Un retrato de la Plaza de Armas

They may not be as quaint as the original plazas dotting every city in Spain, but Chile does what it can to ensure every town is equipped with a Plaza de Armas (as well as an Avenida Alameda, and a Bernardo O'Higgins, and an Independencia, and a San Martín, and an Estado...o sea, all the streets have the same names, laid out in different patterns in each city...or lain out? I never know.).

In any case, I wish I could take you on a walk through Plaza de Armas on a weekday afternoon. Everytime I walk through the plaza, I can't help but laugh to myself (and sometimes, embarrassingly, out loud) at all the silly antics of the plaza patrons. And, if you were with me, I'm certain we would make our way blindly through the caricatures and amateur paintings of every picture-postcard scene that exists in Chile until that strange stone sculpture caught our eyes with its stature so disproportionate--as if it were trying to look more important than it actually is, than is actually ever was. Who made that decision, anyway? But there's no reason to dwell on any one pecularity for too long.

A mime draws a crowd of families and lunch hour passers-by.
There are ponies that look awfully similar to brooms with bits of wig on them.
There are llamas wearing miniature hats--which I still think is criminal. Llamas were never meant to wear hats.
And the local pigeon brigade flocks in for a feeding frenzy sponsored by a heartful niña--sending a plaza dog cowardly into refuge beneath the nearest park bench, where he peers out apprehensively between the feet of a bench-sitter, perhaps considering how to send the pigeons exploding off into the overcast afternoon but, perhaps, too overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the little bastards--I know I am.
A man standing by a tree with a large amp splays irreverant decibels into the overcrowded air--an incomprehensible geyser of good intentions, but pitifully little creativity.
Ice cream. Mote con huesillo (stranger, to me, than the mysterious "red bean drink" that you might find in an East Asian restaurant)--it's a summer drink with peach nectar, a dehydrated peach (pit intact), and wheat berries in the bottom. Cotton candy. Roasted nuts that, anyone will proudly boast, are sold in New York by the now-famous Chilean who launched the company, Nuts4Nuts. The whole plaza smells like fair grounds.
And at twenty collapsable card tables men play chess as the church clock absently chimes the hours away.

The Plaza was a good idea.