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| There was something slightly more interesting to the left. |
--Mark Twain
In a move that at first seems more centralized in a romanticized view of the past then it does in practicality, Ryan has been filling pages of a journal en su puño y letra (handwriting) since we arrived in Chile. I in turn have been keeping this chronicle, electronic and intangible as it is, but in many ways I feel he has the better idea. Over a month has now passed since the Fiestas Patrias, and that time has forced many of my yet-unwritten experiences out of my memory. A handwritten journal, with passages scribbled on a daily basis, would have served to at the very least preserve a hearty portion of details now lost from my internal library. Thus, now as I write, the stories are more compact, bordering on summary. Caveat in place, I shall reach back to tell of....
...The morning of the 17th of September, the beginning of the long weekend of festivities celebrating Chile's Independence, I was in the house of Alex Olsen's host family. That day, Heather and Vanessa were coming into to town and we would all celebrate Peter's birthday. However, Alex told me he wanted to wait around La Serena that afternoon to have lunch with his family before we headed over to Coquimbo. I agreed and thus we were in the kitchen around eleven o'clock, awaiting his family, when a strange woman who was not a member of the family walked into the kitchen. She put down a box of groceries and greeted us, taking me for a Chilean off the bat and engaging me in conversation that was far too fast and peppered with chilenismos to understand. At one point, she asked Alex and I if would wanted something, I gathered, and (as I commonly do when asked questions in Spanish that I don't immediately understand) I said "Sí." She proceeded to produce two bottles of a Chilenan beverage known as "Lemon Stones" which is basically an ill-advised mix of lemonade and beer. As she handed a bottle to each of us, she said, "No tiene mucho alchohol. Es muy sauve." Mind you, it was not yet noon.
Around that time, Alex's host-mom returned from the store and helped the other woman prepare empanadas. I learned, somehow and at some point, that the Lemon Stones woman was the mother of the boyfriend of one of the Alex's five host-sisters. That sister, named Daraya, along with the boyfriend, named Filipe, and the two eldest sisters, Salimy and Dánisa respectively, were awaiting us at their house for an asado. With the empanadas finished, and the two younger sisters (the aforementioned Nadya and Isis) ready to go, we loaded up in the family car and headed around the block to the other house. Filipe and his younger brother Fransico were grilling up an awesome array of meet when we entered into the massive patio where there was a long table already set. Alex's host-mom handed us fresh empanadas to snack on, and someone started the cueca music playing. I was then ushered around and shown the house while being introduced to all of the other family members and friends present. There was even a rabbit running around somewhere, I was told, but no one could find him at the time.
Before eating, there was extensive cueca dancing. As the females outnumbered the males present 3 to 1, I was forced to do my best to pretend to stomp ants angrily while spinning a handkerchief above my head. I was unaware that my day would include much dancing, so I was inappropriately shod in flip-flops. This, however, did not stop Felipe's mother (The Lemon Stones woman) from insisting, nay, demanding that I learn every step and execute them with vigor. Finally, after Alex and I had thoroughly shamed the national dance of Chile, we were granted a reprieve and allowed to feast. We sat long chatting and eating, and at one point Dánisa lept from the table and ran over to the bushes that ringed the patio. She bent over and rummaged around for a second before coming up again with a giant rabbit dangling from her hand by the scruff while the girls cheered and clapped. As the afternoon wore on, dessert was produced just in time for the other gringos to make an appearance. Vanessa and Heather had arrived and Ryan and Peter had brought them over to meet everyone. Photos were then taken, and cueca dancing resumed.
We were all welcomed to stay and continue to cueca and gorge, but Peter's birthday called to be celebrated, and there was cake and coffee to be had at his host-home. Thus, we left one celebratory eating experience to go on to another. The silly hats worn the day before for Stacey's birthday reappeared and were put on heads as cake was eaten and birthday songs were once again sung (only this time much better, as Vanessa is a skilled vocalist in her own right.) Stacey came over to meet us during the celebration and informed us that Maggie, the other remaining Sixth-monther in La Serena (who had joined us in San Pedro in June) wanted to hang out, and would be waiting for us in the plaza back in Serena. That meant hopping back onto the micro that joins the two sisters cities and making our way back into the center of the much prettier of the two. We found Maggie easily enough, and our group now swollen to 8 gringos in total, made our way down to the beach next to La Serena's famous lighthouse, the Faro. The lighthouse is still functional, and as a special Fiestas Patrias bonus was flashing red, white, and blue lights out to sea all night.
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| Birthday cake and silly hats. |
Before too long, the cold winds coming off the ocean made sitting on the beach in the dark a rather uncomfortable experience, and Peter declared it was his final birthday wish to visit the Pampilla, the great Fiestas Patrias celebration in Coquimbo that had inspired our reunion in the first place. Once more, we boarded a micro in Serena bound for the hills outside Coquimbo. Alex elected to remain behind as he was planning to leave with his family in the morning for their summer house in Valle del Elqui (I would, incidently, end up going with them.) On the mirco, which was virtually empty save for us, we passed the time singing any and every English language song we all knew the words (a decidedly limited selection) to include a mighty, patriotic rendition of our own national anthem. Under regular circumstances, such behaviour could be taken as obnoxious but...well, nevermind. It was obnoxious.
La Pampilla ended up being nothing more than a giant fair pitched on a dusty field. It had all the trappings of any sort of carnvial you may have visited elsewhere; there were rides, countless food stalls, hordes of drunks, and lots of people selling everything from kites to kitchen knifes (3 for a luca.) Given the already shady reputation of La Pampilla, the knives and slingshots available for sale were particularly unsettling, as if to say, "don't worry about bringing your own weapons to drunkenly assault tourists with, we will provide them for you!" There were also numerous fondas, where are essentially big party tents complete with eating, drinking, and dancing. In one such fonda, we ran into Daraya and Felipe and a group of their friends. Daraya was excited to see us, telling me that Alex never hangs out with them and is always so serious. She had thought all gringos must be that way. She was, admittedly, well tipsy off her terremoto (literally earthquake) which is a concoction of pineapple ice cream and white wine that people either love or hate. Our conversing was interrupted by a commotion involving a young flaite outside the tents trying to pick a fight with a slingshot. To my surprise and minor amusement, before anything could transpire bouncers appeared from nowhere and ran the punk off.
Before the night (pardon, early morning) would end, far more absurd events would transpire, but said happenings deserve their own chapter, as I fear this one has grown quite long.
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