Tuesday, May 13

Today, we left at 10:00 am to go to Pablo Neruda's home on Isla Negra. I had heard that this was a pretty fantastic thing to do when in Chile, so I was pretty excited for it. Outside his home are a bunch of artisan vendors that sell a lot of the same things that all the other vendors have, but they also had a lot of pretty glass items such as wind chimes and bottles. We didn't really have a lot of time to shop around because we had to go straight to Pablo Neruda's home for our tours. We split into four groups depending on Spanish proficiency. There was one tour guide who spoke English so there was one group who went with her, two groups who went on a Spanish spoken tour with a translator, and one group who went on a Spanish tour without a translator. I was in the completely English group and i was really glad because the tour guide was from Rochester, New York and she was a very interesting woman. After the tour, she told us about how she had gotten to Chile and how she had gotten to be a tour guide at Isla Negra. Apparently, she had been in Chile for Pablo Neruda's funeral, which was around the same time as the military coup. She talked about seeing all the men in uniform with guns around the funeral procession. After she went back to the United States, she met a Chilean man who had been in prison. They fell in love and after saying in the United States for about 16 years, they moved back to Chile and that is how she got here. I thought that was really interesting and I was glad that someone asked her about her story.

The tour itself was also fantastic. Everything in Pablo Neruda's life was symbolic for something, or reminded him of something he loved. For example, he always wrote with green ink to remind him of the forests of the South of Chile where he grew up. There are a lot of things about his house and him that are a bit strange but interesting all the same. There was one room that contained a large life-size horse made of paper mache that Neruda had purchased after 45 years of bargaining. He didn't have a room in his house to fit it when he finally got it, so he built a new room and had a welcoming party for the horse to which which guests had to bring gifts. I can also see where Neruda drew his inspiration for the poems he wrote and the meaning he found in everything. His home is located on the top of a hill overlooking a rocky beach with large waves. he had been a captain at one point, so he loved the sea and it inspired him. He collected figureheads from different ships and kept them all in one of his living rooms. There is one in particular, which he said was his favorite, that would "cry" whenever the fireplace was one. Because condensation would build up behind the eyes of the figurehead, water would roll down its cheeks and Pablo Neruda said that it was crying.

Finally, when our tour was over, we hopped back on the bus and headed to lunch at a seafood restaurant and after lunch, we headed back to Vina Del Mar for some more free time.