I would have dismissed it if only one boat with a swastika flag passed us by. But two? What are we sailing toward?

The flag is the two thin red stripes at the top and bottom. A thick yellow stripe is in the middle. The thin lines of the black swastika are in the yellow center. The swastika shape is unmistakable, yet it is inverted as if seen in the mirror.

I grew up in the Soviet Union. My childhood was filled with the mythology of fighting the Nazi’s. It was a devastating and real fight for most families, as everyone lost someone in that war.

Twenty million dead.

I felt the anguish and hardship of it through my grandparents’ stories. The swastika is a symbol that triggers instinctive dread.

In truth, we expected the flags. And fortunately, they are not what they could mean elsewhere.

We are sailing into the Guna Yala archipelago, more commonly known as San Blas in English. Alex had read the regulations, as she does, before we landed on the islands. Although a part of Panama, the islands are administered by the local indigenous tribes, Guna Yala. Panama designates “comarcas” where indigenous locals have a degree of control over rules, access, and income. One of the rules in Guna Yala is that every yacht, or a small sailboat, must fly the flag of the region.

I love that rule. They are called courtesy flags, and each yacht must hoist a small flag of each new country it enters upon clearing customs. At least, while the yacht is within the borders. We have a bag of them. Hoisting a flag for a people who have lived on these islands since before the Roman Empire feels like a small act of justice.

But a swastika?

I understand that the symbol found its origins in mythologies preceding Western civilization. Archeologists found it on pieces of pottery 10,000 years old. In India, it was a symbol of luck and a cosmic order. In Buddhist and Jain traditions, it signaled the eternal cycle of life. In Guna mythology, and other Native American cultures, it meant the four corners of the world, the symbol of the octopus, and the cosmic structure in balance.

It was on the Guna flag before the Nazis adopted it as their symbol of murder. I just can’t shake the instinctive reluctance to fly a flag with it.

But in the nineties, the Guna dropped the swastika from the flag in favor of a new design. Green, yellow, and green. The interlocked arms of solidarity. The stars of the seven Panamanian tribes. It is beautiful.

Yet, the bad news is that they had to change it. The pressure from the world pushed them to abandon the symbol connected to their history, because a bunch of assholes elsewhere made it evil.

Or, should I abandon my Eurocentric lens? Respect the local history and local choices without judging them against my hurt sensibilities? Maybe.

The next time we see a local panga selling goods, I will ask for the original flag. If they have it, I may hoist it to honor their history and to spit in the face of the Nazis. Deny them the the ownership of something ancient.

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We leave for the Cochamó Valley at seven in the morning. “They may not let us in,” I tell Alex, “but the drive along may be worth it.” I show her photos and the map. She sips coffee, thinks, then nods. I know she is thinking this trip should have been planned weeks ago.

Cochamó Valley is the Yosemite of Northern Patagonia. Green, steep mountains transition to granite domes forming a narrow valley. But there are no crowds, no tour buses, just metered foot traffic and horse convoys.

The entry into the valley is eighty-seven kilometers from us. It would be an hour drive on a regular highway, but we must take a ferry across a barranca, then a curvy gravel road around the fjord. Maps forecast a two and a half hour trip. We must be on the trail by nine-thirty to get the permit for the backcountry. It will be tight.

The ferry terminal is only seventeen minutes away. When we arrive, the ship is there, and the cars and trucks are driving up the lowered ramp. The dock master waves the pickup in front of us to board, then raises his hand to stop us. We must wait for the next ship, forty-five minutes away.

I want to scream and pound the steering wheel in frustration, but keep it inside. That pickup passed us on the road a minute ago. I laughed at the pointlessness of his move. “He passed one car to be behind four more cars ahead. What a moron!” I said to Alex. Now he is on a ferry, and I am waiting for the next.

This almost certainly kills our plans. Yet, we choose to try. I exhale my tension. The drive itself is worth it, I tell myself. The surrounding mountains are unlike any I have seen.

On the next ferry, we eat empanadas and drink coffee. Alex takes photos of the barranca unfolding around the peninsula. Of the sun, climbing over the snow of volcanoes behind the front range of the fjord. Of the other ferries, carrying fifty cars the other way. 

I fight my tension. The drive itself will be worth it.

