We thought that the flight to Brazil was a little long for a wedding, so we arranged to visit other friends “in the neighborhood”. Monica Frias from Chile was another of our houseguests. Monica's mother, Astrid Cathalifaud, came to Columbus to see her grandchildren, and we saw her on two or three occasions. Astrid invited us on more than one occasion to visit her home in La Serena, Chile. This was a good opportunity to do so. And our friend Carlos Perazo is still in Argentina, and this was a great time to visit him in Buenos Aires again.
Fortunately, Claire speaks Spanish. She won’t say she is fluent, but she is well beyond asking for restaurants and bathrooms. And most of the people we visited spoke at least a little English, so we all got along (I even learned a lot of new Spanish words!). We were pretty much lost in Brazil, as the language there is Portuguese, which is really different from Spanish. When talking about Portuguese, Tatiana said that they (the Brazilians) can understand Spanish, but the Spanish can’t understand them! We relied on their English, which was quite good.
So we planned our trip around the wedding. At first we planned to go to the wedding and then visit our friends, but because the date was so close to Christmas, we decided to visit first, then go to the wedding; that way we would have more time at home near Christmas.
We made our arrangements a little late, but we got our itinerary from the travel agent, and then we applied for our visa to Brazil. In order to get the visa, it is necessary to have an itinerary. Note that we finally got our visas in the mail at 12:15 on the day we departed; we left for the airport at 2:30! Talk about cutting it close!
On Friday, we went into the city of La Serena. There are about 250,000 people there. We first went to the university, then to a tourist shopping area, then we walked around by a park in the city. We met one of Astrid’s school friends. Astrid is also the unofficial postmistress of her village, so we picked up the village mail at the central post office. That night, two of Astrid’s friends, Eliana and Lucy, had dinner with us. They are both artists, and really fun people.
Even though the economy is not good in Chile (and in South America in general), the people seemed in good spirits. The children in the village laughed and smiled when we saw them (they all knew Astrid), and the adults were friendly too. The people in the city seemed pleasant, as well. There were some beggars, there, but not a large number. After all, there are beggars in Columbus and Washington and San Francisco.
On the second day, Eliana and Lucy went with us to visit some beaches. We first went to Guanacero, a nice small family beach. We also had lunch there. We naturally had fish: there is no place better than the seashore for fresh seafood. The specialty there was congrio, which we think is eel. It was quite good. Then we drove a little further south to Tongoi, a fishing village. That was interesting, also. The highlight there was a statue of the patron saint of the village. The fellow in the statue had some hair on the front of his head. One of the ladies made a joke about a hair transplant, and that became the running joke for about an hour. We all had a good laugh about that. We then went to Las Tacas, a very exclusive beach community. Astrid’s daughter-in-law’s family has a condo there. It is gated and secure, and it is really nice: beautiful clean beach, perfect landscaping with palm trees, and so on. It reminded me of Palm Springs, California (even though I have never been there!). We went back to Gabriela Mistral in the evening, and had a nice dinner at Eliana and Lucy’s house. She has a nice greenhouse and a terrific artist’s studio there. And we were introduced to their three dogs and five cats. As we walked the kilometer or so from Eliana and Lucy’s to Astrid’s house at night, I wondered how I ever got to a rural road in remote Chile. Some guys have all the luck, I guess.
On the following day, we met Marucha, another of Astrid’s friends from the village. This time, we drove to the mountains. We past the large reservoir where the Elqui river had been dammed. This to even out the flow and prevent flooding, of course. We bought some interesting rocks and other souvenirs at a roadside vendor’s place. Then we drove to the Capel winery where Pisco is made. Pisco is a clear fruit wine, a local product of the region, about 35 percent alcohol. Other wines were made there, too. With the free trade agreements, Chile had started to export wine in large quantities to the United States. We left there and drove to the town of Vicuña, where we had lunch. We drove further into the mountains along the Elqui River. There were lots of vineyards; anywhere where water could be pumped for irrigation. It’s amazing where people can grow grapes! We stopped in two small towns, one of which was Gabriela Mistral’s home town. She was the postmistress and school teacher there. There was a nice statue of her with two children in the town square. We got back in the evening and again had a nice dinner with Astrid.
In the morning, while Claire packed, I showed Lucy how to use the old Leica that her father had given her. It was very old, without even a designation on it, like 3f or 3g. Anyway, it appeared to still work. I knew how to load it and unload it because it was similar to the Leica 3g that I once had. After saying goodbye, Astrid drove us to the airport. We had no trouble there, and had a good flight to Santiago. We had lunch there, and wrote a few postcards while waiting for the flight to Buenos Aires. And we spent the rest of our Chilean pesos.
