The First Expats

Valparaiso is a city built by immigrants from all over the world, the original expats in Chile. The fire departments are testament to this, as are the cemeteries and also these adverts in a magazine from the 1920s.

The Bar Ingles is still around in the same place. It's a beautiful little traditional wood bar, shame its lunches are so unbelievably expensive and bad.

Baburizza- the man who built the palace of the same name on Cerro Alegre which the council has still not got around to reopening as the Museo de Bellas Artes 10 years after they closed it for renovations. Shameful.

Casa Francesa- locales in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Buenos Aires, Santiago and Valpo...

Dying in Valparaiso: El Cementerio de Disidentes

As i recently turned 30, i've been thinking quite a lot about death. So i decided to head up to the Valparaiso cemeteries to see if i could find a plot. Now, you're not really supposed to take photos -there are signs up stating that as you walk in...but i ignored them and took dozens. A few are below and i'll be posting more as time goes by.

I started off in the Cementerio de Disidentes, the charming name the local Catholics gave anyone who didn't want to feel guilty their entire lives. The cemetery is typical of protestant cemeteries the world over: understated and generally quite pretty-nothing spectacular. The interesting part is really the tombstones and the names on them...the graveyard is full of British and Germans, showing the influence that these two nationalities had on Valparaiso back in the 1800s and early 1900s.

Of course, the German headstones are far more elaborate and pretty than the British ones. This was the same in the German and British Cemeteries in Chacarita in Buenos Aires. Maybe the Lutherans like a bit more pomp in their death?

Anyway, here are some of the many photos I took today. Look at the names and dates...some of the families are still around today with the same surnames which means they haven't had to mingle too much with the natives...

I also made it Cementerio Numero 1 and Numero 2. They're all joined so it wasn't too much of an effort. I'll post about those at some point soon as well.




























This is the tomb to the lost seamen of the HMS Arequipa, a ship that foundered in Valparaiso Bay on June 2nd, 1902









And finally...what would a cemetery be without a load of cute kittens...

Arquitecto Esteban Orlando Harrington, Valparaiso

I've been trying to gather information on Arquitecto Esteban Orlando Harrington for the last few weeks. It has proved almost impossible. The reason i've wanted to do a post on Harrington is, simply, because he was one of Valparaiso's most prolific architects and his work can be seen all over the city.

I have managed to find a basic story of him on line and i also found a number of buildings that bear his name. There are many other houses and larger buildings in Valparaiso that bear striking resemblances to Harrington's work but that do not bear his signature. I've left these out as i can't be 100% sure that he was the author...i might go back and photograph them and post them as possibles in the future.

So, onto the history part.

Harrington was born in Valparaiso in 1873 to an American father- William Harrington- and a Chilean mother- Protasia Arellando. He was particularly prolific between 1908 and 1910 (after the 1906 earthquake destroyed much of the city), building houses for the rich and large buildings as well. His main areas of work appear to be in Playa Ancha and Cerro Concepcion. Apparently, he designed many of the houses on Avenida Gran Bretaña up in Playa Ancha but i couldn't find his signature on any of them...

He did live in Playa Ancha in a pasaje that was renamed Pasaje Harrington after his tragic and slightly comical death up the wheels of a trole in 1936. He was 63.

And that's all i've come up after weeks of searching. Apparently i'm not the only one looking for information-i found questions posted on various forums from a number of architects asking for info-none received an answer. One of the questions posted was from an architecture student from Valparaiso called...Daniel Harrington. Even his family can't find anything on him...

So you'll just have to make do with some photos to supplement your undoubted thirst for knowledge of an obscure American-Chilean architect.

The yellow house is the Harrington B&B, currently undergoing a major refit...it's been a long job so i hope the new owners get it finished in time for summer...there are 3 identical houses in a row. I couldn't get a good shot of the third one.




Heading downtown and on the corner of Errazurriz and Pasaje Ross is this monster building. I really like the security bars




On Plaza Sotomayor is the Hotel Reina Victoria. This pink blancmange of a building is actually for sale at an absurd price. It is used by ladies of disrepute and their "friends".


And finally...moving on to Pasaje Harrington up in Playa Ancha. I took photos of all the houses there but one. Of course, the one i failed to photo was the house Harrington actually lived in.















And that, i'm afraid, is your lot. I'll keep looking out for new buildings of his and i'll post them periodically. I have a suspicion i'll find a lot more downtown heading out towards Avenida Argentina...we'll see...

