Back on the WagonJan 31, 2010
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Seaside
Wave
Inbound ships
| The foot was feeling well enough this morning that I decided to get back to the business of serious touristing, within some limits of distance and accessibility. So I took the single-line metro from Valpo to swanky Viña del Mar, a couple cliks to the northeast. My first destination was the wonderfully funky and un-PC Fonck Museum of archaeology and natural history- named after its German founder, a mid-twentieth century archaeologist who greatly increased knowledge of the Central Chilean culture sequence. Or he was a notorious grave robber, depends who you ask. The museum (housed in an old European colonial-style mansion) has a first floor with lots of Fonck´s Central Chilean collection displayed in timeline fashion, including a wide variety of flaked and ground stone tools, ceramics, carved wooden sculptures (mostly very anatomically explicit fertility icons), baskets, blankets, caps, and other textiles, as well as a couple mummies (intentionally preserved and accidental) and a series of human skulls deformed in the different ways characteristic of different ethnic groups. The other half of the first floor was an extensive exhibit on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), complete with an original giant stone moai sitting outside, surrounded by flowers (as seems proper and correct). Lots of other artifacts inside- obsidian blades, very intricate wood carvings, replicas of sea-faring catamarans, etc. Then upstairs was a somewhat shabby natural history exhibit, with lots of mounted insects and arachnids, some revolting photos of gangrenous spider bites, stuffed animals and birds (including a two-headed lamb, born in a nearby town around 1950), whale fossils and seashells. Then in a tiny room off the main landing was a special exhibit on shrunken heads from the Ecuadorean jungle. There were three heads, along with a very detailed explanation of how they were taken by the warrior, and then processed in an exhaustive and potentially dangerous (from a spiritual standpoint) series of steps, so that the resultant trophies retained the facial features and hair of the deceased, in a final size of about 3 inches in diameter. Some of it I vaguely remembered from some Anthropology 101 class, but it was a good refresher. A little girl of about 6 or 7 came into the room while I was trying to decipher the processing instructions, looked at the first head, and asked me incredulously, "Es verdad? Es tan pequeñito!" (Is it real? It´s so tiny!). I told her si, es verdad, and she came over and looked at the other two heads, one of which had a long hank of wavy black hair. Her comment regarding that one translated roughly as "Look, it´s a little girl!," upon which she ran out of the room. After the Fonck, I headed in the direction of the beach, stopping along the way for a humita- rather similar to a Mexican tamale, but much bigger, with a combination of fresh corn and dried corn meal in the masa dough, and filled with a deliciously smelly cheese. Viña is a lovely little city, mostly modern and quite upscale, with lots of shady trees and gardens brimming with flowers. Quite a contrast to Valpo, which is probably less lovely but far more interesting. The waves coming in to the bay were cold and pretty ferocious, and very few people dared go out in the water past their knees. There are some interesting buildings along the waterfront, including a couple "castles" built by late 19th century European shipping barons, for whom Valpo was THE major port between Europe and the west coast of the U.S. (specifically, the gold mines of California) until the Panama Canal was finished. Made my way along the shorefront back to the metro station, passing a group of nuns having a beach picnic, several "gypsy" palm readers, a squadron of young army recruits running and singing cadence, and dozens of horse-drawn carriages beckoning couples to take a romantic ride. Made it back to the hostel for a dinner of leftover pasta with mushrooms and chorizo, and despite the day´s exertions, the foot felt even better than it had in the morning. I´m considering it officially fixed and no longer a subject of conversation (or blogging- hurray!), although I´ll probably keep wearing the ankle brace for a while anyway, just to be sure. |
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