I remember San Pedro as being quite sleepy, with little accommodation available, but also with plenty of tourists and bars. It was sunny, warm, and pleasant.
This time around it’s somewhat less sleepy, a lot bigger (perhaps 2x? 3x?)…however, it’s the off-season and that means few tourists compared to the number of restaurants, so dining alone isn’t unusual and it somehow feels less social. It’s also relatively cool and very windy which means it’s as dusty as a building site.
I met some Americans in today’s restaurant of choice (Etnica, recommended) and I knew they’d just arrived because, simply put, they didn’t look dusty enough yet. Seriously, it gets everywhere, your hair takes on a thick appearance, and your clothes go orange.
Still, it’s not a bad place. I’ve booked a four day trip to Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni. I’m also going shopping for clothes suitable for the very cold temperatures…it will be at least -15C. I’ve already shelled out too much for very nice thermals, complete with odour absorbing charcoal, important when you’re only going to have a chance to wash every two days! I’ll almost certainly be incommunicado for much of this also. Consequently you’ll only get a splurge of info in four days or so.
I’m not even sure I’ll get to post this today…electricity has been off here for a few hours now.
I’ve done Arica > San Pedro before, albeit with a change at Calama. Thing is, I just remembered one of the more annoying bits…
Chile has concerns over various food pests and as a consequence you not only get checked for fruit, cheese etc on boarding the bus, there are also occassional checkpoints. So at 3.30 in the freakin’ morning the lights all come on it’s time to step into the cold.
So here I am, wide awake, irritable, and in full realisation that this bus was designed for a country where the average height is a good two inches (5cm) less than back home. So I’ve got my music on, popped my fleece on and hoping for some sleep. Soon.
Just about to start packing for San Pedro de Atacama.
I’ve been there before, so it’s a relatively familiar spot, though I didn’t spend long in the town. So this time I’m going to explore the locality a little more. I’m even thinking of sticking with it for a week or so and treating as a relaxing holiday, with a trip planned to Salar de Uyuni for a few days (if I can find one) as well as other shorter jollies.
I had been thinking of heading to La Paz, but I’ve been warned that Bolivia’s a bit of an unstable place right now and, just two weeks ago, a group of travellers were stranded in Uyuni for 19 days due to a blockade by local protesters.
As a consequence, I feel that I may be better off not spending more time than strictly necessary in the country. Although I’ll miss out on La Paz and some other sights I’d rather make sure I can get home in a timely manner and without stress or hassles.
Anyway, one highlight is that because this is an El Niño winter it has rained in parts of the desert and that means the chance of seeing a so-called ‘blooming desert’ when all the flowers come out.
If that’s the case I could be returning for a day or so to Arica. This isn’t a bad thing as one piece in my father’s puzzle still needs to be researched, and I will be able to attend to that on my return. It’s not a big thing, but something I’d like to do if possible.
Then it will be on to Lima for a night or two depending on flights, and home. Can’t wait to get back to the family, to be honest, and it’s just 12 days away now!
So, tonight, after another little spell at the English Institute giving students some practice, I’ll hop on a bus for a twelve hour ride to San Pedro. Of course, this brings up people saying that I’m a hard core traveller. But really, this is what you probably think I’m riding on http://www.contemporarynomad.com/2008/09/ whereas the reality is that I’ll have a semi-cama seat as shown here: http://www.turbus.cl/servicios.html and riding in a modern, well maintained coach. It’s not so bad!
Had my father’s headstone delivered and installed yesterday.
It was a fairly sombre moment, and my last goodbye to him. I won’t go back soon.
Unfortunately the computer I’m trying to upload my photos to won’t play ball, so no pictures for the moment. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow when I get to San Pedro de Atacama.
Edit – 08/07/2011: Finally added the picture, nearly a year later. Some kind of mental block for me when it comes to gravestones. Here it is. I’ve also added a gallery with images from the cemetery in general.
I struggled to find somewhere to eat this evening, and in the end decided that some more bad food would have to do. I have at least found a source of decent fruit at the market, so I’m getting vitamins and fibre now. Woo!
The smells of Telepizza were calling me in, and I succumbed. I went in. I watched them making a pizza… and lo, it looked like pizza! And verily, I ordered.
While I was waiting for it to be made I sat down and combined reading and watching a telethon for Un Techo Para Chile which has been fundraising like mad lately around here. I’d thrown a few coins into a collection box without really knowing what it was about.
A wino kept wandering in and out, watching the TV for a bit, and then ambling out. He’d just stand there, near the door. I studiously avoiding catching his gaze.
The program then showed a short film about a young family moving from what was essentially a corrugated board shack into a newly built, if somewhat spartan, apartment. That’s when I heard the blubbing. I looked and saw the wino, just standing there, mouth turned down, tears streaming down his cheeks, and blubbing like a three year old that’s been denied another sweet.
It was heartbraking.
If you have a moment, consider making a small donation by following the link above. Since the strong earthquake recently a lot of families and individuals here have lost their homes. Others are just living in absolute poverty. They need your help, and once they have decent living conditions they can do more with their lives, educate their children better, and bring themselves a better future.
