Tusks and Other Muses

"I came here to count the bells

that live upon the surface of the sea,

that sound over the sea,

within the sea.

So, here I live."

--Pablo Neruda

We are now in Valparaiso, a beautifully graffitied  port town built on impossible hills. During the past two days we have visited two of Pablo Neruda's three Chilean abodes. Neruda is one of my favorite poets, and it was like a fairytale to explore his eclectic decor and strange collections that included, but were not limited to, carousel horses, figureheads, and snail shells. He also had a fondness for colored glass and bells and green ink, but most of all he loved the ocean. Both of the houses we saw had panoramic vistas of the Pacific in all of its bone-chilling deep-blue grandeur. It was not hard at all to imagine a poet inspired.

But maybe his secret was the narwhal tusk. Neruda kept a 2.25 meter tooth of a narwhal whale, along with a historical painting of the fanciful beast. Strange man. He wrote beautiful things.

And now we're going even more austral. I spent a semester as an exchange student in Chile when I was seventeen, and we're going South to go visit my host family in their small small village of Lumaco. I'm kind of nervous to reunite with a universe that I left behind five years ago, but it should be interesting.

(I also wanted to mention that co-conqueror and travel friend Nathaniel is also keeping a blog. For a completely different perspective on our ramblings, visit nathanielgoessouth.blogspot.com.)