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Capital: Santiago
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It can be argued that no great civilisations arose on the Pacific coast now occupied by Chile because conditions were too difficult in the northern deserts to allow extensive irrigation and too easy in the central temperate areas to incite well fed hunters and gatherers to bother with agriculture. The few scattered tribes living of fishing and of subsistence farming in the northern oasis fell easily under the influence of the expanding Inca empire in the 15th century but the Mapuche Araucanian hunters and gatherers roaming over central and southern Chile were able to resist further advance of the Quechua invaders. After initial explorations failed to find gold, the Spanish conquest of Chile was delayed until 1541 when Pedro David de Valdivia founded Santiago and brought Spanish soldiers to farm the land with forced indigenous labor. The soldiers carved up huge estates called encomiendas and took indigenous wives producing Mestizo offspring. The proud Mapuche rebelled to resist enslavement whenever they could for more than three centuries and were decimated in the process, partly by the fighting, partly by disease and often by outright massacre like Brazil's aboriginal tribes and like the plains Indians of North America. Thus, Chile became predominantly Mestizo with large haciendas or fundos worked by Amerindians and impoverished Mestizo tenants (inquilinos). Wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few land-owning families who ran the country without opposition after San Martin chased the Spanish out in 1825. Independent Chile under the landowners soon entered into expansion laying claim to Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia by building Fuerte Bulnes in 1843 while the Lake District was opened to European settlers, putting further pressure on the Mapuche's who were finally crushed militarily in 1883. In the north, the War of the Pacific ended with Chile's victory over Peru and Bolivia and the annexation of the nitrate and copper-rich Atacama desert Industrial development created in a growing urban working-class whose social needs led to a civil war won by the Naval Officer Montt over the reform-minded elected president Balmaceda in 1890. A pattern was set and the military, led by General Ibáñez del Campo, again seized power in 1924 from the elected President Alessandri whose reforms displeased the oligarchy. With time and after considerable struggle some reforms were effected favourable to the working and middle classes but when the leftist Salvador Allende won the 1970 elections, right extremists, stimulated and backed by the CIA, called for his removal by violent means. In September 1973 General Augusto Pinochet repeated the pattern with an unprecedented violence that resulted in the death of Allende and that of thousands of his supporters. Power is now once more in civilian hands... but for how long? |
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This is Arica's characteristic "Morro" landmark. The fort on top is now a museum commemorating Chile's victory over Peru and Bolivia in the War of the Pacific.
It was midnight when the ferrobus from the Paz pulled into Arica. Looking for a place to sleep alone at night is never advisable so Doug and Diane from Kingston Ontario, Pamela and Janet from Santiago and I stayed together until we found rooms at the Valencia Hotel for only 5 dollars a night. Arica was quite a change from Peru and Bolivia, we went out for something to eat and a beer and felt quite safe as there were still a lot of people out on the streets when we turned in at 1 a.m.
Before the War of the Pacific, Arica was part of Peru whose border, just a few kms up the coast, is within sight from the fortress on top of the landmark "Morro" rock.
Having missed seeing the descent from the Altiplano to Arica, I decided to go back up the Andean watershed with a guided tour during the daytime. I seldom enjoy such tours but this one I can heartily recommend for the views were just fantastic.
The ruins on this hilltop, 100 km from Arica, are believed to have been a fortress (pukara), built to defend the Copaquilla valley below, some 200 years before the arrival of the Incas. Valleys like the one shown in the previous photo were inhabited in pre-Inca times but they did not give rise to sophisticated regional civilisations such as the Moche or the Chimú in Peru probably because they could not support sufficiently large populations and were too isolated one from the other.
The high altitude marshes of the altiplano are too cold and wet to be cultivated but they provide good grazing for large herds of llama and alpaca.
The gentle alpaca are just darling animals
This remote mission church, high up on the Andean altiplano, was built by the local Amerindians sometime in the 17th century. Its simple lines confer it a noble beauty.
The naive "way of the cross" painted on the inside walls of the mission church shown in the previous photo, depicts Christ with Indian features and his tormentors in Spanish dress!
The wind was quite cool in summer (January) at 4392 meters above sea level. Survival must be difficult in these small houses when the village is snowed-in during the austral winter (June).
We stopped for lunch in Parinacota's only restaurant and were fed delicious alpaca meat. My curiosity took me into the kitchen where the charming restaurant owner let me carve my own steaks from the carcass I am holding and cook them myself.
Yes, that's what the sign says 4500 meters (14 760 feet)! The air is so thin at this altitude that you have to walk slowly not to get winded.
Kisikisini across the lake reaches to 4900 metres.
Volcán Paranicota is even higher at 6360 metres!
After the cold, wet altiplano at 4500 metres, here is the hot and incredibly dry desert at sea level.
Busses are very comfortable and travel is easy in Chile in spite of the of the long distances. I went directly to Santiago from Arica, the 2051 km drive took 30 hours including stops like this one. Unfortunately, my neighbour did not feel like chatting so I read and slept, and read and slept, and read and slept...
The views of the Pacific were great all the way but if I do this trip again I'll make a point of stopping to see some of the mines that caused the War of the Pacific and to visit the archaeological museum at San Pedro de Atacama.
Finally Santiago! After three months in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia where the majority is Amerindian, I felt like back home in Montreal or in Europe in this big sophisticated city.
The 16th century San Francisco church, Santiago's oldest, houses a bizarre collection of colonial art. Of course there are churches all over Chile like everywhere else in South America but I got the impression that the Catholic Church did not wield quite as much power here as they did elsewhere.
I really enjoyed Santiago and plan to return someday to get to know it better. I stayed in this hotel, centrally located on the corner of Morande and Santo Domingo streets. It had a friendly restaurant downstairs where I drank wine with a number of local characters.
Central Santiago has a distinctly European atmosphere as you can see in this picture of calle Nueva York and the next of Paseo Ahumeda.
As I watched these busy people going about their business, I wondered where each one stood politically between the highly polarised left and right traditions of this country.
