La Pequeña Gigante in Santiago

This little lady's been snarling up traffic downtown since who knows when.



Today is Saturday, a light-traffic day here in Santiago, and moreso because it's summer. And yet there is a line several blocks long of traffic along Manuel Rodriguez, which serves as the service road for the 5 Sur, or the Panamerican Highway, as you may know it. Traffic is a mess today, as it was yesterday, and I think tomorrow will be the same.

La Pequeña Gigante (pictured above) is a mobile art performance that lumbers down the street and has everyone's knickers in a knot. She's gigantic, and you really don't have to be that close to see her, but everyone and their brother was in Plaza La Constitución last night, watching her sleep. A sleeping puppet! Now that's exciting!

It's really a testament to how much people want to play make believe. People talk about her like she's real. I ran into a friend of mine near here yesterday and asked him what he was doing. "Oh, I came to see the doll," he said. This is a serious person, a guy who trains for 8-hour mountain bike races day in and day out, a new father, a doting husband. And he came to see a puppet. Sleeping.

I asked some other people if they were coming back the next day, and they excitedly told me about how the doll wakes up at 10, and how her uncle (even bigger, some 30 m high) was coming to see her. Because every giant puppet should have an even more giant puppet uncle. Wouldn't you?

She has a jam-packed schedule of walks and naps and visits with her uncle, and the whole area downtown is turned inside out with crowds and excitement and really poor crowd control and people selling pictures of the marionette, or if not, soda, bags of confetti or Chilean flags. I don't think we've gotten a count yet, but the last time she was here, 700,000 people came out to take a slack-jawed peek.

Even a jaded bearshapedsphere has to admit that it's pretty great to see all these people lining up (ha, I mean crowding together) to catch a glimpse of something truly extraordinary, kids in tow and fingers pointing and generally laughing and enjoying the spectacle. But I'd way rather see her from my window. Thank goodness for the "penguin lens." (or as some to call it, the zoomcito).

If you're trying to catch her, here's a summary (in Spanish) of what she's up to today: La Pequeña Gigante. Apparently she'll be taking a siesta a little later in the day. And so should we all.

Planning for the unknown, Cycling in New Zealand (pretrip)

At just two weeks (eep!) from my upcoming departure to New Zealand, I am, as is generally the case before a trip, ticking methodically thorough what needs to be done before wheels up.

Recovered from the coffee/tea/water/diet coke spitting incident at the hilarity of the above statement? Good. Then let's get on to the truth. The truth is, I have identified eight things that need to be done before I go on this trip. And they are the following:

1. Buy a round-trip ticket to New Zealand
2. Buy an internal flight, Auckland to Christchurch
3. Book a hostel in Christchurch
4. Inquire about bike
5. Reserve bike
6. Test out riding kit
7. Read about NZ
8. Plan cycling trip (approximation)

Of these, I have done precisely 3 and two halves. You might think from what you learned in the fourth grade that 3 and two halves is 4. In this case, you would be wrong. I may be a despelotada (scatterbrain) about some things, but I take my halves seriously. And sometimes they're not reducible fractions.

A quick inventory reveals the following.

1. Kinda. I have a ticket from Santiago to Auckland and returning to Buenos Aires. At the time that I booked this, it seemed like a great way to save money. Now that Argentina has instituted a reciprocity fee for me and my people (Americans, not Jews, though I understand there is some crossover), this may or may not actually have saved me money. Also, depending on how I'm feeling after the NZ trip and how I'm fixed for time, that will determine how I get back to Santiago, and how much cash I drop on that cross-continental journey (hint: not by bike!)

2. Yes! Gold star!

3. Nope.

4. Yep! Another Gold star!

5. Um, not yet. Soon. I think.

6. Yes. I'm fairly satisfied that what I have will work, though I want to put the panniers in the shower and make sure they're really as waterproof as they claim to be. I believe a shower should approximate the strongest rain I'm likely to encounter, though I might turn on the warm water a little more than Mother Nature likes to.

7. A little? Not enough.

8. This is not planned. I need to be realistic about how much I can pedal day in and day out, and understand the terrain a little better. There will be some really terrible hills. But really terrible is very subjective. I need to look at the grade of the hills and see how it compares to what I pedal around here. Living smack against the Andes, it's not like I'm a stranger to hills. But they're not what I'd call my strong point. Like eating cereal with milk. I'm really good at that (especially if they're Quaker's Quadritos).

So as you can see, there's some, um, planning that needs to be done. And by some I mean kind of all of it. Oh. that.

