Birthday Tremor

I survived the 2010 earthquake in Chile. The epicenter was in Concepcion only 200 kms from Santiago and measured 8.8 there and 8.5 in Santiago where we were spending the winter.

Today, Tuesday March 21, 2023 I woke up early and watched the sun rise over the Andes from my bedroom in Curacavi, Chile. Utter bliss. I am staying with friends. My birthday comes after an Antarctic cruise and before a wedding on Friday.

After breakfast we are going to pick up my friend’s daughter who is flying in from Barcelona where she lives. I have not seen her in almost 12 years. She was no longer a teenager but now an architect and though looking more grown up and more sophisticated seemed the same young girl I knew and loved.  It was the same feeling I had when I met her brother and his wife a few days earlier. The years fell away in a long exuberant hug.

Now here we were at grandmother’s home to welcome her and to celebrate my birthday.  There were 10 of us, members of what I call my Chilean family. We had demolished the laden table of food in the living room, the appetizers, and were now seated at the dining table also laden with food and making fast work of that too.

Now it was time to sing the birthday song. Of course, we had to have both versions sung in two languages. First up Cumpleaños feliz then Happy Birthday sung loudly and somewhat slightly off key under the influence of a variety of the ever flowing wonderful Chilean wines. Salud!

I smiled my thanks, raised my glass and as I lowered it to the table there was a slight shake. Then another followed which was just a tad harder. Puzzled, I looked up and saw the flowers in a large vase do a slow waltz. OMG an earthquake! Shades of 2010! I grabbed on to the table as if I could stop it from shaking. Please, I do not want to go through another 8.5 earthquake in Chile or anywhere else for that matter, I prayed. A third bigger shake rattled the dishes though not a drop of wine spilled.

I was terrified but aware enough to look around.  Hard to believe but here was what registered. One lovely woman used her fork to delicately stab another quail egg and pop it into her mouth. The men were muttering something about ‘only a small tremor, no problem’.  I was pleased that my Spanish was working enough to understand it all.

Then another speared a cherry tomato and reached for the crudités with the salmon coloured dip. My beef empanada was cooling on my plate as I refused to let go of the table.

Two men and a woman went to the balcony to see what was happening to the water in the swimming pool. Don’t ask. I didn’t. Grandma stretched out her hand gently stroked my hand.

My dear friend was watching the other vase of flowers doing a lazy dip and fall back salsa routine. Another calmly, nonchalantly sipped his sparkling wine savouring it with obvious pleasure. I looked up at the chandelier and silently begged it not to come tumbling down as the crystals played a tinkling tune as it swayed and shimmied. Then with a last shudder things stopped moving.

It’s over, only a little tremor. No problem. That was the general consensus. They checked into the earthquake website or whatever it is called. The report said an earthquake measuring 5.1 occurred in Santiago and environs.

By that time everyone, except me, was back to eating and drinking. Still tremulous I picked up my empanada again. I was not yet quite back to normal but laughed, perhaps with a bit of hysteria when one suggested that Bert had come to visit and the little tremor was his special birthday greeting to me. That was what I needed to be calmed, helped along in a large part by my third or fourth glass of wine. As the talk turned to Bert I reflected on the many amazing birthdays I have had: bonding with elephants in Sri Lanka; celebrating Nyepi in Bali; going over the Andes from Santiago to Mendoza, Argentina, and so many more!

This little birthday tremor will join the crowd as being very special. I was surrounded by friends, enjoying Chilean wine, eating food that was prepared with love, being serenaded in both Spanish and English versions of the birthday song, and a visit by Bert in the form of an earthquake which somehow was typical and fitting. With a sigh of relief and in serenity I went back to my empanada.

The Meander: The entire trip was a celebration of LIFE.

“For everything that lives is Holy, Life delights in Life”.             William Blake

Los Caracoles here we come

Los Caracoles  here we come

The intrepid ones have crossed the Andes by bus!  What an adventure.  These are not hills. How to describe them?  Majestic? Absolutely! Stupendous?  Sure. Verdant?  Not on this Chilean side. They are so bare in places you can see the seams of minerals that abound in them, beautiful in their own way.

We watched the birth of rivers from the snow capped mountain peaks become rushing white waters that morph into dirt coloured roaring rivers carving their way through the crags and fissures of the mighty Andes. The views are magnificent with numerous waterfalls, huge craggy outcrops bereft of sediment, and snow capped vistas so close you think you can touch them.

We were on our way from Santiago, Chile to Mendoza, a city in the Andes in Argentina.   This mountain pass called the Paso Los Libertadores climbs through the Andes to an elevation of approximately 10, 500 feet to a plateau where sits the Customs and Immigration centre at the Chilean/Argentinean border. We had left Santiago where the temperature was 28C nearly four hours prior and now it is 15C.  That is fine.  Food is scarce, snacks only.  That’s fine too.  The line at Passport Control is long as there are six buses ahead of ours and you must first officially exit Chile then join another line about twenty paces to the right for official entry into Argentina.  This is  frustrating but you remain calm as you can’t do anything about it in any case.  Also, it gives your stomach some time to settle as it is the getting to this point that is troublesome, which is the understatement of any year.

Before you can get to this border you would have travelled through a section of this main road called Los Caracoles, the snails.  This road has been designated one of the most winding roads in the world. If you should see it from an airplane it would resemble the coils of a refrigerator.  The hairpin turns turn on themselves.  It is a hair- raising journey.

I am not sure what the signs that indicate the number of the curve you are negotiating are supposed to do.  Will you need to tell a friend to meet you at curve number eight up the Andes Mountain?  Are they to tell you how far you have come?  That may be a possibility except I am convinced that the curve counters cannot count.  I was getting dizzy as we climbed and I was certain we had negotiated at least a few thousand curves when I looked out the window and saw a sign reading ‘curva 21’, curve 21.  Impossible!  Where did they begin their count?   “Those are just Los Caracoles”.  So they say.  Even more harrowing is the fact that there are no guardrails.  I found I was drawing myself up whenever another vehicle approached, as if that could help.  Bert, he who is afraid of heights, kept his eyes closed while I prayed.

After three days in Mendoza it was back on the bus.  I would like to tell you it was easier.  Not at all. The Argentinean side of the mountain is quite different from the Chilean side.  The road meanders beside the Mendoza River and there are grape arbours, farms and many sightings of old abandoned mines. It is a nice slow climb.  However, this is just the calm before the storm as you have to face the downward journey to Santiago.

If you are unfortunate enough to be sitting on the right side of the bus you are treated to seeing the front actually hanging over the edge of the mountain as you hope that the wheels  will remain on the road. Take a peak downward and you see a convoy of snails, trucks, that is, snaking down.  Their cabs are also over the cliffs as they make the turns.  Breathe, just breathe.

We have spent some winters in Chile and have dared to do this round trip journey five times.  It is still terrifying.

The Meander: At the border, I noticed many of us were looking at the seven meter high bronze statue of Christ the Redeemer of the Andes while others looked back towards Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western and Southern hemispheres. It seemed as if we were suspended between heaven and earth but I did not know which was which.