"Viva Chile" Part 3: "18" Cuisine

Sixteen years ago, as Chileans were in the process of recovering their government and their collective sanity after way too many years of internal struggle, there was a feeling that Chileans were moving too rapidly and too completely away from the customs and principles that had bound them together for so long. They were abandoning their traditions, their traditional cuisine, their music, and their national dance, the “cueca”. To reverse this trend, they established the “Semana de la Chilenidad”, to be held in September each year around the “18”, to at least for a week focus Chileans on their heritage. And for the past 16 years, during the “Semana de la Chilenidad”, they have had their children take “cueca” classes, learn the words and music to their most traditional songs, read books about Chilean history, recite poems written by one of Chile’s favorite poets and educator Gabriela Mistral, draw pictures of the Chilean flag and their hero Bernardo O’Higgins, and in general focus their attention on Chilean traditions.

One of those traditions Chileans are intent on saving, one that is front and center during the “18” celebration, is the “asado”. Chileans, like their neighbors to the East, the Argentines, are carnivores. Beef, pork, and lamb are the mainstays. At a Chilean “asado”, if someone declares himself a vegetarian, they serve him chicken! In the countryside, especially in the south, they prepare “asado al palo”, which is a whole or half a lamb skewered on a long eucalyptus pole, slow-roasted over hot coals. Delicious.

Various cuts of beef, from “filete” (tenderloin), to “palanca” (flank), to “lomo liso & lomo vetado” (sirloin), and other sundry lower-cost cuts that would remind you of chuck steak, are usually simply grilled over charcoal. Lamb chops, pork chops and pork loin are grilled and served as snacks, finger food, washed down with corpulent cabernet sauvignon or the more recently popular Carmenere, as you wait for the main course, the grilled beef.



Ximena and I spent the Bicentennial holidays in and around Santiago. Each day, an “asado” was on the menu. One day we spent at an “asado” on the outskirts of Santiago, at the home of a wonderful woman who was the Peace Corps secretary when I worked on the staff there from 1976-79, Patricia, and her family. Another day we drove to a lovely lakeside retreat at Laguna Aculeo, for another “asado” with Ximena’s nephew, Carlos, and his family.






On the “18”, we lunched on two traditional favorites, "pastel de choclo" and "ensalada Chilena" at home with Ximena’s mother, Ana Luisa, and sister, Paz, and then visited the “fondas” at a huge park nearby. There were horse shows in the arena, “cueca” dancing throughout on small wooden platforms, kite flying in the adjoining fields, “juegos criollos” (traditional games) like “taka taka”, “rana” and “rayuela” for the kids, and folklore concerts throughout ( Los Jaivas, Huasos de Algarrobal, Los Huasos Quincheros, Los Cuatro Cuartos).

To top it off, on the final day of the 4-day celebration we joined Ximena’s cousin Pablo, his vivacious wife Paula and their lovely family for, what else, an “asado”. Pablo is a master at the grill, and besides the "chorizos", "longaniza", chicken (for my "vegetarian" sister-in-law), and of course grilled "lomo", Pablo always throws a few "prietas" on the grill. These blood sausages, typical at most "asados" in Argentina and Chile, when grilled to perfection, as they were the day we were at Pablo's home, simply melt in your mouth, especially with Chilean tinto to help.



The ubiquitous “empanada”, especially the one filled with “pino” (mixture of diced beef, chopped onion, black olive, piece of hard boiled egg, flavored with cumin) is one of the classic “18” foods.

Another is Chilean sausage, either the “chorizo” or the “longaniza”, both mostly pork. The Chilean “longaniza” was made famous in the city of Chillan, 300 kilometers south of Santiago. If a foreigner wants to impress Chileans with his knowledge of Chile, when the subject of “longaniza” comes up, and it always does around an “asado”, you have to quickly state before anyone else does, “Of course the best longaniza are from Los Pincheira” and you’re in. This is especially important to do if you are standing around the grill with other family and friends instructing the host, who is doing the grilling, what he is doing wrong, how he is turning the meat too often or not often enough, etc. Apparently Chilean grillers need lots of advice on how to grill, because every “asado” I have ever attended the grill is surrounded by many experts on grilling willing to share their knowledge. Chileans have picked up the Argentine habit of snacking, prior to the main course, on “choripan”, which is a grilled “chorizo”, sizzling hot off the grill, wrapped in a crispy roll and seasoned further with dark red “salsa de aji” made from roasted “cacho de cabra” peppers ground up with a bit of olive oil. Or you may also be served “pebre”, a green mixture of cilantro, onion, and oil, similar to Argentine “chimichurri”, used to season meat. Of course no Chilean “asado” is complete without “ensalada Chilena”, a salad of feathered onions (slightly scalded in hot water to tame the taste a bit), fresh tomatoes, oil, and topped with parsley.