Re hills: From what I can see, the first few days out of Christchurch should be pretty flat. You'd think this would be a good thing. In fact, it is not. It is likely to remind me of Sauvie's Island outside of Portland, Oregon, a place that was designed with a level and then stuck in a wind tunnel on 10. It is the most torturously unpleasant ride I have ever ridden, and that includes dogs, rocks, rainstorms, hailstorms, wind gusts, people throwing things, cracks in the road and even crashes.

But my biggest enemy in pedalling is not the physical. The physical can be overcome. You can stop and take a break, take a nap, drink a box of cappucino-flavored milk (bleck, this in Costa Rica, a trip I planned in the airport with the free map from the tourism office). The physical problems go away. Nothing a shower and a rest can't cure. But the mental exhaustion of knowing that you have a long spool of black asphalt before you that must be traversed, while your self-confidence has taken a hike down one of New Zealand's famous tramping tracks? That's hell.

But overcoming all of it? The pain, and the fatigue and the niggling self doubts about whether you could or couldn't? That's like a good bowl of cereal with milk. With a free prize inside.

More details to follow. If you have any words of wisdom or resources or if you're a sports psychologist, please feel free to speak up.

Another secret of the litoral central, Chile

The litoral central is what we call the central coast of Chile. If you speak Spanish, there's nothing funny about it. But if you speak English, it sounds a little like literally, the most central place. Which maybe isn't funny, but it does show that no matter how long I spend speaking Spanish, English is never far away.

This little caseta (house/booth) is where our wander around a little wetlands began. It was staffed by a man whose main job seemed to be giving out pamphlets and sitting in the house. He also watched our bikes, which was pretty sweet, since I no longer have a lock since the great lost key debacle of late 2009 (you know I always name these events, don't look away, it's who I am).



I supppose our first glimpse of the place was actually this sign, which to be honest, between the hand lettering, the crack and the layer of something (what is that? dirt? mold? dust?) didn't lend generate great expectations on my part.



And the fact that we could see houses across the way made the place maybe a little less, oh, I don't know, natural-feeling than I might have hoped.



But sometimes you just have to adjust your gaze a little, and take a better look of what's right in front of you, instead of what's farther afield.

Like lupins (lupino)



and ice plant (doca)

and this pretty plant, that no one knew the name of (got any answers?)



or huingan, this pretty berried plant we'd seen in the pre-cordillera the weekend before. Sonia, who tastes berries to deem them edible or not, deemed this one inedible. Sonia is audacious, and from the south. Don't try this at home.



Oh! and the birds. There were many, but these are not my forté. There were ducks that were reddish, and blacknecked swans, a heron, a small bird called siete colores and a bunch of other winged creatures (including dragonflies).

Heron (grulla)



or here, where I've black and whited the photo and made maybe what looks like a colorblind impressionist's version of a heron flying over a marsh.



blacknecked swan (cisne de cuello negro
)


And speaking of looking at what's right before you, for goodness sake, walk softly and carry a big camera. Or you might miss the female lagarto llorón. With identification props and thanks to Manuel Jara a Chilean biologist whose website is a good source of info (and pictures) on Chilean fauna. I didn't see this lizard on his blog, so I emailed him and asked, and he provided a very complete, swift response. And all was well in herpetology.



And if you can't take time to look at what's right under your nose, you can always contemplate the road that lies before you.



Details: Laguna El Peral, Las Cruces, Chile.

I'm not concealing info from you, that's pretty much the only address the place has. Las Cruces isn't big, you won't get lost. It's before the entrance to the beach part of the town headed away from Santiago and after if you're headed back to Santiago.

On remembering, or what the artist was thinking

How do you remember? What do you remember?

I am working on a writing project right now which has to do with remembering a ton of stuff about me, and my life before 1981. That's right, I said 1981, a long, long time ago. A time which I remember clearlyish because I was 10.

I'll pause while you do the math.

Yes, I am aged. (where aged is prounounced with two syllables, as in age-ed, not aged as in a cheese, but wow is cheese ever tasty and you could just nibble on your arm if you got peckish).

So one of the things I think about throughout the course of the day, in addition to "was there something else I was supposed to be doing, seeing as how I never write anything down, in spite of the fact that words pour from my fingertips most of the time?" is about how we rememember things. On the one hand, I have alot of things I want to remember for this project. On the other hand, I can't really force it, because I can't just sit still and will the memories to come.

I have to let the world wash over me and wait for me to see something that reminds me of the thentime (also known as the beforetime), which is before 1981, which, I don't care how much world-washing you're doing, is just a long time ago.

Cryptic this all is, I know, and cryptic it shall stay. But I still wonder what it is that triggers a memory, and how it was that out of the thousands of bits of graffiti I have photographed in my life, I saw this one:

and immediately remembered that in the same town, several months before, facing the opposite way, I had seen something by (presumably) the same artist.



