Hotel Nuevo

Friday 29th April 1988

Karin and I had a good long lie in while Bill packed and set off for Valparaíso on the coast. Eventually we got up and packed up our gear and moved to the cheaper Hotel Nuevo that Karin had found on San Pablo y Morandé. Karin had a mountain of gear with her, and I carried a carrier bag full of books for her, changing hands frequently because of the weight.

The Hotel Nuevo was a fairly dilapidated but friendly hotel which cost us 600 Chilean Pesos each. We joined American Preston Clarke Edwards and New Zealand Kathy McQuillan in a big room with five beds overlooking the street outside.

The ceiling paint was peeling, the wallpaper held on with masking tape and we had an in-house bathroom suite comprising of a washbasin and a bidet in a hardboard closet with a grubby curtain. The big double-windows with broken panes allowed the sun to shine into our room for most of the day. It was shabby but comfortable enough for four rough and ready travellers.

We had lunch in a posh restaurant which offered a cheap set lunch which was tasty enough but in tiny portions. We visited the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art looking at the usual collection of old pots and crude clay statues. A background tape played tribal chants and rhythmic grunts and there was an impressive collection of figures in mystic ceremonial costume and body paint.

The museum was founded by the Chilean architect and antiquities collector Sergio Larraín García-Moreno, who had sought premises for the display and preservation of his private collection of pre-Columbian artefacts acquired over the course of nearly fifty years. With the support of Santiago's municipal government at the time, García-Moreno secured the building and established the museum's curatorial institution. The museum first opened in December 1981.

The museum is housed in the Palacio de la Real Aduana that was constructed between 1805 and 1807. It is located a block west of the Plaza de Armas and close to the Palacio de los Tribunales de Justicia de Santiago and the Former National Congress Building.

We then stocked up with comestibles in the supermarket and returned to our hotel room where we met up with Preston and Kathy. The four of us then set off with the intention of watching the sunset from Cerro San Cristóbal, but once again we left it too late and had to settle for the nearer Cerro Santa Lucia.

We took the super clean efficient Metro for 45 Chilean Pesos to the stop outside the hill and walked up through the fountains and arches to the plazas around the summit. The idea to build an underground railway network in Santiago dates back to 1944, when new ways to improve the chaotic transport system were sought after the rapid population growth the city was experiencing since the early 1930s.

However, ideas would begin to take shape in the 1960s, when the government released an international tender for the development of an urban transport system. On 24 October 1968, the government of Eduardo Frei Montalva approved the draft submitted by the Franco-Chilean consortium BCEOM SOFRETU CADE, in which the construction of five lines with an extension of approximately 60 kilometres by 1990 was proposed.

On 29 May 1969, works finally began for the construction of the first line, which would link the Civil District and the area of Barrancas (current-day Lo Prado). On 15 September 1975, the first line of the metro was opened by Augusto Pinochet during the military regime.

We sat on the wall of the fort at the top of the Cerro Santa Lucia as it got dark. Several shady characters were loitering amongst the rocks around us. On the way back we visited David and Tony at the Hotel Londres. David was in bed with a cold, but Tony joined us for a visit to the cinema to see “9½ Weeks”.

9½ Weeks is a 1986 American erotic romantic drama film directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke. Basinger portrays a New York City art gallery employee who has a brief yet intense affair with a mysterious Wall Street broker, played by Rourke.

The title of the film refers to the duration of a relationship between Wall Street arbitrageur John Gray and SoHo art gallery employee Elizabeth McGraw. John initiates and controls the various experimental sexual practices of this abusive relationship to push Elizabeth's boundaries. In doing so, Elizabeth experiences a gradual downward spiral toward an emotional breakdown.

After the film we walked along the River Mapocho to the artisan area around the Puente Pío Nono. Several centuries ago the Spaniards led by the conquistador Pedro de Valdivia arrived in the valley of the river Mapocho. In 1541 they were given the order to found a new city in this place and thus appeared Santiago.

Here there are pavement cafés street musicians, venders of jewellery and hippy regalia plus a selection of clubs and bars. We walked around this lively area before finally settling at one of the umbrella-shaded tables for a bottle of wine.

Live music came from musicians on the surrounding tables with Tom Tom drums and guitars. At 03:00 hrs. we headed back swigging from a take-away carton of red wine as we walked.