The road to Cochamó is gravel. It is one-and-a-half twisty lanes, but switches to one lane on narrow bridges. I learned to drive on roads like this in Siberia. Still a kid sitting on a pillow, I learned to avoid branches and potholes. Then, when older, to catch the car’s drifts in the corners and feel the wheels regain traction on the hills, to left-foot brake through the curves. My dad sat in the next seat, nodding and giving instructions like a rally co-driver.

The road is empty. We zoom around the curves, throwing dust. This is the best morning, I smile. Alex points to a vista ahead and asks to stop. To stop? We hardly have enough time! But I pull over. She takes photos from the edge of the road. Steep mountains rise from the cold water on the opposite side. The fishing boats are laid up on the dirt sea bottom at low tide next to us. A small house at a distance. One boat is working around the aquaculture buoys. Its low rumble is the only soft noise in the steep barranca. A human noise, but it seems to belong.

Two hours later, we are at the park, and we are late. We drive past backpackers and a six-horse convoy into a small grass parking lot. A young couple is the attendants. They are eating lunch, but are not unhappy to see us. Yes, we are late, the woman confirms. We can still go to the park check-in just up the trail, to try for a pass, but the rangers have been strict. I must look like I am about to cry because her face softens, she takes my phone, and returns it with a map on the screen. “Go there. It is a beautiful waterfall.”

We get to it after an hour of climbing. A Chilean family is there watching the cascade. The elder grandfather and grandmother are in swimsuits and jump into the frigid water. They hoot and laugh. The mother and the kids watch and taunt them. 

We talk to them later. They are farmers from the other side of the range. They drive here, sometimes, for the beauty. Grandfather tells us stories. He is soft-spoken and hard to understand. But we try. The young boy’s eyes grow wide with excitement when he learns we are from the United States. To him, it is a land of dreams. He does not follow the news. He peppers us with questions and invites us to join the family for food. But we have volcanoes to see, and a long drive back. We thank them.

“Did you have a good day?” The grandmother asks.

“Wonderful,” we say. 

It is fine not to get what you want. The day will take its own shape and imprint something wonderful on your memory. If you let it.

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The people on the streets are young. Valdivia, Chile, is a university town. Women are in shorts and sweaters. Men are in shorts and sweaters, too. Boots, tennis shoes, no flip-flops. They are walking in groups across the bridge, along Main Street, from the river waterfront to an outdoor concert playing behind Bar 55. The fans are against the stage and all the way back to the entrance of the park. It is too packed for us.

The air is cold, although it is summer. The town sits at the mouth of the Valdivia River and the Pacific Ocean. The ocean keeps the weather comfortable for the locals. But it is too cold for the two of us from the tropics. I zip up my down vest.

We almost skipped it. Valdivia was not on our minds when we thought of the trip to Chile. Nor was it on the main route: Santiago and wine in the North, the Volcanos and Northern Patagonia in the South. But Alex noticed that Valdivia is a microbrew town. Three waves of German immigrants influenced the beer culture here since the 1850s. The detour would add two hundred kilometers to our travels, but we are willing to drive for good IPAs.

We split from the crowd and turn to El Growler. The brewery’s public space is a courtyard. A food truck and a separate trailer for the beer taps are under the tent roof. The post-college crowd fills most of the tables. A few tourists are here too. The tourists fumble through the menus. The locals order what they know without looking. There is a noisy buzz, a rapid chatter of Chilean Spanish. I order a small pour of West Coast IPA. Alex gets a juicy hazy. We see no reason to leave.

The next morning, I know we tried more beer samples than we should have. We want an easy day and drive along the river to the coast, fifteen minutes away. The Valdivia River widens to a large bay and meanders between steep hills, then spills into the cold Pacific Ocean. The road hugs the coastline, the tight curves relax through hamlets. Homes line the hills. Moored fishing boats line the shore. They are reminiscent of the lobster boats we see in the northern hemisphere, but the fishing deck is up front.

I have driven through a similar scene on the coast of the Pacific Northwest. Similar curves, hills, homes, and boats. Only the cars are different, and full public buses are part of the traffic. No buses were on the coast of the Pacific Northwest. People are expected to fend for themselves.

