09-15-08 Weekend in Punta Arenas

We left Puerto Natales Friday evening, feeling slightly claustraphobic, but the feeling disappeared as soon as we hopped on a bus to Punta Arenas, the big city, to meet with Casey, Dan, and the three other volunteers we hadn't seen since arriving. Kate and I were going to look for a hostel, but Dan's colleague, Ruth, invited us into her home, where we wound up staying all weekend and having a fabulous time. Ruth and her husband Lalo have two sons in their 20s, who now live in other parts of Chile--their attentiveness and hospitality toward us made it evident how much they must miss their boys. Kate and I slept in their beds upstairs, in the coziest little attic space--I only managed to hit my head twice on the rafters. Ruth and Lalo were great, "have a beer, invite your friends over, listen to music, sit in the living room..." everything we could have wanted. And they had 100% Columbian coffee and a real coffee maker--it was the best cup of coffee I've had in Chile, and possibly my life--I am still tingling from it.

Friday night, all of the volunteers met up in the house of Dan's host family. We wound up sitting in a little flourescent-lit shack, kept warm by a wood stove. We drank and chatted and listened to Victor Jara on cassette and eventually sang--Dan and his dad particularly, backed up by a little maraca and tambourine. I learned only one song--"A beber, a beber, a beber...esta noche no quiero llorar. A beber, a beber, a beber, esta noche yo quiero chupar." (Tonight, I don't want to cry, I want to suck down alcohol...poetic, no?) The sun was rising by the time we got home. We might have seen it rise, in fact, if the boys hadn't gotten into a pretty funny argument about the best place to see the sun come up!

Saturday we had breakfast at 3:30 p.m. We had gone to the supermarket the night before to get grocieries for a big "North American" style breakfast, although we wound up leaving the green onions in the shack at Dan's. It was a little difficult to make our omletts with all five of us in the kitchen. Ruth was so motherly--"Your coffee is going to get cold. That's going to stick to the pan. Your feet are going to get cold. You're going to freeze," and she actually put Casey's steak in a blender (we're not sure why)--but we managed to churn out three very excellent omlettes with goat cheese, whole-grain toast, apples, and another pot of great coffee. Later that night, we had dinner at a lively local restaurant called El Mercado, a charming brightly-lit room on the second floor of a building downtown. I had a shellfish stew (John would have been proud, I think), filled with many unidentifiable mariscos in a white-wine broth. It was excellent. We had a drink afterward, but weren't really in the mood to go out again, so we decided to go back to Ruth and Lalo's to drink some wine and watch a movie. In search of a corner store, we found a strip club, were offered drugs, and asked for money very politely--"Money, please." I am thankful to be in Natales! We took a collectivo home and took a bottle of wine to the Straight of Magellan, where Casey produced a small flute and a harmonica.

Sunday, I slept ridiculously late again, and woke up to a delicous lunch of hake that Ruth was making. We had mote con huasillos afterward and I heard Ruth utter "Pobrecita, va a engordar"--poor thing, she's going to get fat! We went to the cemetary in the afternoon, which is probably the most interesting place in Punta Arenas, filled with pine trees that are shaped like gumdrops, and meticulously manicured to sweep the floor. The cemetary is filled with many Yugoslavians, or Croatians, I should say, as well as Italians and English. There was also a memorial to "the unkown indian," who is buried beneath, and many people come to petition him for favors. There were men in blue jumpsuits and black berets digging graves with shovels--I know graves have to get dug somehow, but it was a sombering sight nonetheless. We had this brilliant idea for a photo, with each of us standing behind one of the trees and peeking out, and Lalo took it...but when I looked at it after I got home, I noticed that one of the gravediggers is walking in the background, his shovel slung over his shoulder. It's a really interesting moment, I think, and hopefully I can put it on Flickr soon.