Una ganga...2 restaurant reviews in 1: Mastodonte and Allegretto

I haven't really mentioned 'downtown' Valparaiso up to this point. There's a reason: 'El Plan' as it's called (due to the fact that it's flat while most of the city is built into the hills) is a complete nightmare. For those that know Buenos Aires, think el Microcentro around Reconquista and San Martin. At 5.30pm. But all day long. The Plan isn't really very big-at least the part where most people work ie Plaza Sotomayor to Plaza Victoria-but it's just a couple of narrow streets, one going in one direction the the other going, well, the other way. Along these two clogged streets run 498,789 bus an hour, 2 million and 4 cars. And the electrified Trole buses which frequently break down, making the 2 lanes that are already a bit tight into one exceedingly narrow path for everyone.

So i generally try to avoid El Plan, preferring the village like tranquillity of Cerro Concepcion. Which is actually just 3 minutes walk from the raging hell of downtown. When i am forced to venture down, i try to make it around lunch time as we found a little while ago the best and cheapest restaurant around. It serves my favourite chilean dish of oven baked chicken, rice and tomato salad for the princely sum of 1350 pesos. Or around us$2.30. Not only that, but the decor is absolutely brilliant. So if you're unlucky enough to find yourself downtown on a weekday (on weekends there's no traffic and you can walk around and admire the fantastic architecture-post coming soon-at your leisure), make sure you stop off for lunch at El Mastodonte. Not sure of the exact address but it's on Esmeralda just before Plaza Anibal Pinto (where you'll find the Riquet until it closes down shortly). You can't miss it, it's got a giant Woolly Mammoth head outside.





My second restaurant review is of one of my favourite places to eat, Allegretto Pizza, which produces some of the better pizzas i've had outside of Italy. The owners are an English-Chilean couple. Proper thin crusts, quality ingredients and huge: One between 2 is more than enough. The basic model is about 4000 pesos and then you add a couple of toppings. We tend to go for Parma ham, fresh tomatoes and sometimes prawns and we've not had a bad experience in the place (except when one of us decided to try to gnocci which was not the best idea, stick to pizza). The bill for 2 people with a pint of locally brewed Cerveza del Puerto is around 10,000 pesos or us$20 and is a bit of a bargain.




We went to Allegretto a couple of nights ago with a friend, it's probably the 6th or 7th time in the last 3-4 months and as i mentioned, we've not had a bad experience, nor have we seen any of the other customers have one. Except this time, when a couple of middle-aged french women sat at the table next to us. They proceeded to bitch and whine about everything; the table was wonky, the glass was smudged, the plate was dirty (both changed with the minimum of fuss), the pizza took too long to arrive and then when it did it wasn't very nice. This despite the fact that they polished off the entire thing, including pretty much every single crumb. They then paid and left a derisory tip. It's a shame the world's not perfect like France, eh? I don't know why they even bothered to leave the land of liberté, egalité, fraternité when everthing that´s not french isn´t worth contemplating.



Not that all frenchies are alike, of course...in fact we've got a fantastic french restaurant run by nice, friendly, real french folk that'll be reviewed next time i'm feeling a bit peckish around lunchtime.

Allegretto is on Pilcomayo, opposite the Iglesia Anglicana on Cerro Concepcion.

Nee-naw nee-naw, nee-naw. A bit of history.

When thinking about the foreign influence in Valparaiso during the 19th century, it’s easy to just have a look around the city and see it everywhere. It was the British who really helped drive the city forward as it was the British who were most involved in commerce in Chile for over 100 years. Chile, during much of the 1800s was, to all intents and purposes, a de facto colony. We may not have conquered it by force (although we did fire the odd warning shot in the 18th century) but Chile was almost entirely dependent on Britain economically.

It was Thomas North, the Nitrate King, who pretty much ran the country due to his financial strength. North’s going to get a whole post to himself some day soon, but suffice to say that he built the entire railroad system north of Santiago and poured millions of pounds into the development of Chilean infrastructure over the period of about 30-40 years. He’s a controversial figure and almost completely forgotten in Chile due to the fact that he was a an out and out capitalist and most of the profits he made were taken out of Chile and given to his shareholders and to himself. This obviously didn’t really sit well with a lot of Chileans who would have preferred for the money to stay in Chile. He's also quite controversial as he's been frequently cited as a cause of the war between Chile and Peru which saw Chile expand its territory by over a third and North become the most powerful man in Chile due to the fact he laid claim to pretty much the entire conquered territory and then proceeded to mine it to within an inch of its life.

The British built much of Valparaiso: most of the funicular lifts still bear the stamps of British iron-works, the most upmarket Hill (Cerro Alegre) is full of Victorian mansions and used to be called Mount Pleasant (Alegre means ‘happy’). Cerro Concepcion (essentially part of Cerro Alegre) has the Iglesia Anglicana which has not a word written in Spanish inside and which has a monster organ donated by Queen Vic herself. Cerro Concepcion also has the Paseo Atkinson and Calle Templeman. There are so many examples of the British influence in Valparaiso and it's going to get a full on posting soon so I can’t be bothered to talk any more about it right now. Just take a look at the photos and the newspaper adverts.






