Off to Chile again; Great Expectations

Every year, from April to December, we roost in our home near Leesburg, Virginia, and get our news about Chile from on-line media, texts with friends, podcasts, and phone conversations with family.

Then, after the year-end holidays, we jet off to hot and sunny Santiago for our three-month Chilean summer visit, timing our departure just right to avoid the northern winter snows and ice. Once our tickets are purchased, expectation builds about what we will find in Chile; every visit to Chile presents us with changes we aren’t prepared for, but also aspects of everyday life there that we have become so accustomed to over the years.

So, we begin to make plans to get the most out of our time in Chile. The long road trips of past years, deep into the southern lakes region or way up north in the extremely arid but beautiful desertic areas, have unfortunately become fewer over time, due in part to the effects of the aging process not only on my long suffering knees and legs, but also on our loyal and still valiant Hyundai Sonata, purchased right off the boat in Chile in 2008 and who will never be replaced.

Actually, we did recently take a longish drive from Santiago to Mendoza, Argentina, through the spectacular pass that skirts Mt. Aconcagua, the tallest volcano in South America. On that trip, with our good Argentine friends and traveling companions Liliana and Osvaldo, we continued through the Argentine wine country where the very best Malbecs are produced, enjoyed a birthday celebration at the emblematic Piedra Infinita restaurant at the Familia Zuccardi winery in the Uco Valley, to then reenter Chile through another fantastic Andean crossing which brings you out in Talca, about a 3-hour drive south of Santiago. But we do not foresee taking extensive road trips. A journey down the Carretera Austral or up into the Atacama Desert to San Pedro de Atacama and further north, are probably journeys we will now only fantasize about doing again. But who knows? Hope springs eternal.

This time, not to be completely deterred, we will set our sights on the shorter, more doable but equally enjoyable excursions for our stay in Chile. We may return for a stay in the Elqui Valley, that rich valley that cuts through the arid Andes north of Santiago, down to the Pacific Ocean at La Serena and Coquimbo. This is the valley where the quaint villages of Vicuña, the birthplace of Gabriela Mistral, and Pisco Elqui, surrounded by vineyards growing the grapes used to make pisco, present an enchanting, some say mystical, environment in which star gazing, meditation, or just plain relaxation is the main activity. This is where you buy your groceries at the AlmaZen, and the gummies they sell in the street markets help you see clearly the incredible star-lit heavens, even on a cloudy night. If we do a trip to this valley, one reason will be to visit the vineyards around Cochiguaz, at the end of the road leading up into the mountains, where an innovative series of high-altitude wines and piscos are being made.

A visit to relatives in Curanipe, the fishing village in the Maule Region, is a must. Not only is Curanipe blessed with an exciting coastline and bountiful seafood, but to get there from our home in Santiago we take a several-hour drive through Chile’s fruit growing and wine producing regions, including, towards the end, a sprint through “La Ruta del Pipeño“, a short strip of rural Maule where this unique fresh, rustic and unpretentious wine is produced and sold in roadside stands. You haven’t tasted rural Maule until you have experienced a glass or two of pipeño wine, at the source.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Villa Baviera (ex-Colonia Dignidad) is located in the mountains of eastern Maule Region, not too far from Curanipe, so maybe I’ll figure out how to arrange a visit to check on the folks I know there, who are trying to carve out a life where they believe is their home, while coping with the sins of the past and the harsh realities of the present. I might even find some new information on Dignidad, the young lady I met there and introduced in the posting on this blog titled Dignity in Chile. She might still be working there. That would be nice.

A trip to Curanipe also opens the possibilities of visiting once again the notable sites devastated by natural disasters so common in Chile, like the coastal town of Dichato, destroyed in the 2010 earthquake and tsunami, and Santa Olga, completely wiped out by the wildfire of 2017.

It will now be almost 15 years since Dichato and most of the rest of Chile’s south-central cities and towns were destroyed in one of Chile’s strongest earthquakes. For ten years after the event, notable progress was made to recover from the destruction, and it seemed that Chileans would, in fact, “build back better”, not just rebuild. You can read multiple past postings on this blog, of our visits to the places and people most affected by the quake.