But the real champion of the Chilean “18” cuisine is the “anticucho”. The “anticucho comes out of hiding for the national holiday. Throughout the rest of the year you may find one at the occasional Saturday afternoon family picnic, but for the most part Chileans save the “anticucho” for the “18”. This “18” mainstay is like a shish kabob, a skewer with chunks of meat, roasted over an open fire. It has its origins in the colonial period, probably brought from Peru, like so many other foods and drink much to Chileans’ chagrin. There are many kinds of “anticuchos”, including the truest but these days the scarcest one, made with beef heart. Most common is beef, sometimes mixed with chicken (for the vegetarians), longaniza, chorizo, vienesas, mushrooms, onion, and red and green sweet pepper. As these skewers are grilled, they splash a mixture of garlic, cilantro, salt, lemon, vinegar, or even beer on them with a parsley sprig to keep them moist and flavorful. It is recorded that in 2004, in the town of Quilicura near Santiago, they produced the world’s longest “anticucho”. It was 200 meters long, contained 400 kilos of meat, and 5,000 slices of onion and red sweet pepper. I could not find information on how many people it took to eat the thing, or even that they actually ate it. But I’m quite sure they did.

At the “fondas” we visited on the “18” in Santiago this year, every food stand was serving “anticuchos”. I have not seen so many “anticuchos” in one place ever. And when you wash them down with a glass of “terremoto” the mixture of “pipeno” wine (which is the classic unfiltered fresh wine from the country that huasos like Claudio my father-in-law swear by), pineapple ice cream, and Fernet Branca, you have no choice but to join in with the rest of Chile and exclaim, “Viva Chile!!”, and “Viva el 18 de Septiember!!!”.

Written in Leesburg, Virginia on October 30, 2010.

"Viva Chile" Part 2: The Bicentennial "18"

Chile and Chileans have modernized a huge amount in the past 40 years, but what persists with characteristic Chilean determination is their strong link back to a time when rural life was more the norm and rural customs prevailed. In spite of the fact that 85% of Chileans now live in urbanized areas, half of whom live in the greater Santiago area, they all feel the pull of rural life, the rodeo and “fonda”, and traditional food, drink, songs, and the “cueca”, at least on the18th of September each year.

During 2009, the Michelle Bachelet administration spent much of their last year in office planning for a spectacular Bicentennial “18”. They prepared grand shows for the “18” itself, but throughout the year they also held events, inaugurations of schools, stadiums, roads, bridges, and hospitals throughout Chile. For a country making great strides to obtain so-called “developed” status, these were the logical manifestations of progress to be celebrated (especially in an election year!). Many of the plans for celebrations were derailed when her coalition’s candidate Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (son of Eduardo Frei Montalvo who was president of Chile when we were Peace Corps volunteers in the late ‘60s) lost the Presidential election to Sebastian Pinera. Then the February earthquake, that occurred just after the election, put a real damper on spirits and serious pressure on the national treasury during the first few months of Pinera’s administration, causing a serious questioning as to what was an appropriate Bicentennial celebration in a country that was suffering from this disaster and that had to face costly and lengthy reconstruction. And then there were the miners, still imprisoned in the San Jose mine near Copiapo, about 700 kilometers to the north of Santiago. On the one hand, it did not seem to be the time for a costly, flamboyant series of celebratory events. On the other hand, some argued that Chileans needed to be uplifted, and the right kind of “18” would be the way to do it. What they decided to do seems to me to have worked quite well.