However, it’d be wrong to suggest that the British were entirely responsible for making Valparaiso one of the most important cities in South America. The city was the most important port in South America and, as such, was home an enormous mix of nationalities. Germans were influential in the forming of the city. Cerro Concepcion was the German enclave as well as the British one (we got on rather well in the old days; not surprising as our entire Royal Family is descended from the penalty shoot-out kings). The Iglesia Luterana is just around the corner from the Anglicana.

There were also large numbers of Italians, French and Americans doing business and living in Valpo. Eastern Europeans also played a part in the develpment of Valparaiso along with the original inhabitants of Spanish descent already living in the city when the immigrants started to arrive in large number. I think the best way to demonstrate this is by looking at the modern day Fire Department.

There are 15 ‘Companies’. Let’s take a quick look at each one. If the words bore you, you can at least have a look at the cool insignia that each Company has.

-PRIMERA COMPAÑIA DE BOMBEROS "BOMBA AMERICANA"
www.bombaamericana.cl

This was the first fire corp and was set up by a mix of British and American volunteers in June of 1851. It attended its first fire a week after its inception. Its first Captain was a Mr R Heathly.


SEGUNDA COMPANIA DE BOMBEROS DE VALPARAISO "BOMBA GERMANIA"
www.bombagermania.cl

Also founded in June of 1851, this was obviously the German Fire station. It’s first Captain was Herr Otto Uhde.

-TERCERA COMPAÑIA DE BOMBEROS 'BOMBA "COUSIÑO Y AGUSTIN EDWARDS" '
www.terceravalpo.cl

Founded in October 1854 this company was named after its two main benefactors and two of the richest men in Chile. Edwards and Cousino are still big names here.


-CUARTA COMPAÑIA DE BOMBEROS "BOMBA MANUEL BLANCO ENCALADA"
www.cuartavalparaiso.cl

Founded by the Spanish residents in Valpo in January 1865, this company was also known as La Espanola. First captain was Sr Pedro Billa

QUINTA COMPAÑIA DE BOMBEROS "POMPE FRANCE"
www.pompefrance.cl

Founded in June 1856 by the French residents its first Captain was M Jean Duprat

SEXTA COMPAÑIA DE BOMBEROS "CRISTOFORO COLOMBO"
www.sesta.cl

This was the Italian fire house and was founded in January 1856. Its first Captain Antonio Gotelli died in active service in 1862.

SEPTIMA COMPAÑIA DE BOMBEROS "BOMBA ESPAÑA"
www.septimavalpo.cl

Founded in August 1893 by another group of Spaniards and whose first Captain was Don Enrique Campusano.


OCTAVA COMPAÑIA DE BOMBEROS "ZAPADORES FRANCO CHILE"
www.octavavalpo.cl

This company was another French one but differed from the Fifth because the volunteers considered themselves Franco-Chilean and not just French. It was founded in June 1856 and its first captain was Antonio Duprat who I assume was related to the first Captain of the Fifth.

NOVENA COMPAÑIA DE BOMBEROS "ZAPADORES FREIRE"
Founded in January 1858 by a group of native citizens. First Captain-Domingo Montalva

DECIMA COMPAÑIA DE BOMBEROS "EDUARDO FARLEY" 'BOMBA CHILENO - ARABE SALVADORA Y GUARDIA DE PROPIEDAD'

Founded in June 1851 and with a first Captain Sr. Josué Waddington. I can’t find any info s to why it’s now called the ‘Chileno-Arabe’ Company although my guess is that it’s due to the fact that Chile houses the largest Palestinian population outside of the Middle-East.

UNDECIMA COMPAÑIA DE BOMBEROS "GEORGE GARLAND"
www.undecima.cl

Founded on the 13th September 1901 this is another British Company and named after the founder of the Valparaiso Fire Company. Its first headquarters was the Iglesia Anglicana on Cerro Concepcion. It’s first Captain was Mr John Keil.

I'm not sure about the French, Spanish or Italian fire stations, but both the British and the German ones have fire-trucks donated by their 'home' countries. There's a 20 year old British fire-truck in the 11th station and two German trucks in the 2nd. It's good to see they're keeping the history alive.

The 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th Fire Companies are all more recent arrivals, from the mid-60s on, so I’m ignoring them.

So that just goes to show what a melting pot Valpo was back in the day. What's great is that after so long being ignored, Valparaiso is again receiving a significant amount of foreign immigration. The tourist and culinary industries are booming and they're being helped along by jonny foreigner. Brilliant.