We park and descend towards the beach. The locals are in their bathing suits on the sand. I see swimmers in the bay. I am in pants, long-sleeve, and a down vest. It is cold. I convince Alex to climb over the boulders with me, around the bend in the coastline. The sea-otters gather there, on the rocks or on the mats of kelp just meters offshore. But the otters are not there, only rock and the cold Pacific.

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Before we leave Malalchuello, Chile, in the morning, I make coffee, and we watch from our couch as the Volcán Lonquemay splits the flow of morning fog. The stratovolcano sat dormant since 1990. Quiet. Imposing. Foreboding. I try focus on its beauty, but can only see its dangers - an eruption launching pyroclastic flows towards our cabin. Obliterating our plans. I shake my head - maybe bad dreams last night that I already forgot.

.We drive. On the map, the road makes a long loop east and south, then west again to drop us back into the Central Valley some kilometers away. The road is twisty on the map, except for the straight two-kilometer section of an old one-way tunnel through the cordillera. The brush Argentinean border and a long mountain lake before traveling back inside Chile. Looks good. Why not?

The tunnel is narrow. We have to wait for the traffic from the other side to exit the opening in the mountain. Two local Chilean wildlife firefighters are passing a bucket for donations along the lines of cars. They are in full firefighting kit. Another local woman is selling bags of nuts and snacks.

The light turns green, and we enter the narrow arch. The road inside is a single, paved lane. A row of lights is at the top of the arch and is only bright enough to eliminate the curved roof of the ceiling and the wet spot where the water seeps through the concrete. The car lights illuminate the roads

.

I want to think about who built the tunnel, but instead, I think about Chilean earthquakes. I try to think of construction methods, but earthquakes refuse to leave my mind. This country moves. Plates grind along its spine. They raise the Andes and crush what sits above them. The 1960 Valdivia Earthquake was the strongest ever recorded on Earth at 9.5 magnitude. 2010 Maule at 8.8 magnitude, 2014 Iquique earthquake at 8.4. These earthquakes fell buildings and crushed tunnels like this. Caved the roofs onto cars.

I am looking over traffic for the end of this tube, but it goes on for another five minutes.

The pavement ends. The paved spur of R-181 splits East into Argentina. Our Spur, R-81, turns south to follow the valley, then climbs the high slopes. The surface is gravel and was graded this season at least once, but the loathsome washboard bumps are back on the climbs and sharp turns. We stop and wonder if we should continue. Our vehicle is a small SUV built for the city. It can handle this road, just not if it gets any worse

“The dust trails are from other cars. Yes?” I point Alex to the thin clouds rising from the slopes. The trails are across the valley, kilometers ahead. “Moving fast, so the road should be fine. Right?” I say. Alex shrugs. Then we watch a tiny white Suzuki emerge from the nearest cloud and pass us going the other way. Four people are crammed in the car. We drive on.

This valley is away from the easy reach of tourists. It is open, with a savannah feel of open ranges, clumps of trees, creeks, and shallow brown hills. There are homes throughout, but kilometers apart. The homes are simple ranches, with a pickup truck parked by most and barbed wire fences extending away from each home to mark the expansive boundaries of the ranches. Some are empty - only brown hills and clumps of trees. On others are cows and sheep.

The road stops climbing and hugs the long lake. The lake is from a postcard. Only a family or two are swimming and kayaking every few hundred meters. Calm water, sun, gentle breeze. No concession stands, no cabins. Steep mountains are on each side. One mountain has a trail that climbs to the top and crosses into Argentina. We stop to look at it, but the slope is too steep. A Chilean flag is atop the hill. I suppose an Argentinian is next to it on the other side of the slope.

It would be awesome to touch the border in the wilderness, but we do not have time to climb. We still have a long drive to the breweries of Valdivia.

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Valparaiso is chaos. People squeeze past each other on steep stairs. Cars brush mirrors on the narrow streets. Tires slip and scrape against the cobblestones, bump against the tight curbs. 

We are on the third loop around the same neighborhoods, climbing hills and looking for an opening among the tightly parked cars. But we find nothing after twenty minutes of driving. I duck into a side street where I don’t think we have yet gone. Then I recognize a wall painting of a detective mouse talking to a criminal dog, both human-sized, and intent on their conversation.

