On Sunday we set off to find Pablo Neruda’s house here in Santiago. The video we watched at the beginning of our stroll around his house disturbed us. I remember Pinochet in the same way I remember Margaret Thatcher, for me they differ only by degrees.
On September 11th, 1973 Pinochet and his thugs murdered the first democratically elected socialist president in the whole of South America. Less than two weeks later Neruda mysteriously died. It is now acknowledged that it was very likely that his death was caused by ‘third parties’.
I remember the stories of the repressive regime and it’s association with the ‘Chicago School’, a favourite of Thatchers, and I look back in horror. I came away from that house shamed.
Today we went in search of his other house in Valparaiso and our memories of that adventure are much less sombre.
We had decided to travel like Chileans, by public transport, except that we were armed with the mighty Google Transit app. We were very lucky too, in that our hotel was right next to the ‘Estacion Centrale’. We turned up and were on a bus within 20 minutes. Two hours later we were in Valparaiso.
Google found us the “CorreosChile” (Post Office) first. That done, now was the time to deploy our Google Transit skills: “Pablo Neruda”? It came up straight away and so it was off on the 507 bus (I can’t actually remember the number of that first bus). We got out exactly where Google instructed us to, but we could find no Pablo Neruda House. After marching up and down the street a few times and a much more careful look at the google map we realised that we had asked to be taken to Pablo Neruda Street. A more extensive search turned up “La Sebastiana Museo de Pablo Neruda” - well would you believe it!
Bus 522.
Google was quite clear with the stop and there were people waiting at that ‘stop’ (actually just a street corner with no indication that buses stopped there). We stood and watched about five buses go by and not one of them was number 522. That’s when we decided to turn the clock back thirty or forty years and ask someone who doesn’t speak our language if this was indeed the bus stop.
I have to say that ‘Translate’ is not as ubiquitous in Chile as it had been in Asia, it always felt comfortable using it there, almost expected. The few times we tried it in Chile, so far, got more quizzical looks than recognition.
We tried the bus numbers, forgetting that even locals don’t use every bus. Although Google assured us that the 522 travelled this road we did not get a single human assurance. Someone did seem to indicate that buses came around different corners and that heading up to another corner might produce a result. We hadn’t given up on Google and chose to walk along the route it indicated.
We did come to a corner that seemed like an ‘interchange’ and luckily there was a man. He was like many men we had met before in other countries. He wore no uniform, he just stood at the corner directing traffic and making sure that there were no collisions. Occasionally the diver of a car or bus would hold out a hand and give him change as he passed. Stll, he seemed to be the best chance we had, so we tried the 522 question, We got a very long explanation that we did not understand at all, but he seemed to tell us to stay just there and we thought it seemed like he could sort it out. We dutifully waited.
I thought I gleaned that he was going to ask one of the many bus drivers he was directing, but five buses later he hadn’t asked anyone. Then he approached a passerby and there was clearly a request for clarification. He came and asked we knew not what, so we decided to abandon the 522 line and just blurted out ‘Pablo Neruda’. Suddenly the air was thick with acknowledgement and approbation. We were going to tha Pablo Neruda house. Now everything moved up a gear. Yes we were still to wait here. We hadn’t completely abandoned the ‘Google 522’ thing and thought it had dawned upon him now that it was the 522 bus we wanted.
Surprisingly, he now flagged down a 507 bus and after some discussion, which included telling the driver that we were going to Pablo Neruda’s house we were instructed to board that bus. We did so reluctantly and tried to pay the driver. He just ordered us to our seats and we sat and watched as this bus took us in the opposite direction from that we had anticioated. Indeed, back the same way we had come. We were just thinking: ‘Och well at least we are getting back into town’, when the driver shouted that this was our stop. We couldn’t understand what he was telling us to do next, but we got off anyway.
We had cottoned on to the idea that this ‘Pablo Neruda’ incantation seemed to work wonders, so we just used it on the next bus that turned up (it may have been a 709!) and we were ushered in, again without any hint of a fare. Ten stops further on, we were urged to get out and, well we hadn’t a clue what. He could see we didn’t understand what he was saying and ripped off a piece of ticket paper and wrote down ‘522’. The fabled 522 bus!
We wren’t sure and soon returned to our ‘let’s abandon that idea’ just when a 522 bus turned up. The driver nodded affirmatively, well more than just nodded, but we didn’t understand what else he was saying. We hopped aboard and were off up the hill to the Neruda House.
It was Monday, the “La Sebastiana Museo de Pablo Neruda” is closed on a Monday.
Surely someone knew that, but then again they probably told us that in among all the other stuff we didn’t understand and just thought: ‘Strange - they must just want to see the house from the outside’.
Not decided what to do tomorrow, but learned a lot today.
