NERUDA and ISLA NEGRA

... Pablo Neruda is probably the best Chilean poet ever ... and not only Chilean ... and of course ... a trip to Chile ... needs to include a stop in one of his houses ... probaby the most famous is in ISLA NEGRA ... and today I went there. Isla Negra in spanish means Black Island ... but his place is not an island at all ... but Isla Negra was the name that the sailors gave to this area ... because from the sea a small back rocky island is visible and was used as reference point during sailoring ... before the invention of the radar and GPS ... we too didn't have neither RADAR nor GPS ... so we had to follow the signs ... much nicer than looking into a GPS LCD indeed ...

... so today I went with my friends Roberto & Elena to visit ISLA NEGRA ... an area 100 km far away from Santiago ... where there is the most impressive of Neruda's maisons ... the place is really stunning ... the power of the ocean is impressive ... and actually ... for what I have seen today ... it is really a good spot to surf ... a very nice point break ...

... Neruda loved the sea ... even if he really feared it ... so he never really sailed ... but he did put a small boat in his garden facing the mighty ocean ... and on this he was used to drink cocktails with his fiends ... ehehehe ... really funny ... I think he was really an eccentric guy ...

... and all his house is full of sea related stuff ... sea shells ... ships in bottles ... maps ... old bowsprits ... and other stuff ... really funny ... if he was a friend and not a Nobel price ... I would say that he had the house full of useless trash ... but because he was a Nobel Prize ... I tend to think ... that all this stuff did help him to find the inspiration and eventually write wonderful poems ...

... unfortunately it is not posssible to take pictures in side the house ... but it is definitely peculiar ... definitely worthwhile a visit ... in the garden there is also Neruda's tombstone ... he was translated here only few years ago from a cemetery in santiago ... the story of his funeral is really really sad ... he did die 2 after the Pinochet Military coup back on December 11th 1973 ... and in the two weeks between the coup and his death (by cancer) ... because Neruda was loyal to the ellected president Allende ... his house was stormed by the army ... and according to our guide ... people who attended his funeral had been kidnapped during the funeral itself and disappeared ... becoming the first desaparesidos of the Pinochet era ... really terrible ...

... seems impossible that such horrible things happened here ... in a such wonderful place ... but indeed they did happen ... just 30 years ago ... but fortunately for the Chileans ... the country is back on the democratic track and it is enjoying a wealthy economy ... happy for them ... really happy for this people ... nobody deserve what this people had to go through ...