Maybe this street? I turn, then brake to stop. Many streets in the hills are one-way, but how can you know without clear signs and with the parked cars facing in both directions? But we are already committed, so we drive on and meander among the painted homes. I squeeze onto the curb to let a delivery van pass. It shoots past us down the cobblestones without slowing. My heart rate spikes.

“He still had his mirrors on,” I tell Alex with a forced smile. “The delivery driver. Probably knows how not to crash on these streets.”

We find a spot at the very top and park. The views are focused by three-story ancient buildings on each side of the street, but they open wider as the hill falls away. The container ships with familiar names of Maersk, Cosco, and Hapag-Lloyd are anchored throughout the bay. Tugs or fishing boats traverse the water, their wake contrails paint a road in the sea. The distant homes and high-rises across the bay climb their own hills.

Alex says she wants to walk down to the port. I say I want to find a hat. We agree we both want a gelato. We walk the streets along the shops and restaurants. I don’t see the hats I like. But we find an excellent gelato. The store is on the corner with two uneven stairs. The red awning spells Artisanal Gelato, the wooden door is open and propped with a brick. We try samples, then choose. For once, the clerk does not switch to English.

Valparaiso is too much, but it is perfect for inspiration. The city is built on the spirit of Bohemian creativity. It was the home of Pablo Neruda, he wrote his poems in these hills. The city left a mark on young Roberto Bolaño, before he wrote his books in Mexico and Spain. Manuel Rojas walked these streets. 

I think of them as solitary monuments of culture, but they lived in a community, were one with it, and would have blended with the modern locals, creative, and each a bit unique. The locals’ clothes are just ahead of current trends, or very far behind. Haircuts, shoes, and other subtle clues that hint at an artist. They are around us now.

I could not live here, but I want to be here. A day is enough, or maybe a month. Any longer, and the chaos of the place will disassemble the composure and mental order that I have tried to build. I’ve heard it happens in places like this. The mind lets go in a creative sprint, then sometimes never comes back. What if this is the price of creating something amazing? Would it be worth it then?

We join groups of gawkers snapping photos of the walls. Painting of local history, of the people who made this place, of injustices. We sit on the bright, terraced steps - all tropical colors, one per step, climb the tight space between homes. We make our way down to the sea, where a tourist square is jammed between the gates of the working port. There is a street market under a hundred tents with people showing and selling. And people stealing. Pickpocketing is a big business on these streets. We have been warned to keep our hands in our pockets. I do.

The fishing boats crowding the pier are imposters. They once plied the trade but replaced their working decks for rows of chairs, and replaced their fishing captains for full-throated marketers fishing for people to sail on the tour of the harbor. The tourist trade earns more cash.

The day rushes past. It lurches from noon to six in a blink, at the speed of this city. And it is time to leave. We climb the streets on our way from the port, but away from the standard tourist route. The buildings are still the same, but with more flaking paint and cages over windows. The dogs stick to their side of the street and watch us wearily. The streets are emptier here, but the few locals still greet us with a smile… 

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I am glad he was wrong. Ecstatic. I told him so. “Ryan, you need to revisit Santiago - the food is exquisite. In twenty years, since you have been here, the city has re-invented itself.”

He told me at volleyball, a few days before we left Panama, how much he loved Santiago, just not the food. “Food is bad,” he said.

But something happened in the culinary world. Anthony Bourdain? The parade of celebrity chefs who spread the exquisite cuisine from the elites to the masses? Instagram influencers - a scourge playing good - elevating expectations and pushing cities to up their food game?

So Ryan, I am glad you were wrong. The Completos - the overstuffed Chilean hotdogs, the salmon, the tapas, the beer and wine at Barrio Italia, and Bella Vista are worth the trip.

I loved Santiago. We both did.

We leave the apartment in the early morning and walk the sleepy streets. One coffee shop is open, then another one, but all else is shuttered at 10 am, sleeping off the hangover of the night and resting before the evening’s gaiety. Tens of places on the immediate blocks. Hundreds in the two adjacent barrios. We saw swarms of frugal young and the rich in the night before. All in the social embrace of the city.

But they are gone now. Only the empty streets. Chairs chained or hidden. Workers spraying the green grass against the dry air of central Chile, spraying sidewalks to beat down the dust and detritus of careless revelers. Very few cars on this street. Quiet. Intimate.

