Santiago of the six senses.

• Author: Alegria, Fernando
• Position: Santiago, Chile

A LEADI NG CHILEAN WRITER EVOKES THE LIGHT AND DARK OF HIS NATIVE CITY

On February 12, 1541, Pedro de Valdivia reached the Mapocho Valley on a visit that went on and on. Softly lulled by the sweet breezes and the brightness of the eastern dawn atop the white mountain peaks, inspired by the spongy richness of the earth along the rivers and the aroma of the farms to the west, drawing sustenance from the fruit trees and the warmth and confidence of the fierce Mapuche ladies, he founded the city of Santiago del Nuevo Extremo and went adventuring no more, except sporadically across the borders of Arauco in defense of his conquest and colony.

What is it about this city that seduces travelers so? Its many and non-existent Gates ...

From the north, one goes past lion-colored deserts amidst sandy winds, white and red metallic howling, moonlike planes and craters and a hem of ocean, the Humboldt current's blue and cold effervescent foam; through bald hills, lime dust, cement dust, fast plains, and a sort of skylight over Chacabuco that leads us into a clear and open valley, stretching to the adobe shores of Colina, Renca, Quilicura.

To the east lies San Cristobal Hill, its image of the Holy Virgin hovering through the nights like a white light against the silvered black of the Andes. To the west, the low grey hills of the coastal mountains recede from sight. Church spires, skyscrapers, silos, empty lots, low walls, grassless football fields, phantom train lines, factories, bells and poplars, many poplars.

From the south, the Gateway is narrow. All along the central Valley, the hills rise and tremble as the planes pass by hastened by a mountain wind called puelche. Wary pilots draw near the sea, a wall of green esplanades, forests of pine and eucalyptus, grasslands of placid golden hue, shining, softly contoured estuaries like mirrors where the sky, too, floats slowly by. The fields, grazing lands of alfalfa and hemp, spilling oceanwards and, to the east, reaching the skirts of the first snows. Past the mountain spurs comes a vast terrace where the winds compete and small planes pass overhead like buzzing bees; at times it is like drifting through the air, the squared and smokey city limitless below, touching both the Andes and the coast with its gray skyscrapers, its gay poplars, its chimneys and bellfries.

Suddenly, Santiago begins. Low walls, like pastel-painted canvases: yellows, blues and ochres, light suspended in space. Beyond the walls? Anything is possible: a car repair shop, a small industrial plant. A soup kitchen. All that is visible is pastel walls like flat and static plaster banners. Who lives here? A member of another world's stock exchange walks by with long strides, hurriedly, briefcase in hand, eating something as he goes. No one follows his uncertain shadow. A bicyclist appears, striking gas cylinders with an iron bar. The bottle buyer cries to heaven. The early morning marimba shatters. A frail girl floats upwards in First Communion dress. The fog has lifted.

The road now becomes a boulevard, a tangled river of cars, taxis, buses, trucks. A tide heads toward Central Station, flowing down canals from the suburbs to Matta Avenue.

The racetrack, Club Hipico, is a mile-long postcard reclining on the mountains. The racing fans, made of mist will disappear like hasty dreams ... Did I say Cousino Park? Don't misunderstand. It was a park. Its immense, dirt esplanade surrounded by old and twisted eucalyptus trees easily lent itself to Independence Day military parades where our rulers reviewed the troops every September 18 under the curious gaze of the diplomatic corps.

Our people like military parades. They get emotional at the sight of cadets from the Military School marching past with their red and white plumes...