Cost of Living

From our living room window,
 looking towards the waterfront...
<- the band of aluminum at the base of the photo is the roof of the covered parking.



From our living room window, looking up towards the third level of                                                       the city. ->


From our doorway, looking at the living room window...

Monday: Pagamos las cuentas. What does it cost to live here? Today we hiked downtown to the O’Higgins Plaza building, where Ivón works on the fifth floor in the office of Propiedades Nor/Sur. She showed us the departamento we are renting, so we visit her to pay the monthly rent. CLP 300,000. Around $600 US/month. A week or so ago we paid the gastos communes … similar to condo fees … paid to the conserje in our building. Gastos were CLP 36,000 or $72 this month. We’re told they vary month to month depending on …. cosas.

I had a report to make to Ivón while in her officina. The hot water faucet (la llave) in our bathroom sink is often goteo (goteando?) dripping. Ivón called someone right away, and we think that someone will be calling us whenever he or she is ready to visit our departamento to fix the problem.
It better not be tomorrow afternoon, though, as we have a date for lunch at Cotele, the fabulous steak restaurant in Pelluco run by Jeremy (our landlord for the island house). http://www.cotele.cl  We’ll be celebrating with a friend who plans to sail away on his voyage out of Chilean waters.

Back to the cost of living: At Telefonica Sur on Avenida Guillermo Gallarda we took our bill to the caja and paid CLP 22,000 - aka “22 mil” - or about $44. That covered the installation cost of our internet at the apartment ($36) plus the pro-rated cost of the monthly internet @ $28/mo from the day of hook-up (10-21) to the end of October. At least, we’re pretty sure that’s what it covered. We’re on the cheapest available plan and we’re happy with the internet service at the apartment. There are occasions when it fails, but only for a few minutes at a time … 6 pm and 10 pm being the likely moments of failure. Richard explains that that’s most likely because people in other parts of our building are connecting at those times to check email or whatever.

We had to ask directions to find the closest Caja Vecina where we could pay our electric bill for the past month. 9 mil … or $18. Electricidad powers our hot water heater at the apartment, as well as lights and the various battery-chargers for phones & computers.

Our gas bill for this first month in the apartment should be arriving any day now. We do a lot of cooking here, so I can hardly wait to learn how much gas we’ve used.

This week’s load of laundry only weighed 5 kilos, instead of the 6 it’s been the last couple weeks. At 1.2 mil per kilo we’re paying $12 to $14/ week to have our clothes, towels & bedsheets washed and dried.

We stood in line for a few minutes at the Banco Estado to pay our final charge for today: a one-time fee of $100 US to extend my 3-month tourist visa for another 3 months.  Current visa cost is $160 - good for a 3-month visit thru-out the life of your passport.  (We paid $100 the first time we came to Chile in 2005. I had to renew my passport last year, so had to pay again to get the initial 3-month tourist visa this time.) 25 cents to have my passport & original tourist visa copied. Senora Gladys, at the Office of Estraneros in the government building downtown made things easy. She remembered Richard from last year, asked him about his boat, and understood perfectly that living in an apartment was more comfortable than living on the boat. She filled out the application for me, scanned a signed copy into her computer, and gave us the chit to take to the bank to record our payment. We took the bank receipt back to her to be scanned and added to the application package. I go back on Wednesday to get my extended tourist visa.

By 1 pm our financial chores were done. We hiked back up Guillermo Gallardo to the Bikram Yoga studio and ascended the concrete ramp up to Avenida Padre Harter, past the Kofke market, past the wild fennel field and the Dental Clinic to our building up on O’Higgins. Time for lunch, and rest, and checking email. 

I chopped the contents of our little compost tub and buried the vegetable material in the window box amongst the geraniums.

 In the late afternoon, I walked out to the Jumbo to replenish the wine supply: cabernet sauvignon for Ricardo and chardonnay for me. In the future, I’ll give you the economic analysis of what we spend on food and drink.

