A Long Petal of the Sea (Book Review)

In 1939, as the Spanish Civil War wound down, thousands of refugees fled across the border into France—which then confined tens of thousands in a deplorable detention camp at d'Argelès-sur-Mer. In partial response, poet Pablo Neruda—also a diplomat—chartered the French cargo vessel Winnipeg to carry 2,200 Spanish refugees across the Atlantic and through the Panama Canal to his homeland of Chile where, despite isolated episodes of xenophobia, they integrated themselves into local society.

Chartered by Pablo Neruda, the French freighter Winnipeg carried Spanish refugees to Chile.

That’s the historical background for Isabel Allende’s latest novel, A Long Petal of the Sea, which becomes a tale of exile and adaptation that includes several larger-than-life figures, most notably Neruda himself but also the late President Salvador Allende (Isabel’s father’s cousin) and the notorious Augusto Pinochet (mentioned only in passing). Some characters are fictionalized versions of historical figures, such as pianist Roser Bruguera, clearly based on the painter Roser Bru (who turned 98 in February).

Isabel Allende's novel focuses on one exceptional refugee family.

Bruguera is one focus of a complex family story that melds with an equally complex political history that involves her going into exile, with her husband Víctor Dalmau, from Pinochet’s dictatorship. Allende is especially good at depicting the intrigues and obstacles her characters must navigate, including neighborhood informants, imprisonment, intra-familiar conflicts that tore many Chileans apart, and the disruptions of exile.

The first Spanish refugees would have passed through Arica's customs house (now a cultural center).

Being a geographer, I try to be alert to people and place, and I found one unfortunate error. I expected that, after the Winnipeg passed through the Panama Canal, it would go directly to Valparaíso, whence the refugees would proceed to Santiago and elsewhere in the densely populated heartland. As it happened, though, the ship made a stop in the northern port of Arica, a city I know well, where Chilean officials met the vessel and some of the passengers came ashore to stay.

The nitrate port of Pisagua was the northernmost point on Chile's contiguous rail network.

Allende, though, claims the officials arrived by train, but the northern Chilean railroad network, developed to help exploit the Atacama Desert’s nitrate deposits, never reached Arica—the most northerly major station was in the port of Iquique, roughly 200 km to the south (though there was a smaller station in the nitrate port of Pisagua, only about 125 km to the south). It might have been possible to reach Arica by rail at this time, but that would have involved a roundabout route via Buenos Aires and slow trains to northwestern Argentina and then Bolivia, where the Ferrocarril Arica-La Paz connected the two countries. Given the time, distances, and often contentious relations between Bolivia and Chile, it’s unlikely that anyone would have taken this route and, as it happens, there were flights from Santiago to Arica as early as 1929.

Oficina Chacabuco was the camp where Víctor Dalmau was presumably imprisoned. 

Allende describes, but does not specifically identify, the location where her protagonist Dalmau “ended up at a camp for saltpeter miners in the north that had been abandoned for decades and was now converted into a prison.” That description fits Oficina Chacabuco, about 100 km northeast of the port city of Antofagasta, which is now a national monument and in situ museum that I’ve visited several times. She also offers a plausible description of the Dalmaus’ ostensible rural retreat, outside Santiago, when they return from exile in Venezuela.

 

All in all, Allende’s novel is a rewarding read that provides an insider’s view of refugees, immigrants, and the contributions they make to their new countries—with lessons for countries still including Chile and, of course, the United States (where Allende now makes her home).

                                                                          

  

I've Never Been to Spain?

I’ve never been to Spain. Well I have been, I guess, if you count Catalonia as part of Spain, because I once spent a week in Barcelona. But I’ve been to Salamanca…oh, wait, not that Salamanca! Earlier this month, I spent two nights in the Chilean city of Salamanca, which I’d visited before, but this was an escape from Santiago after spending most of the previous two months in Patagonia.

Gregorio de la Fuente's "Abrazo de los Pueblos" still decorates the now disused passenger  terminal of Los Andes' Ferrocarril Transandino.

How did I get to Salamanca? Well, I started slow, thanks to late-rush hour traffic out of Santiago, but then headed north to the town of Los Andes, where the Ferrocarril Transandino once carried passengers and freight across the Andean divide to Mendoza. I had no intention of visiting Argentina this time, but I did want to see the mural by Gregorio de la Fuente—his "El Abrazo de los Pueblos” (Embrace of the Peoples) at the old train station is a celebration of Argentine-Chilean friendship. It was just a brief stop, though I did learn that there’s now an occasional tourist train on this route.

