¿Un Burrito Peruano?

Two of my favorite cuisines are Mexican and Peruvian—arguably the best of their respective North and South American continents. I rarely visit Mexico any more and haven’t been to Peru (except for Lima’s international airport) in nearly as long, but Mexican food is common throughout the United States and especially California, and Peruvian gastronomy is expanding rapidly out of its homeland. There are only limited choices in my hometown of Oakland, but it’s abundant in Argentina and Chile, the two countries where I travel most.

The Buenos Aires branch of La Mar Cebichería is one of Gastón Acurio's several upscale restaurants.

The evangelist for Peruvian cuisine has been Gastón Acurio, whose Astrid y Gastón and La Mar Cebichería now have branches throughout North and South America. I’ve eaten at La Mar in Buenos Aires, Santiago and San Francisco, and at Astrid y Gastón in Buenos Aires (where La Mar eventually replaced it) and Santiago (where’s it temporarily closed pending a move to new quarters). Both of those, however, are so pricey as to make them an occasional treat as best.

Santiago's Pantaleón II is more modest than La Mar, 

but its excellent mixed ceviche costs a fraction of La Mar's.

Instead, I usually resort to modest but still excellent options such as Buenos Aires’s Status and Santiago’s Pantaleón II. Recently, I dined at La Casita de Barreales, in the Colchagua valley wine capital of Santa Cruz but, in the surfing mecca of Pichilemu, I encountered something completely different in the food trucks at Punta de Lobos.

The Morros at Punta de Lobos mark one of Pichilemu's top surf breaks.

El Burrito Pe overlooks the Morros.

I rarely eat burritos any more but, though some people dismiss their authenticity, I’ve long considered them a form of fusion cooking that we might describe as comida fronteriza—food from the porous US-Mexico border. I wasn’t quite prepared, though, to see an offering of “Peruvian burritos” at El Burrito Pe, on the road just above the landmark Morros (promontories) near the beach’s best breaks.

I can only wait for my next chance.

Unfortunately, when I stopped there I had already eaten lunch, but I spoke with the Peruvian owner and planned to return the next day, before leaving town. Unfortunately, though he said he would open at 1 p.m., there may have been circumstances beyond his control and I finally decided could wait only so long. My double-hybrid burrito with huancaína or rocoto will have to wait until my next visit to Pichi.

Gauchifying the Huaso: an NYT Misidentification

Once a year or so, The New York Times travel section condescends to publish a Latin American issue, devoting its 12 pages to a region that, south of Mexico and parts of the Caribbean, gets barely a mention the rest of the year. Last Sunday’s edition features a photo essay on Santiago’s newly fashionable Barrio Italia, an area that also includes the Museo Frei and Puerto Perú, one of my favorite restaurants in the city (I’m planning a future post about Peruvian food).

It also includes a longer article on Pichilemu, the Chilean surfing capital that's just a short drive from the Colchagua wine district. That’s good as far as it goes, but author Ondine Cohane stumbles when she inexplicably refers to Chilean horsemen as “gauchos” when she attends a local rodeo. “Gaucho” is properly River Plate Spanish (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil, where it’s gaúcho). It’s also used in southernmost Chilean Patagonia but, in the Chilean heartland, her “gauchos wearing different striped tunics” are in fact huasos dressed in ponchos, and she fails to identify the traditional dance she views as the cueca, the staple of Chilean folklore (as depicted in the 19th-century painting below). It’s not surprising that Cohane, an editor with the Euro-centric Condé Nast Traveler, might oversimplify regional details, but the Times’s own fact-checkers clearly failed here.

Romney Nui

Recently, I wrote a post about Chilean icons in the current US presidential elections that included a New Yorker cartoon caption contest that caricatured the current opposition nominee as the face of the stationary moai of Easter Island (known as Rapa Nui to its Polynesian residents). The link in the previous sentence will take you to three wryly clever reader-submitted captions, with a choice to vote for one. I’ve made my choice and, when the winner is announced next week, we’ll see if other readers agree with me.

Tango by the River - Postponed

As announced earlier, I will give a digital slide lecture on Buenos Aires at Tango by the River in Sacramento, but illness (not mine) has postponed the event. It will now take place Friday, October 26th.

Limited to a maximum of 50 people, the event will also include tango performances; admission costs $10 at the door, or $8 in advance. I have spoken here several times before, and we always sell out, so plan in advance. Signed copies of my Moon Handbooks on Argentina, Buenos Aires, Chile and Patagonia will be available at discount prices.

