New Year’s in Southern Chile... The Rest of the Story
Published: January, 2005
New Year’s Eve, 1998
Fruittar, Chile
Here is a picture for you: A good-looking man is sitting in a chair on a balcony located on the second story of a hotel that overlooks a lake. He has a glass of Torres cava* (champagne) in his hand and he is staring into the distance. His companion, also with a glass of champagne, suddenly exclaims, “Aha! I know what you are thinking! You are hoping that while you sit there the volcano is going to erupt right in front of you!” Indeed, the snow-capped Volcano Osorna was just on the other side of the lake. Far enough, but then, maybe not far enough. The lake is called Lago Lanquihue (pronounced loggo yan-key-hay), and we had driven 13 hours in two gulps from Santiago to be there for New Year’s in what is called the German Settlement.
In the 1850s, around the time California was having its Gold Rush, representatives from Chile went to Germany with incentives the Germans could not refuse: transportation, 75 blocks of land, wood for buildings, even nails. Oxen, monthly allowances, and free medical assistance were part of the package, too. It was ideal for those escaping religious persecution at the time (212 German settlers). A very large and impressive German monument has all the family names inscribed. The Germans still prosper there, the evidence being their vast farmhouses, livestock, and farm fields looking lush and just plain beautiful. The abundant clusters of blossoms and tiny green forms were promising a great blackberry crop.
The most unusual aspect of the place is that a lot of people are tall, Spanish-speaking blondes with blue eyes. Restaurants feature “kuchen” (cake) on the menus. Our hotel had a picture of Kaiser Wilhelm in the foyer and the following words in a sampler on the wall: “What our faith says today will settle the question of what we are to be tomorrow.”
This is what could be called the vacation from the vacation, for up to this time we had spent 15 days driving for hours to wine regions, visiting wineries, going to wine tastings, meeting people, sharing California wine that we had with us, and although this might be your idea of fun, it is also a lot of work.
*The Torres are famous winemakers from the Catalan region of Spain. We have a family member in the Bay Area, Marimar Torres, who specializes in Burgundian-style wines (check out www.marimarestate.com). Her brother, Miguel Torres, runs the family business near Barcelona and the winery in Chile where we sampled wonderful wines and received the bottle of cava. Here are some other Chilean wine brands we recommend: Santa Monica, Los Vascos, Santa Rita, Concha y Toro, Valdievieiso, Vera Monte, Montes Alpha M. Errazuriz. (Try saying that with your mouth full of peanuts… ee razz za russ.)
A lot of our time in Chile was spent on the road, so we present
Roadside Entertainment
From my journal
.....I would like to make a collage out of this one: A pickup truck piled high in the back with furniture but there was also a donkey, and on the donkey’s back sat a dog.
.....a smaller pickup truck piled high with watermelons and one boy.
.....at a gas station, a pleasant looking man came to my window with a Canon camera. He wanted to sell it. “Better show him your camera, Dianne,” Robert said. I reached down for my twice-as-big Minolta with a long lens. When he saw what I had, he started to laugh, then we all laughed together.
.....lots of individuals walking on roads and highways far from anything. Brightly colored bee hives. Folks sitting on edge of road with their backs to the road. “Candelabra” pine trees.
Observations and Notes
.....Coffee: Except at San Cristobel Hotel in Santiago, all coffee so far has been instant. Nescafe is generally the plan. In Fruittar hotel, on table were two covered jars. One with sugar, one with instant coffee. Now, think about this for a minute. No coffee beans, no coffee grinders, no coffee percolaters, machines, or makers. No espresso, latte, no coffee shops, no coffee houses. No Peet’s, no Starbucks, and best of all, no coffee nerves.
.....Chile is the Israel of South America, meaning multinational settlers.
.....National character formed by early Spanish Basque settlers.
.....In South America, countries that are friendly to each other are those that do not share borders.
....lapis lazuli (tons and tons of jewelry places with silver and lapis in Santiago) is abundant. The mining of it so difficult; Chile and Afghanistan are the two main sources.
.....pan pipe music is Andean, meaning all the countries that share the Andes have this music.
More Roadside Entertainment
.....We had noticed Pastel de Choclo signs everywhere on the roads we traveled. We found out it was kind of a corn pie, so on the way south we decided to try it. Delicious!
....That day we saw several parts of a circus on the road. One truck had the little cabs for a ride all painted with big tigers; another with big sides and no back, with all kinds of goods, plus one black-and-white pony and several small children. Last part of the caravan was another old truck loaded to the brim but this one was also pulling a small flatbed. On it was a cage and inside the cage was a lion. Since we had stopped for the pastel de choclo, we passed everything twice. Second time, the lion was yowling. I saw its mouth open.
Upon Returning to the Bay Area
We had a pastel de choclo party on a houseboat in Sausalito with buckets of Margaritas and Chilean wine. If you would like the recipe, please contact
info@baycrossings.com.
Happy New Year!
Dianne Boate is a freelance photographer, writer, and designer in San Francisco. Her work can be seen at www.danielakart.com. Robert Meyer is a consultant to the wine and spirits industry. This year marks 26 years of agreeing and disagreeing about the merits of red wine vs. white.