Four days of official holiday were declared, the 17th through the 20th, because September 18 this year fell on a Saturday. This is important because in Chile an “official” holiday carries with it certain benefits for public and private sector workers. Also the Congress passed a law, and the President signed it, requiring the large supermarket and department stores, which employ large numbers of lower middle class workers, to remain closed for three of those four days, so that “…all their workers could enjoy the Bicentennial “18” holidays with their families, at home in their communities.” You had to wonder why it wasn’t equally important for workers in medium-sized and small stores to also enjoy the holidays, but I suppose the prevailing idea was that large firms can absorb the lost business from being closed for three days, whereas smaller stores and businesses may not be able to. At any rate, prior to the three-day closing there was a run on the stores that would be closed, reminiscent of the days just after the earthquake when Chileans, panicked, stocked up on everything from toilet tissue to milk to their favorite wine. In the end, everyone seemed to survive the unusual 3-day supermarket closing, and data now seem to show that rather than losing money due to the forced 3-day closing, large supermarkets actually increased their business for the period over the prior year.

What I observed over the four-day period of the “18” this year was a moment when the country took a well-timed and much-needed collective sigh of relief. Tens of thousands of now more urban Chileans were able to escape the cities to spend the holiday in the country with family and friends in celebration of their rural roots. Much like the 4th of July celebration in the US, Chileans celebrate their national holiday with a focus on family activities, civic participation and outward expressions of national pride.

National pride, seriously eroded away over the period of great internal political, social, and economic struggle in Chile from 1970 to 1989, has been on the rebound over the past twenty years. Two traditional expressions of this national pride that are slowly returning to the positive side of public opinion are the annual military parade held on the 19th of September, and the naval parade held this year on September 20th in the Bay of Valparaiso. I tend not to spend much time watching military parades anywhere, including Chile, but this year I caught a bit of both of them on television. There were of course the normal waves of Chilean forces and equipment in the military parade in Parque O’Higgins, and a long procession of Chilean naval ships in the parade on the next day off the coast of Valparaiso, including the USS Jarrett and several other foreign warships. The President proudly reviewed the naval parade from the deck of the Esmeralda, Chile’s famous (and infamous) emblematic “tall ship” now used as a training vessel for cadets but also used as a prison for political prisoners during and shortly after the coup that placed General Pinochet in charge of Chile in 1973. The Esmeralda seems to be outliving its more disreputable role during that period and returning to its rightful position of nautical pride for Chileans as it flies the Chilean flag throughout the world.

As President Pinera saluted the passing ships, you couldn’t avoid noticing the satisfaction on the faces of the Defense Minister and his wife, who stood alongside the President not only on the Esmeralda that day but also the day before in the military parade. This is an interesting side story, for two reasons. The first is that the minister was actually an active member of the opposition, a militant in the Christian Democrat party. He had supported Pinera’s opponent, Frei, although he clearly was uncomfortable with the leftward movement of the “Concertacion” coalition. He also had served as Minister of Defense in the earlier Lagos administration (prior to Bachelet), replacing Bachelet in that position when she left the post to run successfully for President. At the outset of his term, President Pinera tried to attract leaders from the opposition parties into his government. The only one to accept was the new Minister of Defense, Jaime Ravinet. He was a logical choice, but his “defection” resulted in his separation from the Christian Democrat party. Unfortunately partisan gestures in Chilean politics seem to increasingly earn the same fate as in the U.S. The second side story of personal interest is that the Minister’s wife, Ximena, way back in both of our lives, was my secretary in the Peace Corps office in Santiago. Seeing her standing on the deck of the Esmeralda, next to the president of Chile, in this very special Bicentennial celebration reminded me of how far she, and Chile, have gone since those days we worked together in the modest Peace Corps Office on the small, tree-lined Galvarino Gallardo street in Santiago.

As I watched these two military events, a small detail caught my attention: the inclusion in each of these Bicentennial parades of civilians. Maybe this has happened in the past, I don’t know for sure. But I noted that in the military parade, the troops were followed by representatives of what I will call the “people’s armies”: not gun-toting reserves or para-military groups, but rather a street vendor proudly pushing his cart on wheels along the parade route, a street cleaner with his broom proudly marching along pushing his trash can on wheels, and a “manicero” (peanut vendor) with his typical boat-shaped wagon so common in the streets of Chile’s cities and towns. There may have been others, but those are the ones I remember. The next day this image of civic participation was reinforced when behind the naval ships which passed by in Valparaiso’s naval procession, there were more than 300 tug boats, fishing boats, Polynesian canoes, and private sail boats, a vivid expression of welcome civic inclusion. Is it just wishful thinking to believe that these are the “armies” Chile will be investing in and looking to in the future to develop Chile: the armies of simple, hardworking Chileans doing their jobs and raising healthy, educated children?