Tuesday: What was that about the internet service here being so good? Somehow paying the bill yesterday coincided with a total collapse of our service! Rebooting the modem didn’t help; and the special phone # we’d been given if we needed help just rang, and rang, and rang. We had to walk to town anyway, to collect the clean laundry, so we stopped at the Telefonica Sur office to ask for help. They’ll have to send a technician to the apartment. Someone will call us within 48 hrs to set the time of the visit.

Walking to town includes descending to the waterfront level.  One way to do that is to take the Rancagua stairway.  From our building we have walked one block south-ish on O'Higgins and turned a la derecha (west-ish) onto Seminario.  When Seminario begins to descend (on the right), we take the stub street to the left.  Next, you see Richard standing at the top of the Rancagua stairs.

On the way back up the Rancagua Street Stairway .... below shows the view from the bottom ...

... we were almost to the top when my cell phone rang.  I have trouble enough hearing a Spanish-speaker correctly in person, and the phone is an extra challenge, even when you’re not outside with the noise of traffic and birds, not to mention the pounding of my heartbeat near the top of that stairway. So you’ll forgive me if I interpreted the caller to be the Telefonica Sur technician wanting to set a time. The caller used the word clave several times: that should have reminded me to think of the bathroom sink faucet since both llave and clave mean “key.” My over-heated mind heard clave and interpreted that as needing ingress to the apartment ….
Well, anyway, I knew it would have to be after 3:30 or 4 pm, due to the aforementioned lunch date at the steak house. I managed to convey that time frame, and the caller seemed to agree. Yay!
Later, while putting the laundry away, I realized I’d probably made that appointment with the plumber, not the internet tech guy. Ai yi yi.
DURING lunch with our sailing friend at Cotele, Richard’s cell rang with the call from the internet guy. He passed the phone to me … !!! There was something about dies y ocho horas but all I could manage was that anytime after 4 pm today would be perfecto. What will it be like to feel any kind of grace or competence in this strange lingo!?!?

After a wonderful lunch, we were home around 3:22 pm, but Luis, the plumber didn’t get there till a little after 4, and it was almost 7 pm before the Telefonica techy arrived. Luis took things apart in the bathroom, then took off to get the part he thought would work … a new washer/seal. When he returned, he told us he’d gotten the new part at the hotel down the street. (They just have a different way of doing business here.) Maybe it wasn’t exactly the right part, or maybe the problem is beyond the washer/seal. We’re pretty sure Luis said he would have to return with an entirely new faucet. He did leave us better off than before: the leak is only a drip now, not a stream.
The young man from Telefonica fiddled with the modem for ten minutes, then called in to Ground Control for another ten. Pretty soon he wanted Richard to tune in and see that the link had been re-established. Success. Could he tell what had gone wrong? I asked. It had to be reconfigurado. Maybe there had been a cut in the power. Okay!

Our current nest in Pto Montt ...

... is the small apartment we're renting in a building called Los Almendros.

The red arrow on the LEFT points to our building. The red arrow in the CENTER points to the low spot on Avenue Padre Harter, where we turn DOWN to the left on Guillermo Gallardo, to descend to the waterfront level of the city. (We're ALWAYS on foot going down to Centro; occasionally we take a collectivo to get back home.) The red arrow on the RIGHT points to the Civil Registry Building, up on the city's top level. Richard has been there several times in the last weeks, hoping to pick up his Chilean Permanent Resident card, which hasn't been ready yet. Now the whole team of government bureaucrats is on strike, in support of the nation-wide strike of Municipal workers. Paciencia.

Walking up Padre Harter, from centro, we see the back side of our building. That gate is security for a quiet, residential community separate from ours. The red arrow in the pic on the right points to our double sliding doors over a concrete window box that serves as our balcony. Each of the bulging corners of the building are other people's apartments. Our neighbor, Yolanda, gave us a bundle of asparagus, fresh from Chillan, just yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon, after Richard left to catch the bus out to the marina, I walked out the front of our building, aiming to cross Padre Harter and climb the hill on Avenida O'Higgins. I wanted to take photos from on high. I'd already done part of my "elevation gain" exercise that day: back-packed the week's laundry downtown to the lavanderia, where I left it with Senora Maria. Got my hair cut, too, by Gabriela, across the hall.