Just a quick gallery showing pictures I’ve taken over the past few days in Arica.
My only disappointment is that I’m still failing to get focus perfect on wide apertures and autofocus gets itself mixed up – so some otherwise great pictures aren’t usable at large sizes. I’ve just discovered that you can get a focussing screen for the EOS 550D. When I get home I’ll be doing a little shopping.
I’m still trying to decide what to do next, but I think I’m forming a plan.
I did debate staying here for all the time I have, teaching some web stuff maybe, for free. But nobody seemed that interested when I mentioned it, so I think it’s worth heading off.
I’ve already been to San Pedro de Atacama, but heck, it’s a nice spot on the planet and is on the way to Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni the world’s largest salt flat. I love extremes, and that’s as far as it can get, I reckon.
My only worry is that it’ll probably be bloody cold up in the mountains, so I’ll go and buy another fleece and a hat, methinks. Maybe a pair of gloves to?
After that, La Paz and a bit of exploring there, then take the boat across Lake Titicaca to Puno, then to Cuzco. If I have time there and feel up to it I can do the Machu Picchu trail as it’s the right season to do it and the weather’s pleasant there right now. Puno to Machu Picchu are already known to me, but the trail would be new, as would be crossing the lake. I also know it’s quite easy to get flights from Cuzco to Lima or from La Paz to Lima, should my itinerary slip a little.
I’m staying put while I wait for the headstone to be finished and fitted, and consequently got to see an Arican weekend.
There’s not a lot for me to do in many ways, so yesterday I spent some time going through all of my father’s papers and notebooks. I found evidence of one email address he’d used from five years ago, but it no longer existed. So I returned from the computer and continued… until I found painstakingly detailed notes on how to use Yahoo mail. Including a password.
Bingo!
I felt that if he had e-mail perhaps he’d been in touch with people and I could work out more of his life. I ran down to the computers they have here in the hotel, logged in and… he’d only ever emailed one place – the Department of Work and Pensions. It was all about his pension, along with a couple of emails explaining that they had his address wrong (and which they never seemed to correct!) and that was it. Nothing else, nothing in the sent folder to anyone else. It was a dead end.
Ah well. So I went back to the notes and worked out a fair few things. I’ll note what I’ve learned in full at the bottom of this post, as the whole day taught me things.
The Letters
One of my disappointments was to find no detail of any personal life, anywhere. But I did bring with me all the letters he sent me from 1988 to 1991. These covered his crisis period. I decided to get them in order, photograph each one, for posterity, and then read them one after another.
Ouch. This caused another period of getting down, because I realised some things. I remembered how, in the letters, were statements which were essentially threats to commit suicide. The incredible emotional blackmail. His feeling of injustice over what he thought was some kind of inheritence. In part that my memory hadn’t formed a perfect impression of the order of events (although I wasn’t too far out) and that his crisis had clearly been real enough, but largely because towards the end of the letters he stopped being so demanding and so hard on me. In fact, the very last letter was more about caring for me than himself. He was almost upbeat and looking to the future.
That was the moment. He’d realised what he’d done and he was trying to repair it. Problem is, he was too late. I was still upset at him, and I’d now rejected him completely. At the time I couldn’t forgive him for what he’d done. The letter is in quite a sorry state as I’d crumpled it up ready for the bin, but interestingly it looks like I changed my mind, flattened it out and put it with the rest.
Page one of the last letter.Page two of the last letter.
And so I found myself wondering. Should I have forgiven him sooner? I’d certainly have stood far more of a chance of finding him, and maybe he’d learned. But at the same time I do believe I was still scared of him. I never told him I’d moved, and I never checked again with the neighbour who’d been taking my post in.
I think, to me (and maybe to others) that this is a valuable lesson in the dangers of losing the trust of those closest to you. If you want to get it back a letter isn’t enough. You have to earn it. Really work at it. He could have forged the connections once more, the stupid bugger, but he couldn’t stop me walking away. My own instability at the time meant he had no chance of finding out where I lived…certainly not from South America.
It’s also taught me that communication is everything. Sometimes those around you know little about what you do and what you think. For example, he didn’t really understand the repossession of my grandmother’s house or the intense solitude I felt at the time.
Maybe if I’d simply told him? But I needed to protect myself as well.
I did originally plan to place the letters online in their entirety, but that will have to wait. I saw some things there that could cause real issues for some people and which need to be cleared first. Maybe in the future. But it’s a thin maybe.
At 9pm, after the terror pizza, I headed to the pool hall to meet more of my father’s friends and acquaintances. There was Oliver (or Oscar, my notes aren’t clear on this and I need to check tomorrow) who met him over ten years ago on the La Paz-Arica train. Or Pablo, who’d known him since 1991… from the time of that last letter.
