HAVE spent many evenings in bars over the years, a fair few of which have ended in bizarre circumstances and tears.
The details of many of those nights remain hazy – partly because they are, partly to protect the innocent. And the quite possibly guilty.
But our first evening in Santiago produced a fresh interruption to an evening’s drinking.
We were showered, freshly laundered, enjoying a few beers and welcoming new arrivals – who officially join the truck tomorrow as we bid farewell to two existing truck mates, part of the reason we headed in to a troubled city – as we waited for the evening’s barbecue.
It was all going so well, considering we were pretty much confined to barracks by the escalating anti-government protests on the streets around our hostel.
And then there was a thud on the roof above the bar.
Clearly visible through the open skylight was a streaming canister of tear gas.
Like to think it was the journalist in me that opted not to run but head towards the scene for a closer look, but not sure any of us fully realised the extent of what was going on.
Right up until the point we were ushered out of the bar to another part of the hostel and we were introduced to the effects of tear gas.
It is another experience ticked off the list and not one that will be trying to recreate anytime soon.
Basically, imagine cutting onions and, just to make sure you felt the full impact, rubbing them in your eyes. All while a nasty taste develops at the back of your throat.
And up your nose. While your eyes burn.
Thankfully, our exposure was minimal and with hostel staff on hand to spray something helpful on the affected areas, the effects did not last long – although think it was more behind the discomfort in my eyes the next morning than anything drank the night before – and we were soon getting on with the evening’s festivities.
But it was a clear reminder we are in a city and country that has become a powder keg over the last month since a group of secondary school pupils began a fare evasion campaign against proposed price rises on the subway system.
That campaign – and the subsequent crackdown by the authorities – sparked a programme of civil unrest which has seen subway stations burned down or badly damaged and the protests spread to wider grievances against the government and President Sebastian Pinera.
Pinera has declared a state of emergency but the protests show little sign in subsiding and neither does the response to them.
Last night’s protest, which is all over Chilean CNN on the TV behind me and reports say involved up to 1.5million people in the Plaza Italia a few blocks from us, was described as largely peaceful.
That’s largely peaceful as in a university building a couple of hundred yards from us burning throughout the night, the church over the road being looted and the streets being littered with rubble and graffiti.
With the odd stray tear gas canister from the police thrown in.
We checked out the damage the morning after as the aftermath of the protest became a tourist attraction.
All very sad as you can see the skeleton of a very attractive city. Those of our group who have been here before spoke highly of the place and it does look pretty once you look beyond the damage.
Chile is no stranger to internal issues with the military dictatorship under Augustin Pinochet which ran the country for much of my youth from 1973 until 1990.
Sorry to confess, bar a couple of songs by Billy Bragg and U2, Pinochet’s eventual house arrest and lack of trial in Britain – and a former colleague’s mix-up with former Argentina scrum-half Agustin Pichot in a match report – plus tales of people disappearing and some pretty awful press collaboration with the ruling Junta, cannot claim to know too much about it.
Which is why this morning’s visit, prior to wandering around to view last night’s fallout, to the Museum of Memory and Human Rights to colour in some of the gaps was very welcome.
Not easy, certainly uncomfortable but very informative.
Have been to a few museums and memorials of difficult history – Auschwitz, Rwanda, Ground Zero, the Jewish Uprising Museum in Warsaw – and always come out with head spinning and trying to process what we have seen.
They are always tough going, but recommend them for anyone travelling to understand the world they are heading through.
Beyond the undoubted horrors of the dictatorship – topped, like those previous examples, by the powerful wall of pictures of the dead and disappeared which forms the centrepiece of the exhibits – two major issues came to the fore as relevant to today.
First was the way the press backed the Junta with false stories and propaganda to excuse their actions (before an independent, radical press played a key role in the resistance).
Inexcusable and no wonder my profession struggles with its reputation.
But also a signal to the dangers of certain powerful figures decrying anything they do not like in the media as fake news. Asking the awkward question is journalism, anything else is just PR and propaganda (to misquote Orwell).
And the tale of the opposition to the regime and fight to find out what happened to the disappeared echoes throughout the protests we have seen close up – no wonder people feel so strongly about the power of public opinion and their right to express it.
We can only hope they do not have to come close to the depths of those dark years before finding resolutions which will enable this city to get back on its feet.
The trouble has spread throughout the country, but there was little sign on the road to Santiago – which we were still unsure about taking a few days ago – which took us from Mendoza across a high pass through the Chilean border via a spectacular road down a ribbon of hairpin bends.
Sort of a South American Alpe d’Huez.
Our three days camping in Mendoza, reached by a bush camp which saw our team win the truck quiz, was fairly relaxed with a fair amount of wine and steak – normal service was resumed – both around the campsite with a footballing Labrador and on a day in town which started as a tasting and ended with rather more than a taste.
And we got clean – both us, our clothes after a couple of weeks without laundry that left several of us rationing underwear and Spongebob, a group effort taking apart and tackling every part of the truck.
All to head into the issues of Santiago from where we head off to the relative peace of the countryside.