Vehicles pass along the old railroad route through Túnel La Grupa, near the town of Cabildo.

Symbolically, at least, trains played a role in my route to Salamanca, as I took the paved highway west to the town of San Felipe and then north through scenic Andean foothills that resemble the higher, drier parts of Southern California. There are only scattered settlements along this route E-71, which leads to the town of Cabildo; there, a traffic light controls access through the Túnel La Grupa, one of a series of tunnels that belonged to the Longino, the Ferrocarril Longitudinal that connected La Calera (west of Santiago) to the nitrate mines and ports of the northernmost Atacama Desert.

The landscape here resembles the higher, drier areas of Southern California.

I’d driven this route before, but not for several years. In the interim, authorities have either paved—or begun to pave—much of it north of the border between Region V (Valparaíso) and Region IV (Coquimbo). This is significant because most of Coquimbo’s population resides along the coast, where cities like Los Vilos and La Serena attract beachgoers from Santiago, and this is a more adventurous (if slower) alternative to lesser-known points.

Túnel Las Palmas marks the border between the Valparaíso and Coquimbo regions.

Café Quarzo is one of few roadside services here.

There are few services on this stretch of “highway” but, surprisingly, one enterprising local has opened a small café on the northbound descent from Túnel Las Palmas, which marks the regional border. She sells ground coffee drinks—in a country where Nescafé is often still the default option—as well as juices and mineral souvenirs (hence the name Café Quarzo). The road continues, passing several railroad bridges, to the enigmatically named village of Caimanes (there are no carnivorous aquatic reptiles here, though; the name apparently comes from an indigenous Mapundungun [Mapuche] word meaning “six condors”).

Carnivorous aquatic reptiles do not populate the area around Caimanes.

Túnel Las Astas is the last of three short tunnels north of Caimanes.

The foundations of the old railroad station still stand here, but there’s no more obvious evidence until a short distance north, where the road passes through three short tunnels with no traffic lights. Several years ago, in Argentina, I met two US cyclists who’d taken this road on my guidebook recommendation and loved it, but they confessed their trepidation in riding through the narrow tunnels, with little room to dodge any oncoming vehicle. That said, this route remains a potentially great ride for adventure-seeking cyclists.

The old train station at Limáhuida is now a country store.

Emerging from the Túnel Los Astas, the road continues to Limáhuida, where the old train station is now a small market and fading wooden workshops still stand below it. That’s also where a new bridge crosses the Río Choapa and leads east to Salamanca, where I spent two nights at the modern and comfortable Hotel Recanto, on the eastern outskirts of town.

Hotel Recanto is full during the week, but nearly empty on weekends.

Oddly—or not—I was virtually the only guest in contemporary accommodations with spacious rooms, solar-powered hot water, and an outstanding restaurant. That’s because it clears out on the Thursday and Friday, as mining managers—there are large copper deposits in the area—leave for the weekend.

Farm-fresh garlic spreads at Salamanca's central plaza

Salamanca's old train station is now a museum and part of a pleasant public park.

Nevertheless, the hotel was still walking distance from a handsome central plaza with a lively crafts and farmers market, a former train station turned museum and municipal park, and easy access to nearby petroglyphs. There are also wineries in the area, though I didn’t get to visit those, but Salamanca—where I’d stayed once several years earlier, still struck me as a good weekend getaway.

The pre-Columbian petroglyphs at Cerro Chalinga are walking distance from downtown Salamanca.

It’s not the area’s only attraction, though. The next day I took the paved highway north to Combarbalá, a village which, on the face of it, resembles some Mexican villages, with narrow streets lined by adobe houses and even ranchera music. To get there, I did veer northwest off the more direct but still unpaved railroad route (though, had there been tunnels, I would have taken it again).

The fountain at Combarbalá's central plaza represents indigenous Diaguita motifs.

Mexican ranchera music is popular in rural Chile, including Combarbalá.

Small-scale mines extract combarbalita for local crafts workers.

What Combarbalá does have is small-scale mining for the semi-precious gemstone combarbalita (I visited a local mine, thanks to Paola Yáñez of Inti Wasi Tour), and the community astronomical Observatorio Cruz del Sur, which offers nighttime tours in one of the best possible areas for professional and amateur astronomy. I stayed at the cozy Eco-Hostal Alto Algarrobal, one of many accommodations that will fill up in for July 2nd, when a total eclipse of the sun will pass nearby (Combarbalá will be slightly south of totality).