From the Epicenter: Chile, One Year Later (3)

In fact, the last leg of my journey through post-earthquake Chile took me farther from the epicenter, but not so far that the damage was not palpable. At the town of Curepto, for instance, virtually the entire parish church was covered with corrugated aluminum as it awaits repair, and many buildings were framed with two by fours and other supports to keep them from collapsing.

After leaving Talca, my first overnight was at the British-run Hacienda Laguna Torca near its namesake national park, a lush coastal wetland that’s home to 2,000 black-necked swans. Just inland from the town of Llico, a prime windsurfing site that got hit by the tsunami but is recovering nicely, the Hacienda suffered no serious earthquake damage, but an invasion of salt water affected its olive groves. With time and rain, fresh water is recharging the aquifer.

To the north, thanks to broad sandy beaches and the left break at Punta de Lobos, the town of Pichilemu is one of central Chile’s top seaside resorts and prime surf spots, but that also made it vulnerable to the tsunami. According to Marcel Janssen, the Dutch owner of the Pichilemu Surf Hostal, the tsunami rolled right past the bar (across the street), but the quake itself damaged the walls; it’s since been upgraded into a more stylish beachfront bar, with a deck and heated saltwater tubs for relaxation.

In and around Santa Cruz, though, the devastation was such that, at the time, the irrigation canals in some vineyards literally ran red - with wine. Where the 19th-century parish church stood facing Santa Cruz’s Plaza de Armas, there is now a vacant lot, and many other buildings are still in ruins, even if the remarkable Museo de Colchagua and its adjacent Hotel Santa Cruz Plaza have quickly recovered - the controversial Carlos Cardoén has poured money into the city, but he can’t do everything.

Some of the surrounding communities suffered serious devastation. At nearby Huique, the quake flattened parts of the historic residence of former president Federico Errázuriz Echaurren and knocked over the tower of its adjacent chapel. Other parts of the complex, already in neglect after passing into the hands of a peasant cooperative, are virtually beyond repair. At Apalta’s Bodega Neyen, where I took a tour, several hundreds bottles of premium wine fell off the shelves and shattered on the concrete floor below, but nobody was injured. The remaining stock is now protected by chicken wire that prevents it from falling.

Probably the most seriously affected was the picturesque village of Lolol, where virtually every adobe sustained severe damage and many of them still bear warning tape and spray paint tags that say “danger, total collapse.” The church is still standing, but fenced off and services now take place in an adjacent tent.

That said, the region is on the road to recovery. Amongst the devastation, Cardoén’s Museo Artesanía Lolol is an exceptional crafts museum that’s well worth a detour from Santa Cruz, and most of the wineries on the Ruta del Vino de Colchagua (whose offices appear in the photo at top) are once again open for tours and tasting. When I passed through Santa Cruz, Cardoén’s hotel was booked solid, but I managed a couple nights at the Hotel Terraviña, operated by Danish journalist Anne Sorensen and her Chilean husband.

Surrounded by its own vineyard (once part of the nearby Laura Hartwig winery, which is newly open for tours), the Terraviña opened shortly before the quake and, in its aftermath, found itself part of the relief efforts. Government officials and business travelers helped get it through the first year but, as tourist traffic has recovered, it’s become a hotel again. One of its attractions is that, though it has no restaurant of its own, two of Santa Cruz’s best - the Italian Vino Bello and the Peruvian La Casita de Barreales - are only a short stroll away through the vines.

The Not So Bad - and the Good - from Santiago

Last Sunday, I drove from Mendoza (Argentina) to Santiago de Chile, a slower trip than I anticipated but not because of earthquake damage - rather, on the Chilean side of the Libertadores border crossing, there’s a great deal of overdue roadwork going on. Nevertheless, the crossing itself was smooth and, until I approached Santiago from the north on smoothly paved Ruta 57, there was no sign whatsoever of damage.

The main damage was to part of the roadway - in a couple places, bridges were slightly displaced and a detour reduced traffic to two lanes. Most notable was the collapse of segments or more of several pedestrian overpasses that crossed the freeway, but the main roads themselves are on balance in good condition. Fortunately, when the quake hit at about 3:30 a.m. on February 27, few cars were on the road and nobody, apparently, on the overpasses.