We met our friend Carlos at the hotel. Unfortunately, he had gone to the airport, missed us, then came back. It wasn’t too bad, as he took an inexpensive shuttle. We had a good time, even on the first night, catching up on news of family and friends. We walked along Avenue Florida, a shopping street. And we had dinner in Tortoni’s, a very famous restaurant. We later bought a book about Tortoni’s.
On Tuesday morning, we began exploring Buenos Aires. We saw some of the major attractions, Avenue 9 July (all 20 lanes of it) and Recoleta, the tourist area and cemetery where Evita Peron is buried. Claire promised to buy a book for her Spanish teacher, so we went into lots of book stores. That night, we went to a tango show at Esquina Carlos Gardel: a restaurant/theater commemorating Carlos Gardel, the famous Argentine Tango singer. It was really nice with live music and professional dancers. And there was lots of it: the show lasted two hours. The next morning, we continued our shopping. We finally found the book that Claire wanted: it was a book of plays by a Chilean playwright. We found it in a small bookstore that specialized in theater books. Then we walked to Casa Rosada, the Pink House, the Argentine presidential palace. Along the way, we passed a noisy demonstration by some truck drivers. It was peaceful at the time. We took a tour of the Pink House; it was very interesting, with uniformed soldiers and a portrait of Juan and Eva Peron. I took a picture of Claire and Carlos on the balcony where Evita waved to the public. On the way away from the Pink House, we saw some thick black smoke in the street; apparently somebody in the demonstration had thrown a bottle full of gasoline. We headed away from that. In the late afternoon, we went to La Boca, the colorful tourist area near the river. Unfortunately, it had started raining, so there wasn’t much going on. We did, however, pass the stadium where the Boca Juniors soccer team played. We had one last dinner with Carlos, and a nice chat in the hotel afterwards. Carlos is a good fellow.
On Friday, we did some shopping in the morning; our hotel was next to a shopping mall. It’s interesting that Porto Alegre is a fairly large city, about one and a half million people. But it is not a tourist city: we didn’t see any postcards or T-shirts! In the afternoon, most of the foreigners went to the city where Tatiana’s parents gave us a small tour of the city. We saw the old opera theater, the cathedral, and the government building. Porto Alegre is the capital of the Rio Grande do Sul (Rio Grand of the south) province. All three were very nice, and the gaucho heritage is always emphasized. We then went to a yacht club on the river, where we sat and talked and enjoyed the scenery. On Friday evening, Claire and I just took in a movie. Fortunately, the Brazilians leave the movies in their original language and put subtitles on the bottom of the screen. On Saturday, Claire did some more shopping in the morning, and I walked around taking pictures. There was a nice park in the neighborhood, and I spent some time there.
The wedding on Saturday evening was the highlight of the trip. The wedding ceremony was in a nice church in the downtown area, and it started at 7 PM. The service was in Portuguese, so it was lost on Claire and I. After the service, we walked to the hotel across the street for the reception. It was really nice: there was a buffet dinner, but the music for dancing had started as soon as we got there. And music and dancing there was! Tatiana and Eduardo began dancing immediately, followed by family members and friends. The music continued through most of the evening. Champagne was flowing freely, and there was no end to the good food. We really had a nice time talking with all the nice folks. Tatiana’s father had promised a surprise, and about midnight, some Brazilian dancers came, wearing practically nothing. It was like what one sees on television for Carneval in Rio! The dancers and drummers performed for about a half an hour. At about one, the wedding cake was cut. And about 2:30, Claire and I left with Eduardo’s Aunt and Uncle, but the party was still going on! It was fabulous.
On Sunday, we got together for one last brunch in the afternoon. The only “victim” of the party the night before was Tatiana’s father: we didn’t see him until about 5 PM. But if anybody deserved to have too good a time, it was him! We said our goodbyes, and went to the airport. Tatiana and Eduardo and some of their friends were also going home to the United States, so several of us flew together to Sao Paulo, then we all went our separate ways.
We arrived in Columbus at about noon on Monday. While the temperature was 88 (32 C) in Porto Alegre, it was only 35 (2 C) in Columbus. That’s the price we pay for a nice winter holiday! It was a really nice trip. We hadn’t had a proper holiday all year, so it was nice to get away. I didn’t get so many good pictures, but this was a “friends” holiday, rather than a “tourist” holiday. We saw the friends we wanted to see, met many new friends, and had a great time.