The approach to Observatorio Cruz del Sur, in the daylight hours.

The beginning of a nighttime tour at Observatorio Cruz del Sur

Combarbalá and other nearby towns will fill up for the July 2nd eclipse.

After a night at Combarbalá, I headed the next morning for the coast, where Los Vilos would make an ideal beach break for Santiaguinos returning to Chile’s capital. For my part, I continued along the coast to Viña del Mar and Valparaíso, which will be another story here in the near future.

The Haitian Connection?

In 1978, when I first visited Chile, the default choice for coffee junkies was semi-soluble Nescafé, and that’s still common here. It didn’t bother me personally, because I don’t drink coffee—how can something that smells so wonderful taste so awful?—but my fellow travelers often searched desperately for espresso or even a freshly brewed cup from grounds.

Café Haití was Santiago's original café con piernas, but more drinkable than Nescafé.

At that time, just about the only place to do so was Santiago’s Café Haití, a chain of standup coffee bars that was notorious for its café con piernas ("coffee with legs"), served by attractive young women in micro-skirts and other form-fitting clothing. The clientele was overwhelming male (and machista) but, on occasion, female clients couldn’t resist what appeared to be the best available caffeine fix. My own wife, given her Italo-Argentine background, reluctantly became one of them.

Taken last year, this screenshot summarizes the size of Chile's immigrant communities.

Why the chain’s founder chose that specific name is unclear—the source of his coffee seems likeliest to have been Brazil or Colombia—but in recent years Chile has become the country of choice for emigrants from the impoverished Caribbean country, and Haitians are a visible presence in the capital and elsewhere. For what it’s worth, Chile was the second country in the Americas to abolish slavery, after Haiti itself.

Caleta Camarones is an historically Afro-Chilean community.

Even though I have a background in colonial Latin American history, I’d never seen much evidence of the Afro-Chilean heritage. The only precise location I can identify is the coastal village of Caleta Camarones, midway between the Atacama desert cities of Arica and Iquique, whose four-time mayor Sonia Salgado once stated that “Our ancestors arrived here together with the conquerors.”

My Haitian immigrant waiter at Ostras Azócar

The Haitian presence is something different, though, and it’s increasing. The first Haitian I ever encountered personally was a waiter at the classic seafood restaurant Ostras Azócar, who told me more than a decade ago that he learned his fluent Spanish through listening to radio broadcasts from the neighboring Dominican Republic. He now has a family here, and has recently opened his own small business.

I see many Haitians in the Renca neighborhood where I’m staying at present and, at best I can tell, most of them are speaking Haitian Creole (I certainly don’t recognize it as standard French, of which my knowledge is admittedly limited). At a downtown Santiago gas station, I recently had a conversational exchange with a Haitian janitor whose Spanish was likewise limited but was clearly making an effort to communicate.

Haitian options are becoming part of Santiago's fast-food scene.

Most Haitians appear to occupy menial jobs, but there are some indications of entrepreneurship as well. Not far from my Renca accommodations, there’s a sandwich shop that offers Haitian dishes alongside the standard completos (hot dogs) and churrascos (grilled beef). That suggests, at least, a hopeful foothold in the dominant Chilean culture, though there’s certainly been some anti-immigrant sentiment here. I’ve not yet sampled the food there, and it’s unlikely ever to match the impact Peruvian cuisine has had.

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After the Apocalypse

From the late 1970s, when I first visited southernmost South America, both Argentina and Chile were under the boots of murderous military dictatorships. As a foreigner, with a US passport, I had the privilege of leaving at any time, though that did not prevent some anxious moments, especially in Argentina. I never experienced the 1973 coup by Chile’s General Augusto Pinochet – the photo above depicts an Atacama desert memorial to victims of the coup’s “Caravan of Death” in the Atacama desert - nor the 1976 takeover by Argentina’s “Proceso” junta (the photograph below is part of the Parque de la Memoria in the Buenos Aires barrio of Núñez).

Many of my Argentine and Chilean friends did, and I was quick to sympathize with them, but sympathy and genuine empathy are different matters. Even after I married an Argentine, and heard her tales of life under tyranny, I never felt those sorts of emotion until last Tuesday, when the unspeakable Donald Trump – a disgracefully corrupt racist and misogynist authoritarian - became president-elect of my own country. Even though Trump’s Republican campaign may have broken no rules – except perhaps those of poor taste – it felt like a coup.

