Cajon del Maipo

I stood up, cinched up the straps on my backpack and walked to the door of the subway train. “Bellavista de Florida,” said the voice on the intercom. “End of the line.”

The green line of the Santiago metro runs north south across the most of the city. I took the train from the center of Santiago going south, covering a social distance far greater than the actual distance in kilometers. Immediately south of the city center the streets fan out at angles into block after block of industrial factories and rusting warehouses, some of the oldest showing their crumbling, earthquake-shattered brick frames to the yellowing sun.

By the end of the line, the neighborhood changes again. Bellavista de Florida, more commonly just “La Florida” is the heart of Santiago’s new suburban sprawl, with modest, colorfully painted houses both new and old ringed by tree-lined streets, construction sites, and dusty vacant lots where the children play soccer. As is true in all but the very best neighborhoods in Santiago, graffiti occupies almost every inch of available wall-space.
Although some street gangs in the dirt-poor poblaciones (slums) in the southwest of the city have recognizable graffiti tags, as a general rule Chilean graffiti is not as tied to gang activity as it is in the US. Much of it is political; a common slogan is painted in large letters and taking up entire walls is “Bachelet para todos”. Michelle Bachelet, the Minister of Defense for the current Socialist government, has nearly secured the nomination for the presidency of the center-left Concertacion coalition, and very likely will be Chile’s first female president. But the most popular political slogans by far are anti-Bush slogans. “No a APEC [the Asian Pacific Economic Conference, held in Chile, which Bush attended in December], No a Bush,” they say. Other popular ones include “Bush asesino” (Bush is a murderer) and “No a la Guerra” (No more war). Another is “Chile no se vende.” Chile is not for sale.

From La Florida I rode a bus to the little town of San Jose del Maipo. This little Andian pueblo is only a little more than hour away, and winter travelers know it as a stop along the road to some of Chile’s best ski slopes. I was traveling with my friend Matt, another Stanford student who studied in Chile during the fall and then spent the last couple of months hitchhiking his way around Patagonia, traveling from the Argentine city of Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, back to Santiago, a distance of about 4000 kilometers. Our plans were nowhere near as ambitious; we were going to spend a night in the Andes and to meet a friend Matt came to know on a previous trip through the Cajon del Maipo.

The Chilean we were going to meet was a 62-year-old artist named Lalo. Matt stumbled across his cabin in the middle of the wilderness on a previous trip to the Cajon del Maipo and struck up a conversation with him. It soon became apparent that the man who tends the rural stretches of the village water canal was no ordinary campesino. One obvious sign was the fact that Lalo speaks at least four languages. An eminently nice guy, Lalo is most easily described as a uniquely Chilean type of hippie. After graduating from university in Chile, he lived in various cities throughout Europe. After the military coup in 1973, he expected that he would never go back to his native land, and for a long time he set up shop for himself in Barcelona. He eventually had to come back, however, when his father became terminally ill. After his father died, Lalo found himself unable to bear the stress and bustle of Santiago, and almost by chance took up an opportunity to manage some land in the Cajon del Maipo. He’s been living there ever since.

Words, of course, don’t do justice to the beauty of Cajon del Maipo. The branch of the canyon we hiked was sunny and scorching hot. Families taking a weekend break from Santiago played in the cool of the river, a tributary of the Maipo River that eventually runs south of Santiago and to the sea. Alamo and sycamore trees grew close to the water, thorny bushes and cacti clung to the steep hillsides of the canyon, and wild raspberries ripened in the thickets along the trail. Along the riverbank the rocks looked like row upon row of lazily stacked dice, cubes and corners jutting out at all angles. The sides of the canyon towered above the valley, showing the long scars of ancient waterfalls now dry in the summer heat. As night fell Matt, Lalo and I sat under the trees sipping hot tea and quietly looking at the stars. In the west the smog and skyglow of Santiago spilled over the ridges and clouded a corner of the sky like a bag of flour spilled on the kitchen floor. In the east, the great clouds of southern stars drifted coolly from horizon to horizon.

The next day as I was walking back to the bus stop in San Jose del Maipo, I began to think about how much I’m going to miss this place when I’m gone. I passed an artisan’s fair in the town’s small plaza de armas, with vendors selling silver jewelry, wool blankets, and ice-cold Coca-Cola. I’ll miss the people trying to sell me something everywhere, the ability to buy ice cream off the street. I’ll miss the cracked sidewalks, the crumbling plaster, and the garishly colorful houses painted green, sunflower yellow, and fading, powdery red. I’ll miss the ancient churches, quiet and serene.

“Is that our bus?” I asked Matt, pointing a block down the street.

“Yup.”

“Should we run after and try to catch it?”

“Probably a good idea.”

Off we went.