Obviously I had questions. I asked if he’d mentioned family and they only had one mention… a daughter, in Quito, Ecuador, who died in a road traffic accident at the age of about 13. But I couldn’t find any more detail than that. No names, no known addresses, and there’d been nothing in the notes. Back home we suspect he may have been using this as a way of blocking conversation about family, but who can be sure? He gave the story consistently, everyone reported it as the same, but something occurs to me… it’s an old story. If he was reporting this 19 years or so ago, then the age wouldn’t be possible as I’m not aware of him having been to South America prior to around 1983.
So, after all this, and without the help of an interpreter, I only had vague echos of the man. Nothing so firm other than that he was, it seems, generous with friends, selective about his company, and a creature of habit. I sat where he sat, chatted with his friends, enjoyed a beer, and learned to spell ‘jote’, the red wine and Coke mix, correctly.
This all cheered me up. Apart from the odd mentalist (my father did hang around with a diverse group) I found that these friends he had were pleasant, intelligent people with things to share. We drank to my father, I tried to explain the story in as sensitive way as possible, and we laughed and joked.
Here’s something… a smiling, happy and charming man who knew my father in Arica, lives just around the corner from the hotel I’m staying at.
He actually lives in the cabin that guards a car park. Just him. He’s been married twice, I believe, but that’s all I know.
So how can I tell his story?
I can’t, not really.
But it made me realise – he had many things in common with my father. Two marriages, keeps quiet about his personal life, and a very modest lifestyle. And truth is, I see people like this all the time. And they all have a story. It’s just that it is, largely, untold.
Even when it is told, you only have their take on it. Given how fragile memories and emotions can be it’s almost impossible to extricate what’s really happened.
Pushing Away
I think it’s entirely possible that anybody can end up alone and relatively marginal. Worse, some can even end up utterly destitute and on the streets. Something makes this happen to people. They destroy their personal relationships. Before too long, they are relatively alone. They have friends, for sure, but not close ones. And drinking friends, as we all know, are the ones who aren’t there when you need them.
If we look at my father, he ended up being rejected by me. If you look at the picture of me with my father, you’ll see something that I’d never noticed until a psychologist here noticed it and mentioned it to Joaquin… my father is touching me, but I’m distant. I could be just another surly teenager, but here’s the thing… I wasn’t a surly teenager. I just hand’t formed many attachments.
At the pool hall
There were two points when I pushed away from my father. When I was around 11 years old he’d split up with his second wife and I was living with my grandmother. I’d struggled to settle into the new school – a rather rough school that was failing its pupils, and the bullying and harrassment had become quite extreme. Yet some level of that had happened at every new school. So I stood firm and when my father suggested I went with him to Belgium I opted not to. Enough was enough.
Wasn’t easy.
That was the first stage. He was obviously angry with his mother who supported me in the process of requesting her to be my guardian, and consequently their relationship deteriorated even further.
He’d already pushed away from his second wife and daughter, simply by failing to cope with certain aspects of the relationship.
Then, years later, when he was demanding money from me, I couldn’t handle it. He was too hard on me. I had to reject him even more. Not so easy, really.
Suddenly, he’d lost all familial contact. Nobody wanted to deal with him or support him. He was a lost soul.
We Judge on the Negative
One thing I’ve realised is that most people form relationships with other people based on the good character traits. They find the other person attractive, or intelligent, or caring… that kind of thing. But they break relationships based on the bad. That may be stating the obvious, really, but it’s important because the bad things are usually a very small part of that person’s character.
Think about it – your average burglar probably spends no more than a few hours a week breaking into house. A wife beater doesn’t beat his wife every day. It just doesn’t happen that way. It’s why sometimes women find it so hard to break away because “he’s a good father” or “he’s so generous most of the time.”
People aren’t black and white, no matter what films and the media appear to suggest. My father wasn’t generally a bad man. Remove the mood swings and the occassional domestic violence and you had a charming, intelligent and thoughtful man. Everyone I’ve met here considered him a good man. If anything, they found him a little naive – he got ripped off and let down on a number of occassions because he trusted too much.
He wasn’t evil.
He just had flaws that made him impossible to live with.
And Juanito?
I know I made the title of this post misleading, but it’s relevant. I don’t know his story. I can’t even suggest that he was pushed away from his family. All I know is that he’s living alone, in a small hut in a car park, and that he’s a personable and kind man.
All I know for sure is that there is a story in everybody, and no matter what mistakes they or others made they’ll feel the pain of their past.
What Have I Learned?
Value your friendships and relationships. As far as I can see, they’re one of the primary things that keep us from ending up alone and in poverty like my father did. It’s important to accept that although they can be a pain sometimes, and oh so restrictive, we need those boundaries and checks that they bring to us. Being told you’re wrong, or being stupid, or hurtful… that’s something we all need to hear now and again because we can all be wrong, stupid or hurtful.
Without that, we can’t limit ourselves, and we can’t free ourselves from our mental barriers. It’s often said that children need boundaries, or they can become insecure. I believe, very much, that adults need them also.
Now, I must apologies for the random keyboard psychology above, and promise that normal service will be resumed soon!