Part of the Republican strategy, but not all of it, was to limit voting by disenfranchising potential Democratic voters – in Wisconsin, for instance, the Republican legislature passed a restrictive voter ID law that probably gave the state to Trump. In other states, Republican administrations reduced the number of polling places and voting hours to make it harder for their opponents to participate in the election.

Before leaving for Santiago, where I arrived Thursday morning, I wrote my friend Marializ Maldonado about these demoralizing developments. Marializ, now a journalist, was a university student when I met her, and her brother Víctor – expelled from the Universidad de Chile for his political activity – now works in crisis management at Chile’s Interior Ministry. I recall that, not long after I met them, we went to a small clandestine labor union retreat near the beach town of Los Vilos, and issues of how to deal with life under dictatorship were part of the discussion. I also heard a wealth of Pinochet jokes, which I won’t go into at present.

Marializ’s response to Trump’s victory was immediate support – “It’s macabre... Now we have to show solidarity with you the way you did to us for so many years.” When I sent her a copy of the California legislative leadership’s response to the events – a statement on protecting immigrants and minorities threatened by the incoming president and his lackeys – she found it “Inspiring! That’s the right attitude.”

My Argentine wife and her brother especially suffered far more under the Argentine dictatorship – his first wife disappeared shortly after giving birth to a son, and only recently did they locate her remains. That said, Pinochet and the Argentine junta lacked the immense capacity for outright destruction – especially internationally – that Trump does.

So, you look for bright spots, and I encountered one Wednesday morning at Oakland International Airport as I went to board a short flight to Los Angeles. As I went through security and greeted the TSA agent – a middle-aged black woman - with the cheeriest “good morning” I could muster, she replied by asking me how I was. When I responded that I hadn’t slept much the previous night, she said hadn’t been able to either. When I suggested it was probably for the same reason, she responded with a big hug – rather than a frisk - that lifted my spirits.

SSAD (Seasonal Sports Affective Disorder)

For more than a quarter century now, I’ve been writing and updating guidebooks on southernmost South America for several different publishers. In general, most of my work takes place from autumn (the austral spring) to the northern spring (austral autumn), so I’ve often joked that I leave California after the World Series and return in time for Opening Day. It’s not such a joke, though, that as the days shorten and the baseball draws to an end, seasonal affective disorder becomes an overlapping issue (with “sports affective disorder,” as baseball is the only spectator sport I find worthwhile).

Fortunately the longer days, filled with work, help me get through the winter - unlike the late Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby who famously said that "People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."

Generally, I consider South America a sports desert, but there was a South American link to the end of the baseball season, though it didn’t turn quite as I had hoped. Last year, reserve outfielder Paulo Orlando became the first Brazilian ever to play on a World Series, as his Kansas City Royals defeated the New York Mets in five games (for non-baseball fans, I’ll state here that the first team to win four games out of a maximum seven becomes the champion). This year, reserve catcher Yan Gomes could have become the second player to do so, but his Cleveland Indians lost Game Seven in extra innings to the Chicago Cubs (Gomes began the season as Cleveland’s starting catcher, but a separated shoulder forced him onto the disabled list for an extended time).

Anyway, that’s enough baseball for a while, as I fly south to Santiago de Chile this coming Wednesday. I’ve seen baseball fields in Santiago, in northernmost Chile’s Atacama Desert (pictured at top), in the subtropical heights of Argentina’s Salta province (pictured above), in Buenos Aires (where I’ve played recreational baseball and softball), and even in steamy Paraguay (pictured below). I recently learned that there is baseball in Chile’s southerly university city of Concepción and also in the more southerly agricultural city of Los Ángeles (37° 28’ S latitude), whose team nickname is not the Dodgers but rather the Pumas.

It had never occurred to me to try to locate the world’s southernmost baseball diamond, but I’m guessing it might be in Christchurch, New Zealand (latitude 43° 33’ S). I’ll be asking, this time, as I drive south from Santiago, in hopes of finding one nearer the South Pole, on either the Chilean or Argentine side.

Before then, though, I’ll be flying farther south to Punta Arenas and then to the Falkland Islands, where I have seen locals with cricket bats. There, in the capital of Stanley, I once played catch with crewmen from a Japanese fishing vessel who were stunned that somebody in the Islands could throw them a curveball. I don’t expect that to happen again, but the memory will serve until I return home in February, when the days get longer and spring training starts. Pitchers and catchers report on February 13th.