Spectacular Chile

February 4, 2019, Punta Arenas, Chile — Happy 539th Birthday, Ferdinand Magellan, born February 3, 1480! So here I am chugging up the Strait of Magellan which, before the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914, was the long-sought-after pass that enables ships to get from Asia to Europe and vice versa without rounding perilous Cape Horn. The black arrow points to the V-shaped Estrecho de Magallanas, which is around 350 miles long. Our scenic approach from Cape Horn involved wiggling around the islands and channels that lead north towards the bottom of the V.

Up until now, all I knew about Chile was gleaned from Chilean author Isabel Allende’s wonderful books, some fiction, some non-fiction, some ‘invented’ memoir, some in the genre called ‘magical realism.’ Look her up.

Did the original inhabitants come across the aforementioned land bridge from Asia? Or did they cross the Pacific by raft, as Kon-Tiki tried to prove. Apparently DNA tests have disproved Norwegian ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl’s theory.

Magellan had sailed eastward between 1505 and 1511-12, seeking Asian riches to take back to Spain. Between 1519-22 he led an expedition westward, seeking a new route to the Spice Islands. Funded by Charles I (before he became Holy Roman Emperor Charles V), his expedition began with a fleet of 5 ships and 250 crew. Just one ship completed the journey back to Spain, with only the navigator (who had taken command), 17 sailors, and four Indians aboard — not including Ferdinand, who was killed by a poison arrow in a skirmish with Philippine natives. They had run out of food and were reduced to eating leather from their gear. So Charlie Chaplin making a meal of his shoe was not so far-fetched after all.

At one point the Royal Governor of Chile was a Peruvian viceroy from Ireland named O’Higgins. At his death, his illegitimate son Bernardo took over and was, among other things, the richest man in South America. Numerous fights for independence from Spain took place. In the 1860s a Frenchman named Antoine declared himself king of the indigenous Mapuche region. Then there was the 1879-1883 War of the Pacific, where Chile fought Peru and Bolivia over guano. Yup. Bird poop, which happened to be valuable fertilizer. It’s all very complicated, and I am frequently reminded of the Michael Caine-Sean Connery movie The Man Who Would Be King.

Then there’s modern history, with Isabel Allende’s relative Salvador Allende being kicked out of the presidency in favor of the U.S.-backed Augusto Pinochet, who was responsible for ‘disappearing’ hundreds of thousands of Chilean citizens during his 1973-1990 military rule. Unlike Argentina, Chile’s economy did well under dictatorship.

Remember our Argentine guide’s comment: When Argentina elects a new government, they throw out everything the previous government had done. Chile, on the other hand, keeps what was good from the previous government and only gets rid of what was bad.

Modern Chile’s economy is healthy (2.5% inflation vs. Argentina’s 47%) thanks to early guidance by ‘the Chicago Boys,’ all trained by American economist Milton Friedman (Nobel in Economic Sciences). Chileans have the highest per capita income in South America. All the country’s people could fit into the city of Buenos Aires: both have a population of 20 million.

The first settlers arrived in Punta Arenas (‘sand point’) in 1843 aboard the schooner Ancud, commemorated in this sculpture on the waterfront:

Like Ushuaia in Argentina, Punta Arenas also started as a penal colony. Because of its prize location along the Straits of Magellan, this frontier city — the largest in southern Patagonia — developed and grew as a port and a boom town after gold was discovered at the mouth of the Strait in 1884. After they passed the 1845 Law of Selective Immigration, Chile put out the call for European immigrants — but they did not invite Spaniards. Instead, they welcomed émigrés from Croatia, Germany, England, Italy and other European countries, and their influence is notable in the architecture, the food and the culture.

Hernando de Magallanes is honored with this 1920 statue in the Plaza de Armas, commemorating Chile’s 400th anniversary.

In a city of around 125,000 people, there are 12,000 street dogs, including this one. It takes 36 hours to drive to the next closest city in Chile, and people are given an extra 5 days vacation to cover the time it takes to get anywhere. The constant wind blows away the topsoil and they have very little rain. Consequently, there is no agriculture here, and all food products must be imported, which, of course, raises the prices.

Like the snout of the famous cinghiale statue in Florence (the wild boar), this statue has a talisman: Kiss the Mapuche Indian’s foot and you are guaranteed to come back to Punta Arenas.

Also at the Plazas de Armas... a pan flute player accompanying a boom box playing instrumental favorites such as ‘My Way’ (sans Sinatra) and that perennial favorite, ‘Feelings.’

The city’s history centers on the names Sara Braun, a Jewish refugee who arrived in 1874 from Latvia (some say Russia), who married José Nogueira, an established sheep farmer (think meat and wool). When the European settlers had introduced thousands of sheep into the landscape, the local Indians didn’t know they belonged to somebody else and, anyway, they were eating their guanacos’ (think llama) grass. So they killed the sheep. Naturally, the European immigrants turned around and killed the Indians.

Sara’s brother Mauricio formed a company with shipping magnate José Menéndez (originally from Spain) called Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego. Take one partner who raises vast herds of sheep for meat and wool, add a partner with a large, established shipping enterprise, and you have a recipe for monumental wealth. Sara Braun had married well and inherited a fortune, which she spent on her adoptive city, funding many major buildings in the city, including the neoclassical Braun Menendez Museum and the Sara Braun Palacio.

Our walking tour wended its way atop the Cerro de la Cruz outlook (that’s the Sun in the background)...

... where a street vendor sold sweaters, and alpaca scarves for $15 apiece.

Long descent back to the main part of town. The ‘libreria’ doesn’t sell books, our guide said, just ‘stuff.’ The shoeshine man didn’t have any business.