Each night of this Bicentennial week the Presidential Palace, the “Moneda”, provided the façade, the same façade so shockingly destroyed by rockets on September 11 in 1973, for a magnificent light show presented as an expression of hope and encouragement. Each night hundreds of thousands of citizens from all walks of life jammed into the squares and streets surrounding the “Moneda” to enjoy the show, and tens of thousands more congregated peacefully into parks throughout the country to cheer fireworks displays featuring the blue, red and white of the Chilean flag. By most accounts, mine included, Chileans seemed to have had a very happy four-day respite from their collective pressures and problems, and as has become a trait of this society, the next day, bright and early, they got up, sent their kids off to school, and went off to work. “Viva Chile!”

Written in Leesburg, Virginia on October 30, 2010.

"Viva Chile" Part 1: The 18th of September

“Viva Chile!!” has filled the air these days, punctuating with an emphatic exclamation point what that stoic country has been through during 2010. The massive earthquake in the central south coastal region, the notable election of a center-right President after 20 years of center-left governance, and the agonizing but finally successful rescue of 33 miners in the north has had people throughout the world checking our geographical and political maps to follow all the action. If these momentous events were not enough for one country for one year, Chileans also celebrated their nation’s bicentennial this year, on September 18. Secretary of State Clinton said it well in her greeting to the people of Chile on this occasion, when she said “The people of your country have set a vibrant example…the earthquake in February has demonstrated your unshaken determination…your all-out efforts on behalf of the trapped miners is inspirational…”. Given all that was going on in Chile (and the feeling that the time was right to repair our apartment in Santiago from earthquake damage) we decided to join our Chilean family and friends in Chile for their Bicentennial “18th” celebration.





But this story really starts in the summer of 1967, when my Peace Corps group was being prepared to serve as volunteers in Chile. We spent days and nights at an isolated summer camp facility (Camp Armac) near Bothell, Washington, learning Spanish, brushing up on our silviculture (we were going into a forestry development program where promotion of tree-planting in rural Chile was the main activity), and familiarizing ourselves with the customs and habits of our future hosts, the Chileans. In this orientation period we were introduced to the “18 de Septiembre” as a moment when all of Chile celebrates the independence of a country and an independent people with deep cultural roots in rural Andean South America. There were several returned volunteers who had already served in Chile, helping with the training program. Willy, Bill and “Buzo” who had lived in rural Chile during their Peace Corps service urged us in no uncertain terms to prepare to participate fully in the “18” celebrations while living in Chile.

To help prepare us for this, we were introduced to favorite Chilean ballads such as “Si Vas Para Chile”, “Rio Rio”, and “Adios Santiago Querido”. Our Spanish instructor Max (on leave in the US from his home University in Concepcion in south central Chile) played Chilean music into our earphones so much that none of us to this day can hear the “Cuatro Cuartos” tonada “Que Bonita Va” without thinking about this intense period over forty years ago and this insistent language instructor who, after all, was so key to any success each of us had in finally communicating with Chileans. And we were introduced to the national dance, the “cueca”, a strange set of steps meant to mimic the mating maneuvers of a rooster and hen; a dance that must be learned through practice, and which we found out very soon cannot be faked on the dance floor like so many other dances can. Much to my chagrin, I never learned to dance the cueca, but I was by no means alone in that failure. We were told that during a “18” celebration, we should go to a rodeo, dance the “cueca” and drink a lot of wine and fresh grape cider named “chicha” over a several-day period if we were to participate appropriately in this most important of Chile’s celebrations. Unfortunately, we arrived that year in Chile only the week following the celebration in 1967, so we waited a year before participating in our first Chilean “18”.

During my Peace Corps service I was in Chile for just two “18s”. I remember them fondly, although I admit the memories are somewhat hazy due in part to the many years gone by since, but also to the effects of the great amounts of wine and “chicha” we consumed so as not to appear culturally insensitive and disappoint our hosts. My first “18”, in 1968, was in Santiago, where, for two full days we partied at the “fondas” in a park in what was then the semi-rural neighborhood of Santiago called La Reina. The simplest “fondas” are hut-like rustic constructions put up by sticking corner poles in the ground and across the top, and overlaying eucalyptus or “aromo” boughs, or whatever leaved limbs and branches you have available, on the top to provide a type of roof. Open sides and dirt floors are OK.