During my three days in Santiago, I stayed in Barrio Brasil, where walls had tumbled from several adobe structures, most notably those with vacant lots alongside them - in previous quakes, such buildings supported each other but, with no additional reinforcement, many walls have collapsed. Many of these buildings are beyond repair, and you can see into some of them as if they were dollhouses with cutaways. On the night of my arrival, a brief blackout brought people out of their houses and apartments onto the sidewalk, but only to chat in an atmosphere of utter calm.

In adjacent Barrio Yungay, some families are still camping in the parks, as the apparently solid exteriors of some buildings disguise precarious interior walls. In many locations, police tape marks places where too close an approach is inadvisable. The last big quake, in 1985, had its epicenter near the coastal city of Viña del Mar, but damaged structures such as the Basílica del Salvador (pictured here), which the Catholic church had delayed repairing in hopes of getting a government bailout, is in imminent danger of collapse. The best-case scenario here would be to dismantle most of the building and leave the ruins as an historical monument - much as happened with many colonial churches in Antigua, Guatemala’s colonial capital that is now the country’s top tourist destination (Barrio Brasil’s Basílica dates only from 1892, however).

Despite the visible damage, there are many positive signs in the capital. One of the highlights of my stay was a visit to the destination restaurant Zully, where owner Joe Westrate (a Michigander married to a Chilean) has recently acquired an adjacent mansion - until recently occupied by squatters - that he intends to turn into a boutique hotel; with about 25 rooms on five floors, it includes a spectacular rooftop terrace with views of the city and the Andes. In Barrio Concha y Toro (a Barrio Brasil enclave that was home to Santiago’s early 20th-century elite), the building seems precarious now - the flashlight tour that I took with Joe made me happy I hadn’t been there during the big one - but its potential is enormous.

With all the focus on the quake and its aftermath, other significant happenings have also gone unnoticed. Only two months ago, on the Metro’s oldest line (dating from 1976), a three-station extension has opened, including the gleaming Estación Manquehue (pictured here). Enzo Paci, of the hop-on, hop-off tour company Pachamama by Bus, told me he sent a group south from Santiago that spent the night in the surfing capital of Pichilemu, which was relatively untouched by the tsunami despite its proximity to the quake’s epicenter.

Early Wednesday morning, my cab ride to the capital’s Aeropuerto Internacional Arturo Merino Benítez was utterly uneventful - though we saw one freeway bridge that had been displaced by about a foot. With the main international terminal building still closed - when the quake broke windows, it also set off sprinklers that caused water damage - the check-in was nevertheless quick and efficient. Concessionaires have set up in big tents outside the domestic terminal, where all passengers now depart from. Despite many missing acoustic tiles in the ceilings, everything was routine, my flight for Buenos Aires left on time, and the undamaged runways were so smooth I was hardly aware that we had lifted off.

From Uruguay to Chile, with Concern

Late last week, I was planning a trip to Uruguay and looking forward to writing about the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Colonia del Sacramento (pictured here), where I’m spending a few days before heading to the capital city of Montevideo and then the fashionable beach resort of Punta del Este. All of these destinations are part of Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires, which I am currently updating.

Yet, as the smoke and rubble clear from Chile’s historical earthquake, I think it’s still important to provide some additional information - and testimony - from first hand sources there. I can’t report my own impressions until I return to Santiago in a couple weeks, but I can relate what my contacts there are saying.

We have learned that the impact on coastal communities, where the Chilean navy failed to broadcast an alert even though some local port officials did, was devastating, even if the fatalities are a minute fraction of those from the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. According to Todd Temkin, whose work with the Fundación Valparaíso contributed to the city’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, “We came through OK, but there is LOTS of damage in Valpo and the South, as you know, will never be the same. The coastal towns of the 7th and 8th regions (Constitución, Pichelemu, etc) no longer exist as we knew them.” Some landmark Valpo buildings, including the Iglesia Matriz and the Iglesia San Francisco, have suffered damage, but the tourist hill neighborhoods of Cerro Concepción, Cerro Alegre, and Cerro Bellavista have come through well.

Pichilemu (whose beaches and breaks have made it one of South America’s top surf spots) is especially vulnerable to a tsunami. At Constitución, perhaps best known for a classic narrow-gauge railway that runs from the city of Talca, my friend Marializ Maldonado had been lunching only the afternoon before: “Everything, including the restaurant, disappeared that same night. In that town there are already 300 deaths…I’m telling you this, but I can’t comprehend it, it’s as if I were vaccinated against fear, treated for nerves. You know that in Chile we have earthquakes in our DNA, but even then it isn’t easy.” Chilean novelist Alberto Fuguet has expressed similar sentiments in a New York Times op-ed piece.

