuche word for “Spanish” is “huinca” which means “thief”). But it is more likely that they just knocked him really hard on the head.

Spain, perplexed, continued to fight the Mapuche for almost 100 years, incurring losses likely greater than in all of its other American conquests combined. The Mapuche suffered greatly too, but must have had a homeland-defense motivation similar to what the Greeks had against the Persians. Like the Incas before them, Spain finally had to settle for a river border with the independent Mapuche nation. This time it was the Bío Bío River, established by treaty in 1641. 240 years and 28 treaties later, this border still stood. At first, newly-independent Chileans thought it best to stay north of the Bío Bío, or settle much further to the south. But Chile and Argentina finally broke the back of the Mapuche in the 1880s with simultaneous modernized-military efforts on both sides.

Today, people claiming to be Mapuche comprise only about 5% of Chile’s population and number about 600,000 (with half as many more living in Argentina). But at least half of Chile’s population probably contains some degree of Mapuche blood.

We crossed the Bío Bío in the night and got back to Santiago. It felt like coming home! Here the air was even warmer and sweeter, and infused with early spring energy. But it wasn’t yet time to stop the winter fun.

Here is a great and simple way to enjoy world-class skiing in the central Andes, 45 minutes from the Santiago city limits:

1... Go in the Andes’ spring, and ski on the weekdays. After Sept. 7 the prices drop, the snow is deeper than ever, there are few people, and it is usually sunny.

2... Lodge yourself in a comfy value hotel in a kicking neighborhood in the heart of Santiago. I can’t recommend more the Hotel Foresta in Santa Lucia ($53 a night for a double).

3... Pack a rucksack with lunch and ski clothes.

4... Get up at 6:30 AM and walk a few minutes to the subway. Take the red line to its eastern end, and walk a few more minutes to the Omnium shopping center.

5... Buy a day trip package from the El Colorado or Ski Total offices. You can get your lift ticket, plus equipment rental and van transport, for about $70. You can spend a little more if you want and get a combination ticket for El Colorado, Valle Nevado, and/or La Parva, ski from one area to the next, and be King of the Andes for the day.

6... Get in the 8:00 van, ride up the 43 switchbacks outside of Santiago, and be on the slopes by 9:15.

7... Apply sunscreen. Ski your brains out.

8... At 5:00, get back in the van and go back the way you came, while the descending sun bathes the Andes and the Santiago valley.

9... Rest a day in Santiago, if you want.

10... Repeat. Make sure you hit Valle Nevado for at least one of the days…it is just spectacular.

It is wonderful and kind of weird to follow this procedure, walk down a busy Santiago sidewalk in twilight, and pack into the subway in the teeming rush hour. You hang there in the crowd with weak legs and a sun-blown face, look around at all the city people coming home from work, and think, “Was I really just up in that wonderland? Did this day really happen?”


After our second ski day, the van got stuck in a traffic jam when we reached the city. Sirens were blaring. Then we got out, and something was different about the sidewalk and the subway. There were not as many people, and there was a palpable subdued feeling. On reaching the center and Santa Lucia, the streets were nearly empty and shops closed. What was going on?

It had been explained to me earlier that afternoon, but I had not put two and two together. September 11 is a somber and emotional day in Chile, where street gatherings can turn violent. This year, at least 30 policemen and civilians were wounded in disturbances in Santiago and other cities, and 150,000 homes went without power.

It was one of our last runs. We stood at the top of a T-bar as clouds began to boil in over the ridge, and chatted with a Chilean gentleman who had ridden up behind us.

“Oh yes, I know Puerto Rico,” he said, “I taught for awhile in Ponce. What a beautiful place.”

“We sure like Chile, too,” I said.

“Yes, it is a great country,” he said. “And that bad time, it is over now.”

It was clear that he was talking about the 1973 military coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende, and the subsequent 17-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

“Did you go to jail?” I asked.

“Yes, for three years. I am a relative of Orlando Letelier.”

He explained to me about Letelier. Orlando Letelier was an ambassador to the USA under Allende, and was Allende’s Defense Minister at the time of the coup. Letelier was the first cabinet member to be arrested, and he spent about a year in concentration camps in the south before international intervention helped him get expelled to the USA. He moved to Washington DC and became an organizer of Chile’s socialist opposition. In 1976, in Washington DC, Letelier and his assistant were assassinated by car bomb.

“After that, I got released and was expelled to the USA. My wife is American, and we moved to San Francisco.”

“Wow. Three years in prison…”

“Yes…but that time is over,” he said. Then he smiled, and turned to Baraka and said, “Maybe you can be an ambassador…an ambassador to the world!”

We thanked him. We got ready to ski off, and he said, “Yes, that was 35 years ago today, the coup. September 11, 1973.”

