23. Tuesday 2 March 2010 The Time Before the Earthquake

Of course now we are very influenced by the "terremoto" (Spanish for earthquake), but to make a historical correction and to safeguard the accuracy of our blog, you cannot forget that before the earthquake we had been going around Santiago touring for 5 days. And we saw and experienced a lot of nice and interesting things. These experiences of course are not part of what happened Friday/Saturday night, but okay, so as I said: to be fully complete in our story..............

we go back in time and write Sunday afternoon 21 February:

We too the night bus from Pucon to Santiago. After we almost missed the bus----we were still staying with Rob and Laura far from the center of Pucon and after unsuccessful efforts to call for a taxi (that were all busy...) Rob took us one at a time with his scooter to the village (including our gigantic baggage)----we were in the comfortable wide and soft seats of the bus. The night buses are luxurious!!!!!! The seats you can almost lay completely flat and there is a foot rest to put our legs on. "ok", I thought, " this will be nice". Unfortunately, I came to this conclusion without considering the snoring people who also were on our bus. Further, they have on all the buses in Chili at the front a screen hanging and on that the speed is shown. In order to provide that the driver doesn't drive faster than 100 km/hour (the maximum allowed speed), as soon as he does that, an alarm begins to signal out..... Well...........................

Dead tired we arrive in Santiago, but after a few hours of sleep, we could begin to enjoy this wonderful city:

Plaza De Armas: photo

Cerro Santa Lucia: photos
A park on a hill in the middle of the city

On the street
Graffiti

Everywhere there are booths with they sell the a lot of different things.

In a cafeteria: photo

Cerro San Cristobal: a giant hill; you can go up to the top with a funicular (we stood in the wagon where also the Pope stood a few years ago). At the top there is a gigantic statue of Mother Mary and an open air church. BUT even more interesting, there is a magnificent view of the city.

Museo de la Memoria: a museum that tells the story of the military dictator Pinochet, who was in charge from September 11, 1973 to 1990. This is very impressive, not only is the museum set up in a way that is beautiful to see, the building is an architectural marvel and the story of the dictator is very significant.

The building: photo

On one of the outside walls are written the Thirty Rights of Humanity.

International protest against the dictator

Folders from the court where Chileans try to determine what happened to family members who disappeared. The court continues to be negative: "the person you seek is not in our prisons:.....

A 3 story high wall hung with photos of victims of the regime.

N.B. A few days after the earthquake on the way to the bus terminal, we rode along this museum. We saw that it is a mess inside, ceilings have fallen down. The museum had only been open about 3 weeks.

La Chascona: one of the houses of Pablo Neruda. For those who for the last 100 years have lived on another planet, Pablo Neruda was a writer and poet and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971. Unfortunately we could not take photos inside. It is a beautiful house, that is composed of three sections and part is built against a hill. The form makes one think of a ship and also inside it looks like a ship( creaky wood floors, round windows, many pieces of furniture with wavy edges....) The whole house is full of antiques, collections, the walls hang full with paintings from well known artists, very inspiring.

And further
The house of Nerua we visited on Friday and what happened that night you have already read.

In between we were in Valparaiso. On many websites we read that there was a meter high tsunami there, but not one resident of this city saw the tsunami waves. From our apartment high in the hills we could keep an eye on the ocean and should a tsunami show itself on the horizon, we won't delay sharing with you in words and photo this natural phenomenon.

Placed by Irma 3 March 2010.