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“Fondas” are also called “ramadas”, coming from the Spanish word “rama”, which means branch, like branch of a tree. (I wonder if it was a nostalgic Chilean who put the Ramada name on our chain of motels, or maybe it was the way they were put together.) The point of the Chilean “fonda” is to have a place in which to put a bar to serve some food and drink, a few small tables and chairs, and maybe a small area for dancing. In Chile to this day the “18 fonda” is pretty much still the same, although in the cities, especially Santiago, some have become more sophisticated and comfortable, losing in the process some of the attraction I recall from earlier years. My most lasting memory of this “18” in 1968 was a simple, very popular “fonda” named “Juan Tragolta”, a typically Chilean play on words linking our John Travolta with the word “trago”, Spanish for drink. This fonda was well-named, and we spent quite a bit of time there listening to music, drinking chicha, and avoiding dancing the cueca. It was fun to participate in this simple expression of Chilean civic pride. We felt like we were beginning to fit in.

In 1969, I participated in a much more typical “18” celebration outside of Santiago, when I spent the holiday in Pelluhue at my brother-in-law-to-be Joaco’s family home that sits on a rocky ledge high above that lovely Maule shoreline which was devastated by the recent tsunami. I attended a Chilean rodeo in nearby Cauquenes with wife-to-be Ximena, Joaco, sister-in-law-to-be Veronica, and several other “to-bes”. The rodeo is central to the “18” activities especially in this south-central agricultural part of Chile where the short, stocky Chilean horse presides. A Chilean rodeo is considerably different from the North American rodeo. It is held in a “media luna” (half moon) corral-type wooden construction, around the inside of which two “huasos” (Chilean cowboys, or horsemen) chase a steer and try to pin him against the wall with their horses at a specific place on the wall and as far back on the animal as they can. Points are given for style and precision, but apparently who you know at the scoring table also helps.

Ximena’s father, Claudio, rode in the Cauquenes rodeos in his youthful years, so attending this rodeo and drinking chicha from Cauquenes was a personal rite of passage with very special meaning to me, contributing I believe to the very close relationship I was fortunate to have with my father-in-law through the years. Claudio loved the rodeo, horses, rural life, and the “18” celebration. He was never as happy living later in Santiago as he was in his earlier years in Cauquenes. (Upon his untimely death a few years ago, my mother-in-law, Ana Luisa, gave me Claudio’s frayed rawhide lasso and his rusty branding iron he used to mark his animals on “La Hermosura” farm where they lived very early in their married lives. I treasure these gifts for what they meant to Claudio and our friendship they continue to remind me of.)

The Chilean rodeo can be a very festive affair, but on that specific day in Cauquenes in 1969 it rained and rained, as it so often does around this time of year in southern Chile, so by the end of the evening, we were drenched….inside and out.



We watched some of the rodeo, which was mostly tired and unwilling horses and hapless steers all slipping and sliding in the mud trying to avoid each other. We mostly walked around with cups of “chicha” in our hands, in mud up to our ankles and with cold rainwater running down inside the backs of our shirts. This “18” was a memorable event, to be sure, that left the indelible image I carry to this day of celebrating the “18” in rural Chile.

In July of 1970, Ximena and I left Chile, unfortunately prior to that year’s “18”, and with the exception of a couple of years in the late 1970s when we again lived in Chile, we did not celebrate another Chilean “18” until this Bicentennial year 2010, when we returned to join in a collective “Viva Chile!”

Written in Leesburg, Virginia on October 30, 2010.

Las Rocas

When the February 2010 tsunami washed inland over much of the small fishing village of Loanco, in the Maule province of south central Chile, many homes were totally destroyed, the fishermen lost all of their boats, motors, and nets, and even their new tractor for hauling the boats out of the water was a total loss. None died. They knew what to do, and escaped. The villagers' belongings were strewn along the coast for miles, and the villagers themselves were dispersed around the area, taking refuge with friends and relatives so as to have a roof over their heads for the cold, rainy Chilean winter that would soon be upon them.

