The houses that Pablo built

When Pablo Neruda’s heart stopped in 1973 it could have signified the death of poetry in Chile. Augusto Pinochet’s coup was smothering the country in fear, silencing voices of dissent, ushering in a terrified philistinism. Neruda was the country’s most beloved poet, their recently-crowned Nobel Laureate, who had survived past proscription to captivate his country with fifty years worth of poems. Then Pinochet broke his heart. 

The country’s love for their poet, however, could not be snuffed out by the dictator. At the poet’s funeral mourning mixed with protest. Although his works were banned they were smuggled into the country from Argentina. His three houses – in Isla Negra, Valparaiso and Santiago – were shut up with their treasures until the reign of the dictator ended and it was safe to adore the poet again.

Once the dictatorship had ended these three houses were restored and eventually opened to the public. When they were, the wealth and vibrancy of the poet’s life was put on display for all to enjoy; poetry, if it ever had really been run out of Chile, was returning in triumph.

Neruda’s houses – La Sebastiana in Valparaiso, La Chascona in Santiago, and his favourite Isla Negra house – share similar stories. The tours that wind constantly through all three of them point out the same traits. Neruda loved the ocean but was scared of sailing. Instead he designed his houses to resemble ships, with low narrow doorways and pegged wooden floors. He decorated the houses with ships in bottles, maps, and ships’ figureheads. An enthusiastic antiquarian, Neruda’s houses are filled with knickknacks and curiosities: African and Asian masks, Easter Island heads, stuffed animals, a narwal horn, shells and coloured glass, figurines, hats, shoes, erotic postcards, giant shoes, lanterns, bells, indigenous and colonial art from all over Latin America, a full-sized model horse in a full-sized stable, ship’s furniture, anchors, hats, pipes, photographs and paintings of himself and his third wife (I don’t remember seeing any of his earlier wives), traditional musical instruments from Asia and the Americas, photographs of other poets (Whitman, Rimbaud, Baudelaire featuring prominently), his awards and of course many, many books.

The size of Neruda’s collections and the anecdotes attached to them – how he thought drink tasted better out of coloured glasses, how he loved entertaining but prohibited his guests from entering his kitchens, how he wanted to always feel himself to be at sea on dry land, how he would ring the bells to inform the neighbours when he arrived back in town, how he would decorate rooms to look like scenes from his childhood, how he would buy up favourite objects (such as the full-sized model horse) from his childhood – testify to the vivacity and exuberance of the man, to the passion and sense of fun that come through in his poems.  

And beyond their coloured walls and dense gardens, these houses testify to influence of the poet over his country. Out from these repositories of life and art have spread Chile’s most colourful communities. The grey shores of Isla Negra are scattered with pretty, colourful beach houses, the trendy village scattered with sculptures and artistic flourishes. Below the Valparaiso house spreads the city’s bohemian labyrinth. Around the Santiago house has sprouted one of the hippest and liveliest neighbourhoods in the metropolis.

In his houses the spirit of Neruda survived the oppressions of the dictator, and emerged to continue to inspire the country he loved. Today Chile is Neruda’s house, filled with his friends and admirers, his quirks and idiosyncracies, with colour and poetry; just as he always wanted his houses to be.

How Chile had changed.

My second flight straight across the Pacific, ricocheting off of Auckland and back through time to land in Santiago two hours and five films after i had left. I dreaded the arrivals gate in Santiago, where i vaguely recalled a crush of taxi touts, and backpackers being bundled in $50+ shuttles. There was no crush though, and there were no troubles as i connected from bus to bus, and made my way to Valparaiso.

The moment i looked out the window of that first bus, Chile came flooding back to me. The downtrodden concretey buildings close to the airport, the horses browsing in empty lots, the clusters of leaning shanties, the men idle in the streets and around the bus stations.

At the first bus station i remembered flaky empanadas con queso, and remembered how underwhelming they could be. I remembered sodas with names like Kem, Pap and BIlz, and discovered that they weren’t owned by Coca-Cola. This disposed me towards them, until i remembered their flavours; all of unidenitifiable fruits blended with buckets of sugar and colouring.

