La asd de la vida

Travelwise:
Chile’s literary and musical past
Walk into La Casa en El Aire, a brightly painted cottage-like coffeehouse in Santiago’s dynamic Bellavista neighbourhood, and you’ll know what Chile’smost famous poet, Pablo Neruda, meant when he said, “I drink to the word, raising / a word or crystalline cup”. La Casa en El Aire is one of many charming Chilean cafes where the poetry and music ofyesteryear is alive and well.
From the protest songs of Victor Jara to the emotional sonnets of Gabriela Mistral, the written word is central to Chilean society. The nation’s troubadours and scribesare also its heroes. Journey into Chile’s literary and musical past by following in the footsteps of three of the nation’s most well-known wordsmiths, and you will find a closer connection to thecountry’s present. 
Pablo Neruda
Begin your trip by touring one of Pablo Neruda’s three homes, now open as museums. In Santiago, Neruda designed La Chascona for himself and his mistress, Matilde Urratia,who later became his third wife. In Valparaiso, Neruda (along with artists Marie Martner and Francisco Velasco) bought and converted a mansion overlooking the bay. They named it La Sebastiana afterits original architect, Sebastian Collao. Just south of Valpo in El Quisco, Neruda’s most famous house, Isla Negra, is also where he was buried, according to wishes he expressed in his poemDisposiciones: “Friends, bury me in Isla Negra / facing the sea I know, every rough area / of rocks and waves that my lost eyes / never see.”
All three houses are sights to be seen, as Neruda filled his homeswith eclectic assortments of art – from a portrait of Walt Whitman in La Sebastiana, to a desk made from the door of a ship in Isla Negra, to plates with eyes on them in all three.
Like many writersin Chile, Neruda was a political leader and a dissident. A senator for the Communist Party in the 1940s, he was forced into exile when communism was outlawed. After returning to Chile in 1952, he...