I have sort of "adopted" Loanco as my escape from today's sometimes deafening clamor. Whenever I visit Chile, and can get away, I spend a few days at the very isolated coastal refuge Ximena's sister Veronica and her husband Joaquin have built that sits on a bluff looking out over the long, lonely sandy beach that runs from Loanco north to a spectacular lighthouse, El Faro Caranza. My visits now follow a routine that I imagine often when I am not fortunate enough to be there. After a five-hour drive down the Pan American highway and a diversion east through either Constitucion or Cauquenes, I reach their place by driving in along a dirt path from the main road through pastures, wooden farmgates, past rundown adobe farmhouses with ferocious mangy dogs, over a huge sand dune, through a clump of cypress trees, and down into the back yard of Veronica and Joaquin's place. About halfway along this path, there is an overlook, a place where you can look way down to the left as you enter, and see Loanco. This view of Loanco is usually lovely, since you can appreciate the blue-green waters crashing on the rocky shoreline around the small village. The distance filters out the poverty, open sewers, and near futility and dangers of trying to make a living as an antisan fisherman. In spite of the distance filter, this view of Loanco was a sad, sad scene the last time I visited, in May, before returning to the US.

So when I visited again in September of this year, I arrived at this overlook

late in the afternoon with a certain degree of anxiety. I feared what I would see, so I sort of looked indirectly out of the corner of my eye, thinking just a slight glance would keep me from seeing the uglyness of Loanco's destruction. But what a surprise! There were boats on the shore, and it was pretty obvious they had motors and were back at work. There were still vacant lots where some houses had been before, but there were also signs of construction activity. So I spent the night still expectant of what I would find the next day during my customary walk to Loanco, but comforted by the feeling that maybe Loanco was recovering, maybe they have a chance of getting back to normal.

Bright and early the next morning, after a big cup of Nescafe with hot milk and burned hallulla toast (in Chile this toast mostly comes burned) with lots of real butter and honey from the Olmo flower, I enthusiastically headed down the dune, and over the beach towards Loanco. How the earth and her earthlings slowly recover from disasters is really something to marvel. Several years before the tsunami, Joaco had planted Ammophila grass to stabilize the dunes closest to the ocean in front of his property. It was working, but Joaco had told me he was sure all his work had been washed away in the tsunami. However, as I crossed this line of low dunes on my way to Loanco, I could see that the Ammophila had survived its Frebruary drowning and was sprouting anew. It was miraculously continuing to do its job. The scraps and pieces of Loanco's belongings which just seven months earlier had virtually blanketed the beach were slowly and progressively being buried or washed out to sea. Tips of splintered bedposts, smashed bookcases and chairs, boat oars, and tattered clothing were still sticking out of the sands, and there were still too many signs of the disaster that struck this village. But, it seemed to me that it would not be long before the sea will swallow and the sands will cover what was lost by the residents of Loanco in the tsunami.

Those of you who have followed this blog, or have been fortunate to have visited Loanco, know that my destination whenever I trek down the beach to Loanco is first to watch the fishermen arrive with their catch (their and my timing is such that when I am starting my day, they usually are beginning to finish theirs!) and then a short walk through town to Maria's and Dago's restaurant Las Rocas.

On this day in September, as I walked into the midst of the boats on the beach, I was a little early or the fishermen were late so there was no one around, but I could tell by the tracks in the sand that at least some of the new boats had gone out to fish. I figured if I waited a bit, I would see them return with their catch. A quick look around revealed several new boats with shiny new motors. As it turns out, the Loanco fishermen were helped by contributions from a mining association from the north of Chile, the national (international, really) airline, and others to

rebuild their small fleet of fishing boats. And a special line of credit from the Chilean government's fisheries ministry was being made available. Someone had provided the resources to buy a new tractor to haul the boats to and from the water (they used oxen up until a couple of years ago) and the fact that they now had that new tractor parked high on a cement platform well away from the sea made me chuckle. The building used by the fishermen to store fish and fishing equipment, house bathrooms and changing rooms, and serve as a fish market when the catch was sufficient was still totally vacated and probably due to be demolished.

There is an ambitious plan to create a Ruta de Caletas (small fishing village tourism route) to rebuild facilites in 5 or 6 fishing villages in the region, including Loanco. This project, designed by several architects from leading Chilean Universities, pretends to build attractive facilities to house storage areas for fishermen, restaurants and walkways for tourists and townspeople, and shops for artisan products. This initiative is interesting, ambitious, and well worth following, for if it does contribute to improving the economies and living conditions in these poorest of enclaves along the Chilean coast it will be wonderful. Maybe at the same time they will make sure all open sewers in these small forgotten towns are closed and appropriate facilities installed for all dimensions of waste and water management.