That's Heraldo, my favorite of the four or five conserjes who take care of our building. He pulled out his earbuds when I asked if I could take his pic. He also pointed out to me that there is a mirador up there at the top of the hill ... an overlook for tourist-types like me.

From there on this gorgeous afternoon, let's take a little tour. Looking west-southwest you can see Isla Tenglo across the channel ... on certain days of the week, you would see the Navimag Ferry in the channel itself. Navimag travels south for 5 days through the fjord country of Patagonia.
That grey patch beyond the red roofs that looks like it might be a bridge across to the island is actually the top stories of a high-rise hotel on the beach level. The twin towers of El Mall rise high on the left. Those, too, are on the beach level. The mass of blue roofs in the foreground is the hospital, a block away from O'Higgins and our building

Looking south-southwest, the reddish roofs in the lower left corner are mostly part of a Catholic school complex we walk past almost every day on trips to the Jumbo ... that patch of grey-metal roofing before you see the darker red roofs beyond.

Then looking south southeast, the coastal highway towards Pelluco.

Okay, one more for general orientation. We had almost a full week of rainy days this past one ... you can probably guess from this map view that Puerto Montt is similar to Seattle in it's rain-catching terrain. We hope you're getting a share of sunshine, wherever you are.

Our first home in Puerto Montt ...

,,, was Jeremy's summer house on Isla Tenglo, where we stayed for a week, October 10 thru 17. Looking out from the cruisers' office at Club Nautico, you see Isla Tenglo across the channel from the marina. Abrazo's dark brown sail-covered main boom is visible among the yachts, if your sight is good.

We would cross on the "Buffalo" ferry, for 300 pesos apiece (about 60 cents). From the end of the dock across to the beach took about 8 LOUD minutes; then walk about 1000 meters on a dirt trail to Jeremy's gate.
This view is from inside the gate. You can see another islander out there on the trail we walked.

The gate is padlocked. Sometimes three or four island men - Jeremy refers to them as "The Council" - sit on the stone steps of our gate, or a neighbor's, in the afternoon sun, drinking "Santa Rita 120" wine from waxed cartons which they always seem to leave behind when they're done.

Looking back across to the mainland, farther west than the marina, you see one of the ships being built at the yard that cranks out quite a fleet to service salmon farms far and near.

Inside the house, where we had opened the curtains to let in the btu's offered by that sunshine, Richard lit the wood stove (door is open, far right). A glass of red wine helps warm the blood, too.

The kitchen looks out into the back yard ... that's the woodshed/bodega/garden shack at the left, and the big old cypress tree with its TWO bandurria nests in the back right corner.
I know, you can't see the nests. I wish you could hear those birds, though. At first, they irritated me ... such a crotchety-outlandish explosion of noise they make! Soon they sounded hilarious to me, and I began to develop theories about what they discussed with such gusto. Mostly, I think, it's all about monitoring the nests carefully, and maybe, raising the young.

http://www.rutaschile.com/eng/parques/Bandurria.php

A close up of the oncoming blooms outside the kitchen window.
I'll get to my Chilean botanizing one of these days.

Jeremy and his family use the house a lot during the summer, but maybe we could rent it for another week at some point if we had visitors from the North.
You have to be willing to pack a 20 lb bottle of gas to have hot water, tho ... a bit of a challenge.

I'm happy that we found a place "in town." Photos of our current pad coming soon.

