21 October 2015. Bellavista, Santiago, Chile.

“The neighborhood has but one sight,” the guidebook says. La Chascona, the Santiago home Nobel prize winning poet Pablo Neruda shared with his last love Matilde Urrutia, at the base of the San Cristobal hill. What a fascinating experience it was to meander around this whimsical multi-leveled home and garden full of beautiful and quirky art and eclectic furniture amidst personal memorabilia and his most important laurels.

The guidebook continued, “Bellavista is perhaps the best place in the city to wander.” I had no plans for the rest of the afternoon, so wander I did. I left La Chascona still in a dream-like trance, but just a few blocks down, I was shaken by the stark reality of blaring music and beer-guzzling youth in the busy bars of Pio Nino, Bellavista’s main drag. I walked past the noisy scene only to encounter a long uninteresting stretch of gas stations, drab gray buildings, and empty streets. I was thinking it would be dark soon and it was probably best not to linger in this very gritty neighborhood. And so I decided to turn back but maybe walk along a parallel street rather than take the same uninspiring route. And then I saw COLOR a few blocks beyond. My instinct told me to walk towards it. Then I saw a few more colors and my indecisive walk took on a more vigorous pace. And slowly Bellavista began to unfold for me. This is what I saw…