And then I wondered what it is that makes him (assuming he is a he) paint these stiff-legged and -armed creatures, in the very same palate of colors with the same googly eyes, this same curved shoulder, this same lack of concern for the tippy top of the head.

I wonder painting these pieces makes the artist think of something. Or remember something.

And I wish I could tell him that I remembered him from one season to the next, and that I couldn't say exactly why.

Because memory is like that.

This is what democracy looks like. Chile Elections, 2010, Sebastian Piñera

Chile is a democracy. That means that every four years, every single registered voter will get out to vote, or register their absence at a commisary (voting is compulsory here, unless you're dying or more than 200 km away or over a certain age). It's either a privilege or a giant pain, depending on who you ask, but you'd think that more people would be excited about it since they've only been at it for about 20 years in recent times, what with the dictatorship and all. Oh yeah, that.

Today was the run-off between Sebastián Piñera and Eduardo Frei, representing kind of the right and kind of the middle-left. I say kind of because by the time the run-off was held, most people were saying they barely saw a difference in the two candidates. Run-offs are held when no candidate gets more than 50% in the first elections, which I talked about in this other fabulous bearshaped blogpost.

Of prime importance was probably that Piñera was promising a large number of jobs at a time that we too, are feeling the crunch of the economic crisis. Joblessness is a big issue, as it should be, and people are thrilled with the idea of getting back to work.

I could vote in Chile. I could actually register to vote, and the Chilean government would be pleased to let me do so. The US government, on the other hand (I believe) has no policy on whether or not I can or should vote here. Never wishing to run afoul of my home government, and any future policies it may put in effect, I had decided that registering to vote here is not in the cards for me, though this year's results have me a little on the fence for the next go-round.

The fact that I don't vote in Chile means that although I have a fairly strong opinion on who I wanted to win (gee, I wonder who that would have been), I kind of feel like I don't have much of a right to shout it from the rooftops. Let's just say I felt like a giant, uncomfortable impostor at the Piñera celebration today, and just as I was about to abandon my solid political stance for a minute and sway to the music (btw, not so good for picture taking), someone tapped me on the shoulder, pointing out some (also non-Piñera supporting) friends of mine, who I went over to talk to. No swaying ensued.

So I concentrated on the crowds and the cheers, and the really awful slogan some teenage girls where shouting, which went like this:

Frei, escucha, vete a la chucha. (Listen up Frei, and go to hell). I know they were a small minority, but really, I thought conservatives were supposed to be beyond that kind of petty name calling. Or aggressive sign making, like this one, which says...

Finally, damnit!



But in general, everyone was very well-behaved, brought their children out to celebrate the victory, and the children compensated by being disgustingly photogenic, as they are wont to do.



horrible, aren't they?


And people walked up and down the street



And hung out their windows



And threw confetti



And looked dignified



And had romantic moments



And took pictures (love catching the photogs)



And night fell, and the festivities continued



And I used the guardrail that separates the two sides of the street I was on (the Alameda) as an improvised tripod. (And yes, I see the dirt on my sensor, and I am working on it, most sorry).



And then I pedalled home, thankful that I live in a democracy, and hoping that the change Piñera has promised tends more towards the provision of jobs, and less towards the revocation or stalling of what I consider to be human rights. More than half the people voted for him. I really hope they're right. By which I mean correct.

Visit Cachandochile for her latest news on the elections with a nice factual breakdown of who votes in Chile. And check out the rest of the album on Flickr if you're wondering what else I snapped and shared tonight.

Flowers galore in the Andes, Salto de Apoquindo

In the previous post, I promised more flora. And in general, I'm a keeper of promises, though not a promisekeeper, because that makes my skin crawl.

tons of these bubble-looking flowers.


And these yellow ringed flowers.


And pink astromelias (not asters, thanks, you're totally right!), which seem to bloom later than the red ones, as they were not yet withered nor going to seed (see previous post)


and these delicate ones which looked like murano glass in real life.



and this thing that grows like a chagual, but has these little spiky pompons on top.



I like to think of this one as the pineapple paintbrush, for reasons that are very clear to me. And to you?



and a giant, spiky cactus with its pretty white flowers



or you can just look at the cactus itself, in a series of three:

healthy



not so good



anybody got a trumpet?



And then a totally different cactus, that grows close to the ground, has spikes galore and grows flowers in this pretty crown shape. (Quisco Anaranjado Neoporteria curvispina, and this is the only one I could identify in a book of wildflowers I have, in case you were wondering why I've only named it, and not everybody else. Apparently they're hard to spy, so we got lucky.)