Salvador Allende came into power in 1970 as the first democratically elected marxist leader of any nation. This was the height of the Cold War, and the United States was not too happy about it. The USA put a lot of diplomatic and economic pressure on Chile, and covertly funded the opposition. A CIA report released in the 90s states that at least $6.8 MM was spent to help destabilize Allende through “financing and assisting opposition and right-wing terrorist paramilitary groups.” Henry Kissinger said of Allende’s government, "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." After the coup, in a recorded call to Nixon, Kissinger reported, “We didn't do it. I mean we helped them…created the conditions as great as possible."

Allende had enough problems without US help. His coalition came in with 36% of the vote, and relations steadily deteriorated with the other parties and the military. He inherited chronic slow growth, inflation, economic power in the hands of a few…and he had a socialist agenda. In 1972 the Escudo got devalued, inflation went to 140%, and wave of strikes ensued. Allende was accused by Congress and the Judiciary of constitutional breaches such as rule-by-decree, non-enforcement of judicial decisions, censorship of the media, and banning of assemblies. In the weeks before the coup, Congress declared a breakdown in democracy and asked the military to step in.

The coup was swift and effective. By 7 AM, the military were gaining control of most of the population centers. People on the streets were being herded into stadiums and onto islands. Allende went to La Moneda, the presidential residence in Santiago, and refused the military’s radio request that he leave by airplane. He thought that he still had some support in the military, and particularly in Augusto Pinochet, the new head of the Army he had appointed 20 days earlier. La Moneda became surrounded by tanks, and the Air Force sent in jets to fire rockets into the residence. My mid-afternoon, Allende was dead, his head riddled by fire from his own AK-47 (a gift from Fidel Castro). It was ruled a suicide.


At first, the military planned to rule by rotating the lead position among its four main heads. But Pinochet quickly became the group’s chairman, and by June 1974 he declared himself “Supreme Chief of the Nation”. That December, he renamed himself as President and ruled as dictator for 17 years. He stepped down in 1990, after holding a 1988 public referendum on continuation of his rule, in which 56% voted “No”.

Reports and commissions have established that about 2,700 people disappeared during the Pinochet years. Of these, about 2,300 were killed for political reasons. In addition, about 30,000 people were arrested and tortured (not counting those rounded up into stadiums during the coup itself).

Pinochet implemented free-market economic reforms, and Chile’s GDP per capita grew at a faster rate than the rest of the continent during the later 1970s. After declining to a low point in 1982 during a monetary crisis, the economy continued a strong expansion throughout the rest of Pinochet’s rule. On return to democracy in 1990, many of these policies were continued and strengthened. Chile’s economy soared up to the end of the 90s, far outpacing the average for the rest of the continent.


Michelle Bachelet, the President of Chile, was detained under Pinochet when she was 24 years old.

Michelle’s father, an Air Force official under Allende, died in prison in 1974. In the early years of Pinochet, Michelle and her mother worked as couriers for the underground Socialist party. They were arrested at their apartment in 1975, blindfolded, and driven to a center in Santiago for questioning. Many sources indicate that they were tortured. Military connections got them out after several weeks, and they went to East Germany for several years.

Michelle is a rare case in that she is an elected female head of state, but has no political husband or father preceding her. Michelle is also a physician (surgeon, pediatrician, epidemiologist), and holds degrees in military strategy. She is a mother of 3, and speaks 5 languages.

Michelle was not well known when she became Minister of Health in 2000. In 2002, she became the Minister of Defense. In one memorable image, she was photographed atop an amphibious tank while leading a flood rescue operation in Santiago, wearing a military cloak and cap. Michelle garnered lot of popularity during her cabinet years, but was at first hesitant to become the Socialist candidate for president in 2005. She won the election later that year, in a runoff.

Her presidency of the past 2.5 years has been full of challenges, and with the associated ups, downs (and more downs) in popularity. She took her biggest hit when the long-planned Transantiago, a reworked transportation system for Santiago, went on-line in 2007 with enormous problems. She’s had to address other significant problems such as resurgence in inflation, and chronic energy shortages due to Chile’s reliance on natural gas imports from Argentina.

When she took power in 2006, she knew she was probably going face the problem of what to do when Pinochet died. It turns out she had less than a year to think about it.


After stepping down in 1990, Pinochet remained head of the armed forces until 1998. He then obtained the post of “Senator-For-Life”, and was immune to prosecution in Chile. He was arrested in the UK later that year while there for medical treatment (Spain wanted to prosecute him for the murder of Spanish nationals in Chile). He remained under house arrest in the UK until 2000, and returned to Chile when prosecution did not go forward. The Chilean Congress then created the position of “Ex-President” for him so that he could give up his Senator-For-Life position but retain some immunity to prosecution. For the next six years, as his health declined, he was constantly in-and-out out of house arrest. In addition to human rights charges, he was indicted for embezzlement and drug trafficking. He had a heart attack and died in December, 2006, without being convicted of anything.