Asado in Pto Varas

10/28/2013 Monday
I found a mug at the grocery store today ... good to hold what I consider a real cup of coffee, not the tiny demitasse with which my kitchen was furnished. So many adaptations are required by the new culture.
We had a fine time on Saturday out in Puerto Varas at the home of David & Katta and their 3 yr old son, Simon. David does a lot of mechanical work for the various yachtspersons at Marina Reloncavi, and since some of them are about to depart for other ports, he hosted a pot luck barbecue. Our friend collected Richard and me for the drive out thru the countryside. Capitan Frank and his Belgian crew, Jann, along with Julia, who might crew on another boat, and the Australians, Chris & Margi ... we gathered at David's suburban casa, where the big wood-fired grill burned outside the backdoor under the shelter of the covered patio, and the TWO volcanoes, Calbuco and Osorno, showed their lower slopes in the sunny weather, but maintained their mystery caps of cloud until the very end of the day. Chiri-pan ... a hot pork sausage stuffed into a fat bread roll; flank steak grilled in thin strips and cut into bite-sized pieces; and other steak chunks expertly grilled by Australian Frank ... plus salads, red wine, and Richard and I brought a dessert from the Jumbo bakery: raspberry cake with toasted almond slices and a green tea filling.
Australian Chris worked for many years as a family planning social worker, so we talked education; his wife, Margi, is a psychotherapist who still enjoys, on occasion, taking a job in one country or another. Both have been retired and sailing around the world for some 11 years now. They're heading south from here, but might just spend a good long time island hopping before they ever attempt the Straits of Magellan and the path to Antarctica.
Frank and Jann are heading north to Peru and might hang there for some sightseeing, inland travel, before they venture across the Pacific toward New Zealand.
Julia,  a young-looking grandmother from SW England, is aiming to find a way to Antarctica. She'll try to crew w. someone to Puerto Williams, Chile, and maybe across the Beagle Channel to Ushuaia, Argentina, but then she'll be looking for a ride, or a job, or a berth of some kind to the Antarctic wonderland. She'd been here in Puerto Montt back in March of this year, having answered Faraway John's call for crew. But his boat wasn't ready to go yet; an Argentine boat was leaving for Peru, so she jumped aboard with them and spent the last six months exploring Ecuador, Uruguay, the Amazon and a whole lot of other territory before returning here to find a crewing post.

These people have a lot more gusto than I do!

The other guest at David & Katta's asado was their neighbor, MariaLina (I think), a dynamic young mother whose two young kids played w. Simon, while her husband grilled the thin steak strips. She is Chilean, of Croatian descent, and studied for several years at the University in Tubingen, Germany. When she asked Richard where he was from, she definitely knew the territory between Seattle and Bellingham. She told him that the wealthy side of her family had moved to Anacortes, WA some time ago ... where they'd changed their name from Bestovich (or close to that)to Best. She spoke some German, spoke Spanish w. Katta, and English with the rest of us, including a fine little dissertation on the slangy, sleazy nature of Chilean spanish. I liked her immensely. While I was cutting the raspberry cake for dessert, she uncorked a bottle of Chilean champagne and poured for all. She gave us the "Chilean toast": Arriba, abajo, a centro, a dentro! After which she took a piece of cake across the yard to the neighbor on the other side of Katta's house, and returned to tell us that that woman is the teacher at the school where MariaLina's daughter goes, so it's important to keep her happy.

We rode back to Puerto Montt in the sunshine of late afternoon,over the Alerce Road, which crosses beautiful farm country, dotted with patches of bluebells and lilac in bloom. The volcano Calbuco held firm to it's cap of cloud, but Osorno bared it's perfect snow-covered cone against the blue sky.
The outer fringes of Puerto Montt, approached from that high plain are poverty-stricken and devastated; concrete-covered lots thick with trash and plastic bags ... I don't know what the story is there ... the destruction that precedes some new creation, maybe? The streets get clean and prosperous, closer to the edge where the road turns down over the ridge to curve on O'Higgins with its lovely view of the water to the next bench down, where our edificio sits.

