Two emergency trips to Chicago and countless phone calls later, I finally got enough documentation together to be able to travel—though I still don’t have my Chilean passport. Disembarking in the airport in Santiago I was immediately hit with the smell of Chile. It was the strangest thing, to think, “Oh my god, it smells like Chile. I’d forgotten this smell.” Maybe someday they’ll invent a device that can record smells, but for now you’ll just have to trust me that there are some smells that exist only here, and that I haven’t smelled in over 10 years.
Papayas from my grandpa’s trees
A few hours later I arrived in beautiful, sunny La Serena, where I grew up, and I spent nearly two weeks with my grandparents and extended family. It was like an instant immersion back into my old life—relatives coming and going at all hours, everyone getting together to go to the beach or to have a gigantic cookout, spending hours waiting in line to run errands at the bank, hearing my grandparents’ odd mixture of Chilean Spanish and their Italian dialect, being called “Ashley,” “Mariela,” “Carla,” and every other female name in the book, by my flustered grandmother before she finally settles on “Bah, you know!”… It was all surprisingly familiar, given how long I’ve been gone.
My grandparents’ house
An “asado” (cookout). Yum!
One thing I must say, however, is that I feel distinctly like an outsider this time around. When I came to visit when I was 16 I still felt pretty “chilena.” I’ve become so Americanized, however, that people take one look at me and immediately label me as “gringa,” without even hearing a word come out of my mouth. It’s a very strange experience to go, overnight, from being so completely ordinary and unremarkable to being so noticeably other and different. I’m not used to it yet, and I’m hoping that with time I’ll regain some of the indefinable “chileanness” that I seem to have lost. I think it has to do with the way people carry themselves, and dress, and express themselves, and interact with others.
La Serena is a lot like I remember it being. I had been warned that, when coming back to Chile, it’s always slightly uglier than you remember, but I must say that that was not the case this time around. La Serena is prettier than I remember, an interesting mix of colonial architecture, palm trees, tourists, billboards, modern highways, overcrowded beaches, and dirt roads leading to nearly-empty beaches. The nightlife here (“el carrete”) is as intense as I recall, and pretty draining for a non-drinking Midwesterner such as myself. People don’t even leave the house until 11 pm, and usually don’t get home until 4 or 5 am. I rallied and pulled a couple of good “carretes,” but I don’t think this is going to become a regular habit of mine.
Tongoy, one of my favorite beaches
So representative of summer in La Serena, and of my childhood.
View of Coquimbo (La Serena is in the distance)
The landscapes in this region of Chile are amazing. I love staring out at miles and miles of blue, Pacific ocean and then turning around to gaze up at the dry, brown mountains that are littered with cacti and tiny green patches. And then of course there’s the valley, which is eternally sunny and much greener than its surrounding areas. These are the views and smells and experiences that make me feel at home here.
The Elqui Valley
Golf Serena: the latest tourist attraction
And my family!!!! What can I say about my crazy family except that suddenly I understand myself a whole lot better. J I’m sure most of you know that I’m famous for taking my time to get ready and leave the house, often causing delays for others. Believe it or not, I’m always the first one ready to go here! I stand around, pacing, waiting for everyone else to get their stuff together so we can LEAVE ALREADY.
Part of the fam, at Nonna’s house
More family, at Tia Ida’s house
I’m happy to report that I have gone from being notorious for my, shall we say, liberal consumption of salt, sugar, and Diet Coke, to being just one of the many Chileans who put 4 sugars in their tea, immediately ask for the salt upon sitting down at the table to eat, and would never, ever drink water with a meal unless there was no soda or Tang within a 2-mile radius. Yay! At least in that respect I’m “normal” here. Oh, and Diet Coke and “light” everything are all over the place here, which is simultaneously convenient and disconcerting. Chileans love nothing more than to talk about how much weight they (and everyone else around them) has gained or lost, or how much weight they should lose, or how they plan to lose the weight, or what kinds of foods are fattening and should be avoided by everyone (apparently corn and peaches are fattening, or so I’m told—and who could forget bread, the bane of everyone’s existence, though you’d never know it by the bread bakeries, or “panaderias,” that are on every street corner here).
Well, that’s the report for this week. Next stop: Valparaiso, my future home for the next 6 months!
