Word: antofagasta
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Nineteen forty-five was an important year for Neruda: he joined the Communist Party, was elected a Senator from Tarapaca and Antofagasta, two Chilean provinces populated by workers in the copper and nitrate mines, and wrote perhaps his most famous collection of poems, The Heights of Macchu Picchu. His decision to become a Communist caused him continual harassment; newspapers often would ignore his letters and censor his statements. He was briefly imprisoned in Argentina with no explanation given. Anti-Communist priests persecuted his poor friends and, finally, the Chilean courts ordered his arrest for criticizing the government, forcing him into...
...vice. The Trans-Siberia Express is running, though there is a strong possibility of having a lady commissar as your sleepermate. Angola's Benguela line, whose locomotives are the world's most fragrant (they burn eucalyptus logs), huffs up and down mountainsides, as does Chile's Antofagasta & Bolivia. The great Sud Express from Paris to Madrid - with a stop at the Spanish border for a change from standard-to broad-gauge (more than half a foot wider) undercar riage - still hauls magnificent Pullmans with inlaid-wood furniture and three-star menus. There are other royal rides...
...struggles and the suffering of ordinary people. The son of a railway worker killed in a fall from his train, Neruda lost the consulship accorded his early poems by declaring Chile opposed to facism in Spain without waiting for his government's instructions. In 1944, the nitrate miners of Antofagasta asked Neruda to run for the Chilean Senate, where he served for four years. In 1948, unwilling to refrain from criticizing an American-supported dictator, Neruda was forced to go underground. For several months miners and working people helped him evade the Secret Police, passing him from house to house...
...Castro plainly failed to arouse much excitement. When he arrived, a crowd of some 750,000 Chileans lined the streets of Santiago, chanting "Fidel, Fidel, give those Yankees hell!" Bigger and more enthusiastic crowds had turned out for Charles de Gaulle in 1964 and Queen Elizabeth in 1968. In Antofagasta, where there are three universities, Castro drew only 400 to a student rally...