I'll post some photos soon, I promise. Meanwhile, on Sunday we hiked down to the Mall to watch "Gravedad" ... the kind of movie that blasts your mind with images that echo for days. Hope you get to see it soon.

Chirimoya

October 25, Friday
You know how the avocado has it's momentito of perfection, when the black skin gives just enough to let you know the green flesh inside is ripe ... but not too ripe.

Same with the chirimoya. You let it rest on top of your refrigerator with the bananas, checking it every day to see if the flesh has begun to give. The first one we bought was a green-skinned baseball when we brought it home from the market. After about four days, when we skinned it and ate the tender, white, custard-textured, piña colada-flavored flesh, it was delicious perfection. Mmmmm. We bought another one the next day.
Not such good luck with the second chirimoya. By the time it felt soft enough to open, more than half the inner fruit was dark brown and sour. Ai, so many skills to learn. (P.S. the photo is borrowed from the web)

Our newspaper, El Llanquihue, carried a review of a new, local book called Araña Gris, a collection of stories and essays from over twenty years of a literary journal published in Chacabuco, near here. I'll find it, and read it; but now, how am I supposed to know whether the meaning of "Araña" in this case is spider or chandelier, the translations so generously offered by my dictionary? Richard says, what difference does it make? The spider is the same shape as the chandelier. One wears it's legs down, the other up.

Here's another observation about the newspaper: the other night, when a friend came for dinner, I bragged to him & Richard that I had completely read that first newspaper we'd purchased last week. Including the classified ads. I wanted to talk about the real estate ads I'd seen, since our friend says he's looking for property in this area.
Oh, no! Both capitans asked me at once: Did you read the Otro Servicios ads? Well, yes. I'd read them. They all seemed to be offering, in coded language, sex of one kind or another. I'd interpreted one of these ads to indicate that the women to be provided were at least over the age of 20. "Newly arrived" and "anything allowed" were some of my translations made with the help of el dictionario. Nothing amusing about these ads, as far as I'm concerned; and I shifted the topic immediately to the Ms. magazine article I've been reading (an old issue, Summer 2010) about a new law in New York that attempts to change the story. Instead of arresting 12 yr. old girls for prostitution, the police are supposed to get those girls to services that will help them into a more humane life. Ai! What a world, huh? Richard says that when he first encountered these Otro Servicios ads, he asked his amigo if prostitution was legal in Chile. Not on the streets, he was told.
According to the Ms article, Atlanta, GA tried to pass a similar law but was not successful. Here's the 2010 mayor's effort in Atlanta:

Residential chores

10-23 Wednesday
Sunshine, cold air, puffy clouds moving across the blue sky. Richard had stopped on his way home yesterday at the office of Telefonica Sur to confirm that our internet service is rated by speed, not data delivery. Good to know.

First task today: phone Priceline’s Customer Service. They’d responded to R’s detailed email of complaint with a request that he phone. He tried via Skype, but could not use the Skype touchpad to punch in his Priceline Trip # … so he called from his Chilean cell phone. Very frustrating, poor connection, lots of time waiting on hold. He finally got the Priceline human to understand that email is what works for communicating from here. We are holding Priceline responsible for the fact that R had to buy a full price ticket to get to Chile on Oct 1, when United Air refused to let him board, claiming that one leg of his Priceline-booked trip had been cancelled by the airline.

Onward, into the sunshine. Second task was to report to the PDI (Policia De Investigaciones) and let them know R’s new address. A brisk walk up over the hill beyond the Jumbo market, beyond the Deutsche Schule, to the neighborhood house used by the PDI. Posters in the reception area state the rights of the victim and the rights of the accused in both Spanish and English. The officer who took Richard’s information typed it all into a computer with his two index fingers, and that was that. Richard is a “Permanent Resident” now, and has 30 days from making any change in his address to let the PDI know where he’s living.