Michelle wore a black dress to work the day after Pinochet died, but she didn’t say anything about it. She did not declare a national day of mourning, but flags were allowed to fly half-mast at military facilities.

Michelle said that it would have been a violation of her conscience to attend a state funeral. Pinochet was given a military funeral, as a former commander in chief. The sole cabinet representative at the funeral was Michelle’s Defense Minister, Vivianne Blanlot. She got booed.

Neruda House #3

Pablo Neruda was at his seaside residence, the house called Isla Negra, when the 1973 coup happened. He had spent the previous months sick with prostrate cancer, writing his memoirs from his bedroom. Neruda had been the Communist Party candidate for President in 1970, but had been happy to step aside and give his allegiance to his friend, Salvador Allende.

The coup sent him into a deep depression, and he soon had to go to Santiago for surgery. Prior to leaving for Santiago, troops showed up at Isla Negra. “Yes,” he told them, “I’m hiding something very dangerous indeed. It’s called poetry.”

Neruda died within two weeks of the coup. The medical cause was cancer, but most who knew him will tell you that he died from a broken heart.

Neruda’s poetry was banned in Chile until 1990.

The Isla Negra house, like Neruda's others, is a major tourist attraction. To get there, you walk down a quiet dirt road.

Neruda bought the site in 1938, when it contained a simple stone cottage. Over the years he made additions, and here is where he wrote much of his work. The house is designed in his definitive style of being like a ship, with low doors, narrow passageways, and curved wooden ceilings. It is chock-full of his collections, each item curious and containing a certain beauty. If allowed, you could spend hours or days examining the items, knowing that there is a story behind each one.

The most powerful experience, for me, was being confronted with the ship figureheads in the first sitting room. I had heard about these. But I was unprepared for the spiritual and downright spooky effect of these quasi-human forms, rising up in chorus, gazing out past you to the sea.

There are hundreds of ships in bottles, and bottles in general (colored of course; green for earth, blue for sea). There are old masks (African, Asian, European), ceramic jars, ceramic European hot water bottles, and shelves of fancy horse stirrups. In the study are maps, globes, models of the solar system, telescopes, butterflies, bugs, pipes, pictures of dead poets, musical instruments, glass-encased scorpions, and a wonderful stone mural fireplace. There is a sink nearby, where he washed his hands before he wrote. There are some writing samples, written in green ink (the color of hope). Another study contains a desk made from the door to a ship’s cellar, which floated up to Isla Negra one day. Further along are pictures of birds, stuffed birds, antlers, clay urns used to collect rainwater in the south, cabinets filled with a tiny fraction of his seashell collection, an 8-foot narwhal tusk, and a life-size paper maché horse, a replica from his childhood in Temuco.

Madonna is among Neruda’s legions of fans. She recorded one of his poems in 1994, for the soundtrack to “The Postman”.

Madonna will be in Santiago this December to perform her first Chilean concerts. If she’s lucky, she’ll get more time than we did to examine Neruda’s collections at Isla Negra.

Madonna added a second show, for December 10, coincidentally the anniversary of Pinochet’s death.

My friend Luisa is going to Madonna. This is not something she would normally seek out to do, but she’s happy to accept the invitation of her friend.

Luisa went to jail for a week under Pinochet, in 1982. She was busted for walking down the sidewalk, nothing more, after leaving her university class one day.




Luisa came to Santiago, and brought us back with her to Limache. We attended the Independence Day parade on Main Street on a beautiful sunny and aromatic Sunday. The plaza was full of people, its gazebo laden in violet blossoms. Later, we took a bus to nearby Olmué, a town beneath the peaks of La Compana, where Baraka and Sophia (Luisa’s niece) rode horses in the twilight.

Luisa says that it is hard to see things for what they really are unless you experience them for yourself. People can tell you about it, but it’s not the same thing.

I think back on the circle we’ve just completed, and the people and environments we passed through. It feels like we’ve sampled a bit of the whole world. And it feels like we’ve barely, but solidly, scratched the surface.

It is spring now on Cerro Santa Lucia. From the window of Room 603 of the Hotel Foresta, you can see couples lounge in the grass down near the iron gate. The air is warm, and sweet with blossoming trees. An occasional thunderstorm comes and wets the streets. I always feel so free and happy here. It is hard to imagine a time when such feelings were much harder to come by, for people here.

It is time to say good-bye now, and to let go of some things.

We’ll come back some day. In the mean time, things will continue to change. Spring will still come, and the mountains will still be good for skiing. But the season might be a little shorter, the runs maybe not quite as long. Other things will change for sure. Baraka won’t be 9 years old, for example...the Hotel Foresta won’t be $53 a night...


But we’ll see what we can do.