The sidewalks are wide. They are built for couples holding hands and passing other couples walking the other way. From restaurant to restaurant, from a photo of food to a photo of drinks, to a photo of smiling faces. Later, but not now. Now it is only the workers washing the street.

I am a bit angry. I want a latte, but coffee shops are closed for another hour, until 11 am. We long passed the two that were open. All closed. What?

Coffee shops open early in the business district a few blocks. The suits need the coffee before the Bohemians. The suits don’t wander into the chaos of these barrios. Not until night, when the humans in them shed the suits and escape the LinkedIn universe of pretenses into the mismatched architecture of bohemian streets, unique and rebelling. Wall art, bursts of color on the concrete.

I want coffee, but I can’t go to Starbucks. It is too close to work. When I work, although without a suit, I am the business person, like the rest, choked by task lists. Going to Starbucks will pull me out of the spirit of the vacation. I will smile through the irritation instead. I hope that Alex won’t notice.

We are at the hill - Cerro de San Cristobal. The one with the Virgin Mary lifting her arms over Santiago and over the tourists. They are milling underneath, some kneeling at her base, others gawking and snapping photos.

“Don’t go there,” Alex says, “you will boil the holy water, you heathen.”

It is mostly a joke…

We ride the funicular. Walk the parapet. Listen to the clean female voice of the gospel singer. I can’t see her, but I know she is singing live. There is a priest at the entrance. He looks German, tall, and pasty. He could be a Chilean, of course. We try the Santiago Zoo on the same hill, but back out for the crowds.

There is an open coffee shop! One Latte, one black. My woman likes it strong. I have a Zoom meeting with a client. Fuck. Can’t escape. The connection was bad, at least, so I cut it short…

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The contrast is jarring. Three minutes ago on the rainforest side of the mountains the bus labored through clouds and mist. Over the crest, it is sun and blue sky. The peaks of the Cordillera Central de Panamá snared the clouds and pushed them back at the Caribbean, sparing the sky of the Pacific side of the country. The crossing felt like the beginning of our trip to Chile. Only five hours away from our home on Isla Colón, but a different energy in the hilly savannas, away from the dense jungle.

We began the day at Taxi 25 dock on our island of Isla Colón, then boarded the bus in Almirante. The flight would have been faster, only forty-five minutes over the reefs and blue waters of the sea, but four hundred dollars more. We opted for the ten hour ride.

We share the bus with indigenous locals and their children, but mostly European and American backpackers. The backpackers pass through in numbers in Bocas, in identical uniforms of hiking boots, tech Patagonia pants, and large Osprey backpacks under the rain covers. This is the closest we have been to them. The backpackers slide past us in town without much friction. They are younger than us and looking for an adventure in what is our normal life.

The bus is new and comfortable. The local children are quiet, no screaming or yelping I expected. Instead, they listen to their mothers. The bus driver is calm by Latin American standards. “No bags in the overhead compartment,” he commands everyone boarding. On the tight curves of the road and only modest braking from him, each bag from above would have found a target on the heads of people below. Instead my bag is underneath the seat and jabs my ankles each time it slides with the curves.

“Bus is ok,” people told us, “cold and too long. Fine to take once, just to see the sights.”

But I love it. I recline the seat and watch the mountains. How could the first people cut their ways through the density of this jungle? Today, with machetes, chainsaws, and bulldozers it is a daunting task. But then? Before the sharpened tools? The dense green wall, impenetrable, yet subdued and suborned to the will of indigenous. But only for a time. Even a season of neglect and the jungle takes back each un-lived house and unworked land.

Once we crossed the ridge, the jungle did not follow. It stayed on the wet Caribbean side. The slopes of the drier Pacific side reminded me of California’s golden hills or postcards of the Mediterranean. Patches of light woods, golden slopes, rare farm homes, and meandering cows. Panamanian cows with a hump at the base of their neck, like malformed camels.

The bus attendant walks the aisle, holding on in the swaying bus. We are stopping at a fonda on the side of the mountain for a bit of food and rest, he tells us. Twenty five minutes, then back on the road. It is enough time for empanadas from a stand, a few minutes to eat them at the outdoor tables with gorgeous views down the valley aiming at the Pacific. Two dollars a plate…