Next, we wanted to buy a second set of sheets for our bed, so as to have some laundry time between changes. We walked down the hill to El Mall, anchored by the two 5-story towers of Ripley’s and Falabella’s department stores. We’d already searched, one day last week, so we knew that Falabella had the right stuff; and now that we knew the metric measurement of our bed (200 x 200 cm … a super king!), we bought the ones that would fit. Not a lot of choices in your super king.

I spotted a lavanderia on San Martin a few blocks from the Mall; we left the sheets there for laundering. If we’d been able to find a BICE Bank, we could have finished our list with complete success. We did learn that there IS one in Puerto Montt, but it’s in the Sector Alto, up on the second bench above the waterfront. We’ll make our way up there tomorrow. R’s Kindle broke when he accidentally leaned against his backpack at the wrong moment. To get a new one shipped by Amazon’s Chilean office in Santiago, he has to make the payment to Amazon thru BICE Bank. We’ll find out how well the shipment service works.

After a tasty lunch at the Patagonia Café downtown, we hiked back up to our building … a good half mile or so, with a decent challenge in elevation gain. I have to stop at the top of the first slope, where the path levels out and I can gaze across the brush at the “Bikram Yoga of Chile” building. Then I have to stop again just above the deli and fresh vegetables market, where a patch of wild fennel is getting taller every day. Short rests – don’t want to get soft.

We both went out for individual walks again later in the afternoon: R headed to Angelmo to pick up the last laundry from Rodrigo. I walked back downtown to get the new sheets from the other laundry. We’re getting plenty of exercise!

I’ve been reading the Sunday newspaper, dictionary in hand. The crafts and produce markets of Angelmo are threatened with a lengthy shut down because of problems with the electricity. The city claims to have spent a lot of money already trying to improve the situation, but more must be done, and maybe the company that did the electrical overhaul last year is to blame for faulty work. This is my interpretation of the text.
When I ride the bus thru Angelmo, I see the main street lined with shops that are like the booths at a country fair: open-fronted, packed with products on display, roofed with sheets of tin or shingled panels, dirt floors. Puddles the size of ponds cover the road after a downpour; dogs roam freely, wood stoves smoke. Conditions might be too primitive for electricity to function well for any length of time. This is my interpretation of the situation.

In another story, CORFO, an arm of the Chilean government’s Economic Development Plan focused on helping people who have good ideas for a growing business enterprise, has a lot of money to deal out. Check out the CORFO web site for many stories of entrepreneurs who have benefited from this government support.

Manyaña, to the marina, maybe, after our chores are done. Richard has put the For Sale sign up in Abrazo’s rigging. He’s thinking about bidding on a job of rebuilding the masts for a boat called the Blimey Limey. Maybe I’ll get to socialize with Vanya and Mauricio, the Italians who have just returned to their boat after leaving her here in Puerto Montt for the winter while they were back on their island in the Adriatic Sea. Margaret and Chris from Australia are also getting ready to sail south to the Beagle Channel. Faraway John is looking for crew again; I can’t remember which way he means to sail. Lots of sailors varnishing and outfitting in preparation for their spring voyages, whichever way they’re going ... and I’m delighted to be an observer. Today’s internet brought the good news that Dennis and Barb on Landfall have come safely to harbor in New Zealand; they logged 10,000 miles since leaving Puerto Montt in March.

lluvia is rain

Tuesday, October 22

The Cable Guy, Julio, came over yesterday afternoon, so we now have internet in the apartment. Yay! But what does it mean, a 2 GB contract? We're already paranoid - If I read the news will I use up the whole amount in three days? Yikes!

It's a good day for contemplating such things - pouring rain and cold. Many mornings this last week have been grey and foggy, in connection with the tides flooding, according to El Capitan. When the tides start to ebb, and the ocean cold is no longer flowing on shore, the afternoons become sunny and warm. Not today!

Maybe I'll switch to reading the paper newspaper with my dictionary at hand, working out meaning of the verbos y palabras. And soon, I promise, I'll figure out how to load a photo or two to this site.