There was a point in time when it seemed to me that Chileans had finally thrown off the gloom and doom of this disaster. With the rebuilding of the San Ambrosio church in Chanco, just north of Curanipe, this gem of a church was able again to play its central role in the yearly Fiesta de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria. It would be great to participate in that celebration again, for it is one of the truest expressions of traditional, rural Chile, especially the Maule Region, its customs and its people. But we will at least visit the new, rebuilt church, admittedly less ornate than the old one, an expression of the spirit and drive that Chileans demonstrated during the difficult years following the 2010 earthquake. Persistence in their commitment to rebuild paid off, so they again celebrate their beloved Virgin within the walls of their church, and in the streets of Chanco.

Of course, the mention of Santa Olga, and the idea that we might be able to visit that site again soon, brings to the fore one of the most pregnant issues of the day in Chile, that of the annual wildfires and the destruction and death they leave behind. The victims of the fires earlier this year in the hills above Viña del Mar are still trying to put their lives back together, certainly discouraged by the early warnings that the impending fire season in that same area will be as bad or worse than the last.

Regarding those fires, described earlier in this blog, there has been some progress in sorting out what happened, the causes and the effects, in an attempt to prepare better for the inevitable next round of fires. A recent press release announced that the last victim of the fires has now been identified, so searches for loved ones lost will now stop.

There was a major breakthrough in the investigation into the way the fires started, with the arrest for arson of eight members of the firefighting brigades, all employees of the local fire departments and CONAF. The size of the group of arsonists explains in part the multiple fires that all started more or less at the same time in places surrounding the Las Peñuelas National Reserve. Both institutions claim to have strengthened their recruiting processes in an attempt to rid their personnel of this type of person. The motivation of these arsonists was to have more work, more extra days putting out fires, and higher pay by the end of the fire season. Easy to compute; more fires, more income.

After the past fire season, besides the eight arsonists responsible for the Viña del Mar fires, 374 individuals have been accused of arson in 18 other fires throughout the country. So, while proving arson in the courts is still difficult, the officials who are working to find the perpetrators of Chile’s fires are having some success.

What is discouraging is that the recovery process for the victims of fires is taking so long. Many who were left homeless are still stuck in temporary housing  or living with relatives, with permanent solutions to their housing needs a long way off. Even more discouraging is a recent report that only 5 of the 38 communas (municipalities) in the area affected by fires in the last season have produced updated risk reduction plans, a requirement whose due date has passed. The absence of updated plans like these was one of the major causes of the inability of victims to escape the fires, and the firefighters to combat the fires in a timely manner.

On the plus side of the recovery is the case of the botanical garden in Viña del Mar where, contrary to the most extreme early estimations of losses to their collections, many of the areas that the fire swept over have begun to come back by themselves, and new plantings are being established.

And, the authorities have recently announced the arrival in Chile of two large firefighting aircraft: a Hercules C-130, and a Boeing 737 “Fireliner”, both capable of carrying 15,000 liters of water or fire retardant chemicals. Having these planes on sight at the start of the fire season is a great improvement over past years when the acquisition of large firefighting planes was often an afterthought and managed haphazardly with less-than-optimal effects on the fires. In addition, there seems to be a much-welcomed formal operational agreement between the government (CONAF) and the private forestry sector (CORMA) which should facilitate the public/private collaboration on the ground, necessary to identify early and combat efficiently this year’s fires.

When we arrive in Chile we usually are catching the Chileans on the cusp of their summer vacations; schools have closed, businesses are going to vacation schedules, and people are packing to get out of Santiago to escape the heat. But the first few days of January mark the end of the “año legislativo“, the period when the Chilean Congress rushes to finish the work on its agenda, which this year includes their attempts to produce new tax, pension, security, and political-electoral reform legislation.

Many of these basic problems were at the core of the two processes to write a new constitution for the country, ongoing for several years after the estallido of 2019. But those attempts failed to produce a new Magna Carta, the process (if not the desire) to write a new constitution was put on hold, and the basic reforms, like the metaphoric “can”, were kicked down the road. So the Boric government assumed the task of working through the existing legislative bodies and rules, guided by the existing constitution as amended several times over the years, to construct the agreements necessary to obtain approval of the most urgent reforms. They may finally, after two decades of discussion and debate, produce a new pensions law.

