Smoke apart, Chile's really Clark's kind of place

By AUDREY YOUNG in Santiago

In many ways, Santiago in Chile is not Helen Clark's kind of place.

It's the smoke, everywhere. And not only the smog.

The restaurant maitre d' greets guests with the apologetic news that he only has non-smoking tables left, and cannot understand why the group of New Zealanders find it so amusing, even the smokers.

In other ways, too, it is a step back in time to the days when a little disorder was a good thing and we didn't have to form neat queues for everything, and when a customer might have to wait five minutes for the shop assistant to finish her conversation, or her cigarette.

Ironically, despite the smoke, Chile's clean, green and natural beauty is a strong suit.

Some of its tourist literature bears a remarkable resemblance to some of New Zealand's own mountain and forest jewels.

Santiago is a leafy inland city of six million and the 11 motorways under construction are the most obvious outward sign of its successfully developing economy.

Sweating at present in temperatures around 30C, it is separated from Argentina by an imposing snow-capped mountain range, part of the Andes, but the snow never reaches the city.

At 3000m that part of the range is a shade lower than Mt Cook's 3754m.

Those great outdoors, coupled with a fascinating political history of struggle, is likely why Chile actually is Helen Clark's kind of place and why she is now on her fifth visit to the country.

She shared that fact at a reception for friendly Chileans and expatriate Kiwis before the Apec leaders' summit. It was held in the ambassador's residence, a mock tudor-style home with a large outdoor terrace, sweeping lawn, garden and pool.

Polite conversation became louder and louder as the demand grew for pisco sour rose - the native cocktail Chileans love to call their "secret weapon" in trade talks.

Talk turned to comparisons between New Zealand and Chile.

It is decided that Chileans are not as friendly as Kiwis, but that is until they find you are not American.

One guest tells how he bought a piece of jewellery for his wife but when the assistant found out he was not American, gave him a discount.

After seeing 35,000 Chileans in an anti-Bush protest-cum-parade earlier that day, it was not hard to believe.

The conversation halted abruptly when a waiata broke out. It was the unofficial Santiago kapa haka group of 12 ex-pats and four Chileans.

They stood around Helen Clark - no pisco sour in sight - and sang to her. They had planned to support her after her speech but it hadn't seemed quite right, one said.

After all, she had ended on the fact that New Zealand's unemployment was the second lowest in the OECD, hardly conducive to spine-tingling songs about yearning for home.

The residence has been the ambassador's home almost from the time New Zealand first established relations with Chile in 1972.

Despite protests from the long-haired likes of a younger Helen Clark and Phil Goff, the post was kept open during the Pinochet dictatorship.