When it’s time to pack my suitcase, what do I bring back to France, apart from the memory of its gargantuan shellfish, fish and crustaceans? This country resists tourist clichés as well as geographical representations: with its 4,000 kilometers long, Chile remains the worst nightmare of cartographers, and it is impossible to know if the Andes cordillera protects this country from modern worries or if it seeks to precipitate it. in the sea. The other thing is that it is sociologically as elusive as an eel.
Not having bought a souvenir, I will remember the stray dogs, not starving for two cents, without breed or vice, and not an ounce of malice. They wander around, independent, free, without a leash or master, cross the bus station as if they too had a bus to catch, and return, without anyone being upset, as if they had forgotten their passport. Old, they take a nap in front of the entrance to a bank, from where no one would try to dislodge them. This is because they don’t smell bad, they’re barely dirty. In the countryside as in the city, they are at home everywhere, fed by libertarian masters who dream of them as pet wolves. Lying on a bench in a square, they do not ask for alms, which does not prevent them from accepting, on occasion, a piece of pan de Pascua, it is a kind of gingerbread with candied fruits, some divine and some foul that these graceful bastards abandon to the rats.
I would have been well guided by the absence of a guide. In Valparaiso, just ask: “What is the best restaurant?“Everyone knows where to eat the best crab claws roasted with coriander, at Tres Peces (three fish), a restaurant located at the top of Cerro Alegre, a small mountain overlooking the bay that has become the capital of street art. Houses made of wood, for sale almost everywhere, covered with graffiti more sophisticated and socialist than Diego Rivera on acid.
I brought back something to write a book
The port funicular climbs up and drops you off right in front of the entrance to the Palacio Baburizza, which is reminiscent of one of those beautiful seaside villas in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins. Its supposedly Art Deco museum contains two snow paintings, that of the Russian Ivan Choultsé (1877-1932), and that of the Chilean Rafael Correa (1872-1959) which shows calves in the snow, visibly lost by the bad weather; a late firework masterpiece, astounding with its light, as it is true that snow painters are first-class enthusiasts. The rest, that said without malice, is not worth a damn.
On the panoramic terrace, I buy a second magnet, for my second uncle, I will need one more because I have three uncles, and as I missed their birthday for this trip, I am keen to catch up sumptuously. Triplets are ruinous, Pépé and Mamie deserve a lot of credit. Above all, I met Mauricio Fredes, the director of the La Calma restaurant. The son of a revolutionary leader, he spent the first seventeen years of his life in hiding before heading to Nicaragua to fight in the Sandinista army, where he trained in preparation for returning to Chile to assassinate Pinochet. Having renounced killing anyone, he converted to Buddhism and the trade in good things: wine, first of all, of which he became one of the greatest connoisseurs; gastronomy, then, which he manages this temple. A place of excellence which brings him enough to finance the school for difficult children that he founded. In short, I brought back enough to write a book.
Irony of this long journey, on my return to Paris I discovered The settlers, the film by Felipe Galvez which is released this week in very few theaters. It tells a shameful, well-hidden story of Chile: one of the most atrocious massacres perpetrated against the Mapuche at the beginning of the 20th century. There had been some before, there were some after, notably the one organized by Pinochet. So consider the ending triptych as a prelude to this necessary film. Or the opposite.
Christophe Donner, writer
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