Chileans are increasingly concerned for their security. The related issues of street crime, drug use, organized crime recruitment of youth to do their dirty work, illegal immigration including links to organized crime rings like the Venezuelan “Tren de Aragua“, and some high profile assassinations and kidnappings have forced the Boric government to present a package of legislation to strengthen the intelligence-gathering institutions and crime response forces. 

Mid-term municipality and regional elections were held in October. The result is that there is a new group of mayors and regional governors, more from the political center and more independent, many of whom were elected with a specific mandate to address the security issues, so this will continue to be in the headlines and up front at dinner table conversation while we are in Chile, to be sure. Maybe they will get some help from the newly appointed US Ambassador who seems to be headed to Chile, Brandon Judd, the ex-president of the US Border Patrol Union who, by the way, was a Mormon missionary in Viña del Mar in the 1990s.

With a Trump-appointed border guy as Ambassador to Chile (Chileans are already referring to him as “El Sheriff“), the broadly appreciated Visa Waiver Program Chile benefits from will be under increased scrutiny. In her outgoing interview, President Biden’s Ambassador to Chile, the very personable Bernadette Meehan, pointed out that the bands of South American thieves in the US are almost all Chileans, and that the FBI has a special unit to address specifically the Chileans who go to the US to commit crime. A recent news flash out of the Phoenix area of Arizona revealed the arrest of a band of Chileans that had been breaking into unoccupied luxury homes in gated communities, liberating those homes of their most valuable belongings. If it turns out these Chilean thieves are benefitting from the Visa Waiver program to get to and from the US, that program is toast.

Everyone agrees that Chile has structural problems affecting national governance. As mentioned earlier, this is why, five years ago, after the estallido, the politicians and academics set in place two mechanisms to write a new constitution to address these problems. But since it didn’t work, these issues are now being addressed piece meal but obviously they can’t take on everything at once. Resolution should be facilitated by the truly impressive amount of analysis of every area of concern, carried out by academic institutions, think tanks, and social organizations during that process. But, due to the disaggregation of political forces, resolution will be slow, most likely too slow to prevent another social mobilization in the streets to pressure the legislature and Government to enact reforms faster.

The State has 25 executive ministries (equivalent to departments in the US), a situation that begs reform and modernization through elimination of some, or at least consolidation into a more manageable form. But instead, in the urgency to address the security problems, they are adding on a new ministry of security. In a system where the spoils of election victories are portioned out to each of the participating parties, the ministries are seen as “owned” (for example, labor and women’s issues for the Communist Party). It’s very difficult, no, it’s impossible, for a president to eliminate a political ally’s ministry.

This situation is complicated by the fact that as a result of electoral reform approved (by a great bipartisan margin, by the way) under the first Bachelet government, the so called “binominal” system of electing representatives to Congress was eliminated. As a result, there are now 22 political parties, most of which have representatives in Congress. Consequently, Chile has very weak political parties, which results in the difficulties they are having to reach agreements on legislation. It also manifests itself in public opinion of Congress, latest rating at 8% approval, the lowest in 60 years. They must figure out how to realign political forces into fewer, albeit strengthened, parties. Most serious analysts believe this is the key to keep their democracy alive and growing.

Santiago has a new mayor, a centrist replacement for the prior Communist mayor. The mayor of Santiago, by virtue of being responsible for the municipality which includes the center of the capital city with its most historical government, business and banking institutions, holds a catbird seat noticed by the rest of the country.  Upon taking over, just a few days ago, the new mayor reported that after the 2019 estallido, 900 small stores in the center off the city closed, 14% of the offices became vacant, and 50% of the still functioning businesses have reported being vandalized or their employees assaulted during the first half of 2024.

But the new mayor states that he has a program to return Santiago to its prior “…pretty, happy, and entertaining” state. Well, that would be marvelous. Meandering through downtown Santiago used to be a regular pastime of mine on our visits to Chile, but lately that has not been the case. Two years ago we took an Uber to the center of town, and muscled our way through the crowded streets filled with itinerant vendors, pickpockets, and homeless vagrants, to visit the Museo de Arte Pre-colombino (well worth the effort, by the way).