My Pucón friend Alan Coar was in the countryside north of Santiago, “picking up the pieces in the Río Ligua valley, where I've been trying to help my kid's grandmother with her avocado farm crisis. Lots of damage to old adobe structures generally here. Power and phones coming back on line for the most part.” Things in Pucón itself are fine, except that it’s difficult to travel overland to Santiago.

According to Verónica Araneda of Travel Aid Pucón, “Many tourists just ran away through Argentina, because of the horror stories of the Panamericana on the Chilean side. We still have some shakes everyday, but they are getting farther apart and also less intense than the first two days.” In nearby Villarrica, Glen and Bev Aldrich of Hostería de la Colina tell me that the “worst damage was a carving in the reception that fell off its stand and knocked a small hole in the floor. Other than that, all the whisky bottles were left on their shelves in the bar, glasses in the kitchen remained standing, all is well.”

From the Epicenter
Only a short while ago, I got my first report from someone within the most heavily stricken zone. Franz Schubert of Trekking Chile, a tour operator just outside of Talca (where he also operates the Casa Chueca inn) say that, “Considering the situation of thousands of homeless people and hundreds of deaths in the region, we can’t complain. Casa Chueca and its 30 guests were more than lucky. With water from the pool and vegetables from the garden we had everything we needed. The guests themselves helped us for days, moving the rubble, arranging the furniture, and preparing food. Eventually we got them all to Santiago.” I’ve taken the liberty of including one of Franz’s photos from Talca here.

He was more worried about his employees and others in the region and, at present “We are hauling food, water and mattresses to the coast, where the people have much more serious problems. Today we got the water back and one of our buildings has electricity; the telephones work on occasion. We’ve visited our employees in their houses and everyone’s OK. With or without power, with or without water, we’re not going to close Casa Chueca for one minute.”

Meanwhile, I also heard from Andrea Ilabaca, who works for the MontGras winery in the Colchagua valley north of Talca, who reported that “ all MontGras Properties’ workers and their families are accounted for, and in general, are fine, although some have lost or suffered damages in their homes.” When the quake struck, she was in her 21st floor Santiago apartment and “I honestly thought I was going to die. Luckily, the building resisted, although my apartment does have damages, it can all be fixed! I ran down the stairs so fast I was the 3rd person out of the building!! I’ve been staying at my Mom’s but I just heard that we now have water and electricity... so as soon as clean up is finished by the end of the week, I’ll move back in!”

According to Andrea, “Our wineries are operating and will be able to receive the coming vintage. Our Visitors Center will be working normally from next Monday, March 8th. Regretfully, many neighboring wineries are not that well off... We do hope they recover soon.” Her advice for those who wish to help: “The best way to do so, is by purchasing the products and wines of Chile. This will be of great assistance to our country.” On the surface, that might sound self-serving but, in the long run, economic continuity is one of Chile’s greatest strengths.

Pichilemu's Public Schools To Become "Surf Schools"

With a Pacific coastline that stretches for more than 2,500 miles (over 4,000 kilometers), much of it resembling the state of California and Mexico’s Baja California, Chile makes an ideal destination for surfers. From the desert coast of the Norte Grande, where the cities of Arica and Iquique make the best bases, to the headlands of the Chilean heartland, north of Viña del Mar, there are almost endless options for surfers. Because the community of Chilean surfers is relatively small, the competition for waves is not what it would be in, say, Southern California.

That could change, though, if mayor Roberto Córdoba of Pichilemu - Chile’s almost undisputed surfing capital west of the Colchagua valley wine district about three hours southwest of Santiago - has his way. Pichilemu (whose Punta de Lobos point break appears here) is already home to the Campeonato Nacional de Surf, the national surfing championships, but according to the Santiago Times, the mayor plans to introduce surfing as an elective course in four of the town’s poorest performing schools.

The idea, says Córdoba, is to encourage an activity that has economic potential - there are several surf schools and rental equipment in town - and also to provide a recreational outlet for disadvantaged kids who are otherwise bored and, sometimes, in trouble. That many of these kids could become professional, as the mayor seemed to imply, is doubtful, especially as the cost of equipment, training, and travel is well beyond the means of most of them. Still, the idea of making them participants, rather than just observers, seems worth the effort.