So there is noticeable progress with the fishermen. The day before my visit, someone had told me they had had lunch at Las Rocas Restaurant a few days before, and the fate of the owners, Maria and Dago, is of utmost interest to me (as you would know from several of my previous postings on this blog). So having checked out the situation of the fishermen I directed my attention towards the other end of town where Las Rocas stood previously and where Dago had, but lost, his small store. I could see the site where Las Rocas stood before, and sure enough, it was being rebuilt...on the same site perched just several feet above sea level on the rocks. To remind you, this restaurant, totally destroyed in the tsunami, is where you could previously feast on raw erizos (sea urchins), locos en salsa verde (Chilean abalone with a sauce of oil, chopped onion and parsley), paila marina (mixed seafood soup), caldillo de congrio (conger eel soup), fried pescada (merluza or hake), almejas (clams), machas (razor clams), and all accompanied by ensalada Chilena (tomato and onion), and the best french fries on the planet (most likely owing to the fact they still use lard in which to fry them). To fully enjoy this setting and menu, the meal was usually preceeded by a small glass of vaina (a blend of fortified sweet wine or port, cacao and egg) if it is before noon or pisco sour (no time limits nor description necessary) and accompanied by a healthy amount of nice cold Chilean white wine from the producers cooperative in Cauquenes, and a long conversation with Maria. All this was on my mind as I approached the site, for clearly it was not operational. As I walked down the main street, I saw ahead on the left, a sign that read "Las Rocas" next to a small cement house that had partially survived the tsunami and had been rebuilt. It was closed, but as I stood looking at the large menu board laongside the door and inside at the few tables and bar, Maria appeared in a pickup truck with her daughter-in-law who helps her with the restaurant. She recognized me from my prior visits, and with a big

smile on her face (and on mine also to be sure) she gave me a big hug and announced they were back in business. I asked about Dago, who she said was up above on a piece of property planting garlic, but would be at their temporary Las Rocas later in the day. She explained how their optimism won out over their fear of another tsunami (after all, "how many 100-year tragedies can one be victim to in a lifetime?") and how a new, expanded, more modern Las Rocas will be functioning on the original site by the end of October, in time for the entire spring/summer/fall season when most visitors come to Loanco.

Maria rushed off to do the shopping for Las Rocas' lunch crowd, so after checking out the rebuilding process at the old Las Rocas site, I left Loanco, walked back up the beach, got my car, and decided to visit a small town inland where my Peace Corps colleague Norton was stationed from 1967-69. Empedrado had always interested me, but I had never visited this town that sits truly in the middle of nowhere. You don't go through Empedrado. You have to want to go there, and I did, just to see where Norton spent two years of his young life before returning to Wisconsin to become a vegetable farmer and raise a family. Even though paved roads have replaced the dirt ruts Norton must have travelled to and from Empedarado, this visit took longer than I thought it would (they all do) and I arrived back in Loanco at about 2:30 to have lunch. After a long conversation with Dago, who explained with great enthusiasm how he was going to have the refurbished and much improved Las Rocas functioning soon, I was going to sit alone in Maria's temporary Las Rocas to have lunch. As I sat down a man who was sitting with his mother at a neighboring table invited me to sit with them to have lunch. Through "locos en salsa verde" and "pescada frita con ensalada Chilena" and, yes, a couple of bottles of Lomas de Cauquenes "carignan", we talked about the chances of Loanco continuing to grow and possibly thrive if the architect's project to build the "Ruta de Caletas" goes forward. My lunch companions were brimming with optimism about a grwoing tourism in the region as a result of this project. I am not so sure about that, but I do know that Maria and Dago have enough persistence and optimism to ensure that their restaurant will continue to serve the wide variety of Chilean seafood that attracts people from the region, and some like me regularly to this out of the way spot on the Chilean coast. I hope the projects to rebuild Loanco and other fishing villages are successful, and that the fine folks who live in these towns eventually can live more healthy lives without open sewers and precarious economic conditions, but I also hope that change does not stifle the entrepreneurial and independent drive so many of them have, especially Maria and Dago.

Written in Leesburg, Virginia on October 19, 2010