Sleeping dogs & cemetery cats

Valparaíso, Chile

Dogs and cats, in addition to measuring precipitation, serve as semaphores for the worlds within our own. They hear the noises we cannot hear, perceive the threats we cannot see, demarcate the boundaries of which we are unaware. Even for those unafraid, there is a certain caution or wariness one must abide when present in their domain.  In Valparaíso, though there are many strays scattered throughout, I never felt anything other than welcome or safe passage by these friends. That in itself may be as apt an indicator of the intriguing city. 

Though founded before, Valparaíso entered its epoca de oro with the San Francisco gold rush of 1848. Europeans looking to cast out in search of treasure sailed around the cape and the port city was well-positioned as a decent halfway point. With enough offerings and opportunity of its own, a good many decided to stay. Until the completion of the Panama Canal, Valparaíso was a hub of great significance on the world stage. 

The vibe persists. Valparaíso feels like the gathering grounds of generations of diverse individuals who had a third gear to their slakeable ambitions. These are a people who set out with to conquer the moon and sun only to ultimately settle on a fine place where they coukd say, "this'll do just fine."  It's as if a caravel of pirate ships ran aground and instead of attending to repairs, each foreswore the life of the seas to indulge their secret passion to become art students. 

The natural harbor and flatness of el plan, the commercial stretch adjacent to the water, lent themselves to the development of a rich maritime trade. The forty-something hills rising just behind el plan do not seem hospitable to much of anything.   So all these generations of recien llegados had to do something if they were not sailors or stevedores or prostitutes, etc. (and this is where I'm offering conjecture with no historical knowledge whatsoever), so there had to be some sense of communal solidarity to arise, right? Steep, rising hills and congested living do not accommodate a Walden pond-type existence, so surely that is how this undetectable but omnipresent sense of community must have arisen. Again, I took a walking tour and not much more, but I'm pretty confident in this diagnosis despite a small sample size of observations. 

Community and history is great and all that, but what I really found endearing was the independence of the people, their confidence in themselves, and, for me, importantly, the lack of need to demonstrate said independence or confidence ad nauseum. There are plenty of tourists and plenty of souvenirs to be bought and sold, but very little in the way of Keep Valpo Weird. It seems some of our most charming cities have decided to continually cash in on their charm to the point their balances are depleting. Rapidly. The protectiveness of a place's charm leads to an inveterate defensiveness among its inhabitants to the point where a visitor can feel like there's no enchantment left to protect. Living in New Orleans (we can insert Austin, Boulder, Portland, and many other places here) I am only growing more tired of the banner people carry, as if the city's eccentricity needs to be continually reinforced for our own preservation. Are we weird? Then let's just be weird. We can be fierce and proud of our independence without always taking to Facebook or wearing the t-shirt. And that's what I feel Valparaíso does very well. 

In my brief impressions, I saw art students sketching landscapes, businessmen having Important Discussions over pisco sours, artisans peddling their beautiful and intricate wares, taxi drivers with their lanyards for the Santiago Wanderers, old men working at newspaper kiosks listening to milongas, young folks rolling and smoking joints in the darkened stairwells, and more than a few Willie Loman-types commuting home after a long day's work. There was diversity, there was character, there were sleeping dogs and cemetery cats and nothing about it had to be advertised or shouted through the bullhorn. It was, and that was more than appreciated.