I remembered the couples making out loudly in public, pretending no one else in the world existed. I remembered the studied seriousness of their faces as they stared into each other. I remembered that every park and plaza was full of intertwined couples.

I had never forgotten the dogs that lay everywhere, puddles of drool forming on the ground around their jowls. They lay wherever they fell, in the middle of sidewalks and plazas. They moved for no one. I discovered that Chile has cats as well as dogs, but that they band together and occupy particular blocks or parks. And they do not fall asleep in the middle of the street.

I remembered the frontier feel of the country, remote and wild. I remembered the dry earth and the towering mountains. Horses are still important here, so are cowboy hats. I remembered the grit of the country, a blue collar country, driven by its mines, its farms, it ports. I remembered the throngs of men in caps at bus stations, and how loudly they laughed at the films on the bus TV, and how loudly they snored.

But the moment i was off the bus in Valparaiso, i felt that Chile had changed. Three years ago school students had called out to us as though we were the first gringos they had seen. The hostels had been full of backpackers but the streets had seemed devoid of them. Valparaiso, though, was full of expats. Teachers and students and volunteers mingled with the artsy locals and filled the cafes and bars and houses, clinging to their glasses as they watched votes pour in and states turn blue or red.

Last time we had come to Chile for the natural beauty. The cities were gritty but the countryside was sublime. Returning i found that the cities – or such as i saw of them – had grown up. Valparaiso was full of fantastic street art. The strong traditional of Latin American murals was fusing with contemporary street art. The old didactic paintings had become fun and clever. They still expressed joy and pain, but they did so with freedom now. Cats, birds, monsters and musicians covered every available vertical surface.

In Santiago a neighbourhood had emerged that i’d completely overlooked on my first wide-eyed discovery of the city. This was Bellavista, clustered around one of Pablo Neruda’s homes; the only part of weekend Santiago that was bustling and thumping and laughing and cramming into bars and restaurants. Here in Bellavista the full and emerging diversity of Chile was on display. Across the aisle from the perennial punk and heavy metal favourites that resound throughout South America were Japanese anime DVDs. The monopoly of Chilean cuisine – hotdog, hamburger, sandwich, steak – was being broken by sushi, curry and kimchi. The pink and white of Harajuku girls broke up the ubiquitous black clothing.

The Chileans of Santiago seemed to have changed too. They had learned English. They were no longer shy. They invited me to stay with them, to come out the clubs. They bought me drinks. This was not the Chile i had discovered last time. Previously it had been all museums and hostels. Returning, i spent maybe 30 minutes in one museum and nothing more.

In three years Chile seemed to have changed dramatically, but of course it had not. Santiago had been the first destination of my first big trip. Back then i hadn’t spoken to a single Chilean, and had depended on guide books to get me about. I had avoided the subway and the bars. I had been shy about taking photos.

The change was all mine: I had learned to see and to speak, and i had a broader basis for comparison. I had learned travel arrogance, to flip my camera out whenever and wherever i wanted. I had discovered couchsurfing and used it to insinuate my way deeper into the countries i visited. I had enlarged my vocabulary and could ask for directions instead of pouring over maps.

No doubt Chile had changed too, but returning i found i could only map my own changes. How much bigger and stronger and brasher i had become. How much more i knew, how much more presumptuous and over-confident i was. Before leaving Santiago and heading north into the desert i climbed Cerro Santa Lucia again. I looked out over the same city and up into the same Andes. Where before i had been daunted and awestruck, now i was dissecting the place, weighing it up, reducing it to blogs and wondering whether i would want to live there.

The big change of the last few years is that i’ve become a ’serious’ traveller; one of the people who talks too loudly about his own travels and can compare every new site or sight to at least three previously-seen ones. It’s getting harder to be surprised or impressed. I guess this is a common paradox for long-term travellers. Is there a solution to it? Is this why people are always seeking bigger, more terrifying, more remote parts of the world? To try and outrun their desensitisation? From Santiago i ran on north into the deserts, to see if i could do the same…