Now, once we get back to Santiago, I’m going to take the new mayor at his word, and explore more of old Santiago again, knowing that he has not had much time to humanize and clean up the center of Santiago. I think I will start with a visit to the refurbished Museo de Santiago in the Casa Colorada, a colonial house built in 1769 just off the central Plaza de Armas, and the new Violeta Parra Museum relocated to the Universidad de Chile from its original site on Avenida Vicuña Mackenna, after being burned in “ground zero” of the estallido.

Reportedly, it is now possible to take a tour of the Palacio de la Moneda, the presidential palace that was destroyed in the 1973 military coup, but now rebuilt and functioning fully as the seat of government. I have never been inside this place that embodies so much history. I have watched this iconic place struggle with defeat and celebrate victory over the past fifty years, a fitting emblem of Chile’s ups and downs in the struggle to build a sustainable democracy. It’s time I pay the battered but triumphant Moneda a visit.

 

I would like to tour the Moneda while Gabriel Boric is still president. We have reported much on this president’s term, on his experience as an energetic, inquisitive young man, too inexperienced for the job, too ideologically rigid for the task of governing, too anti-Yanqui for my comfort, and too arrogant for many of his countrymen and women. The curious thing is that today, one and a half years from the end of his term, Boric has a 28% approval rating. Sebastian Piñera’s rating at this time in his first term was only 17%, and Michelle Bachelet’s was only 19%, and they both went on to win the presidency a second time, after sitting out one term as required by the constitution. So, the general opinion seems to be that while Gabriel Boric’s term as president will probably be remembered as quite mediocre, he could very well return after someone else has the chance to try to fix Chile’s problems, pick up the “cans” in the road and take the country forward. It may be worthwhile to note, however, that both Bachelet’s and Piñera’s second terms were deemed less productive than their first.

So, we prepare to visit a Chile still committed to fixing its social problems of low pensions, chaotic health care system, educational system that favors higher university education over investment in day care, primary education and technical training, and a tax system that needs reform. It is also a Chile that is exporting record amounts of avocados and cherries, but has had to pull up 20,000 hectares of grape vines over the past few years because of lower exports of wine. Chile has developed and modernized its salmon, wood products, and copper industries from simple extractionism to technically advanced globally-recognized leadership in sustainable natural resource management. The international slowdown in electric vehicle production, especially in China, and uncertainties as to where the US economy under the Trump/Musk administration will go, Chile’s lithium bonanza has been dampened, at least for the moment. However, the green hydrogen and alternative energy sectors (wind, solar) are internationally recognized in the context of the global environmental agreements related to climate change mitigation. Of note, Chile has one of the largest urban fleets of electric buses outside of China.

I was impressed by a recent interview I read with the Director of the Catholic University MBA program, who outlined the characteristics of Chile’s economy that should breed optimism in the nation’s future: a cohesive society (notwithstanding the pending resolution of Mapuche issues in Araucanía), strong institutions (in spite of the notable weaknesses that are begging reform), and strong highly educated empresarial and academic classes. He emphasized, as a reminder to all of us who tend to spend our time looking closely at problems, that Chile is blessed with an abundance of natural resources and the demonstrated ability to sustainably exploit them. His challenge to Chile’s leadership was that optimism in Chile’s future development is a moral imperative. Optimism will offset the broadly felt national lethargy resulting from the estallido and the pandemic.

I accept the Director’s challenge, so will take a portion of optimism with me on this trip to Chile. I’ll start by making a journey into downtown Santiago and pick some low hanging fruit, possibly have lunch at the Peluquería Francesa, a funky bistro in the neighborhood where President Boric lives, or maybe meet up with our friends Luisa and Lionel for a pisco sour at the now legendary Aji Seco Místico. What I have not done in a long time is go to one of Santiago’s jazz clubs; maybe I’ll spend an evening in the Barrio Italia district at the Jazz Corner, or Thelonious Jazz Club in Barrio Bellavista. 

So, off we will go, optimistic and excited to be going back to Chilito, a place where they say, “nothing ever happens here…until it does.”

Posted in Leesburg, Virginia, on December 20, 2024