Not pictured: a vizcacha (like a chinchilla/bunny) I saw the hind end of, a few lizards, a whole bunch of birds, including quail which make that funny hooting coo, and the foxes we heard (making sort of a squeaky bark), and it sounded like there were pups around.

Now get out there and gaze upon the pretty that is Chile!

Saltos de Apoquindo, a Santiago hike for the public-transit minded

Sometimes you will invite people over to dinner, and during the course of the meal, you will unroll a giant, unweildy map you have on the country, and this will happen.



And then, when you're least expecting it, someone will call you on the phone, and say, hey, let's go up to the mountains for the weekend.

And you will take the metro, getting off at the new Los Dominicos stop.



And find these silly boys with their arrow signs and follow those, as if you hadn't guessed that the connecting bus was upstairs, and would have wandered around for the rest of your life in the new metro station, or at least until it closed and they kicked you out.



And then for good measure you could follow the signs on the street, in case you'd gotten confused between the arrows and outside.



And then you would get off the bus here, at San Carlos de Apoquindo



And then you would walk, up and away from the city




first slowly, in the sun, then more quickly as time moved forward and you saw this behind you



And this ahead:



Until it was so dark and you couldn't see anything at all, except the glow of the city in the background, the snacks you ate for dinner and a sole candle burning in a tuna can in the firepit because we were all too lazy to even think about building a fire.

Like I did, you'll have to wait to see the flora. But oh! was there flora.
Plants come tomorrow. They always do.

Here's a preview, of wild asters, in three stages.

Vivid (the actual salto, or waterfall in the background)



Fading



Ready to be reborn (my favorite, brought to you by manual focus, thorns in my knee and a whole lot of patience).

Porotos Granados! A vegetarian Chilean feast in pictures

If you are not, at this very second eating a hearty earthenware bowl full of the homey creamy Chilean potage, porotos granados, well then, I weep for you. Unless you are drinking a glass (yes, a glass, they're bigger) of iced coffee with cold-frothed milk, in which case I raise mine to you as well, and will weep for you later.

Porotos granados are vegetarian, vegan, even! No meat, no milk, no egg, no honey, no dead insects (we hope), no sneaky pork knuckle waving hello at the bottom. Kosher I tell you, kosher!

Like many Chilean foods, this one is a carb-loading bomb, and a delicious carbloading bomb that you will be happy to gobble down in spite of the wildly illogical problem that most of the ingredients are available only in the summer, when really, you should be eating cherimoyas and nothing but.


Porotos Grandados!

You're going to need:

a boatload of cranberry beans (porotos granados)



Which you can shell yourself



Or goad some friends into shelling with you


(hey guys!)

An onion, cut in this very strange way which involves a collander and running water, and tiny little mincing cuts all throughout the onion. I have never seen this done before and am not easily convinced, but hey, it was C's house, and he can do whatever he wants.



Squash, cut into cubes



Corn, de-cobbed and ground in a food processor, or grated on a traditional grater, which I think gives a better texture, but makes a giant mess and never yeilds as much as this method.



Garlic. Again, go C with your grandma-esque cutting style. Me? I prefer a cutting board.



Basil


Aliño completo (seasoning mix), that mysterious condiment based on cumin and who knows what else, that shows up in a ton of Chilean cooking. I don't have any, and this, along with not having dried oregano, marks me as a philistine among Chilean cooks. It does not have MSG in it, if you're sensitive to that kind of thing.



And, of course, a pressure cooker



This is the basic idea. Oil in the pan, cook onion and garlic, add mystery aliño, water, beans, squash. Pressure cook quickly, or don't. Add corn towards the end or you will be a slave to the stirring, because it sticks easily. It's a pretty flexible, country-type recipe, so do what you like! I used to whir the finished soup, but have since decided it's better to only grate the corn (mess excepted).

Recipes you can find here or here (in English, but tomatoes? no!)

C whirs the basil in with the corn, but I prefer mine in tiny pieces sprinkled on top.

I think this is one of few foods I would never tire of. I made a giant pot of it at the beginning of the week, and happily chowed down on it for lunch nearly every day. Creamy and perfect. I eat it with a lot of pepper, and more salt than I probably should.

And if you think you're having some kind of flashback, it's true, I talked about this at least once before, but that time I bought most of it pre-made. I have seen the error of my ways, and also learned to shell beans more easily.

And if you're too lazy for even that, a reccomendation for Galindo in Barrio Bellavista (not far from Baquedano metro, on the way to Cerro San Cristobal, feet from the Patio Bellavista, near La Chascona, tasty and cheap, at the corner of Constitución (runs parallel to Pio Nono) and D'ardignac.

Buen provecho! Now where's my second cup of coffee?