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ISLA NEGRA - Home of PABLO NERUDA
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Pablo Neruda is Chile´s Poet. He won the Nobel Peace Prize and is known world-wide.
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We visited his home on Isla Negra which is a quaint town by the ocean, west of Santiago. The setting is beautiful, on a ridge above the sea. The home tells wonderful stories of the life of Neruda. It is a serpentine group of rooms, each with its own special tale.
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The first living room has a collection of beautiful wooden figureheads from ships. There are angels from France, a huge one-piece Comanche Chief from North America, and Pablo´s favorite, a beautiful woman figurehead with glass eyes. When they would come from Santiago to Isla Negra in the winter, a fire would be lit in the fireplace and as the room warmed up, the glass eyes were the last. Because of this phenomenon, condensation occurred, and the figure would appear to cry.
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Passing through the dining room with two huge windows, one on the sea side with large glass bottles lining the base of the window, all in the colors of the sea, blues and greens; and on the land side were crystal jugs of earth tones, sepia and sienna. The round table was set with individual placemats with different pictures of ships, except for Pablo´s which had navitagional instruments, since he was the captain of the house. The glasses were from Mexico. Behind Neruda´s chair at the table is a huge wooden head of a pirate who gazes across the room to the opposite wall where a beautiful wooden figure stands, quietly gazing out at the sea. The enamored pirate ignored by the beautiful woman.
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Neruda bought the house with these two rooms, and slowly built the rest of the house, room by room, for his large and varied collections of objects from around the world. African masks of all shapes and intents, ships in bottles, Easter Island canes and carvings, trinkets and objects from many countries and peoples. Besides being a poet, he spent many years as Chilean embassador to various countries, including Burma, Ceylon, Java, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Madrid. (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1971/neruda-bio.html).
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This room is one of his writing rooms. There is a small photograph behind the desk of him writing in this actual spot. They have arranged it to be as close as possible to the way it was when he lived there. The desk is actually made from a hatch door (from a ship) that floated in one day from the ocean. He fixed it to use as a desk.
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The huge fireplace in another room is a free-form design of semi-precious stones, which a female artist friend of his created. One large geode is the point of interest in this design, which Pablo himself placed there. This room has a tiny bathroom for his gentlemen visitors, with postcards of attractive and scantily clad women from around the world.
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Another room is dedicated to his childhood and contains a life-size sculpture of a horse. When he was young he saw this horse outside a shop which sold saddles and other livery items and he loved it. Forty years later he learned that the shop had burned and he immediately went to the owner and bought the sculpture. Sadly the horse was slightly singed also, with the mane and tail gone. He then, as whas his joy, had a welcome home party for the horse. All his friends brought gifts for the horse, and three of those gifts were actual horse hair tails. One is now the mane and the other 2 are the horse´s tail.
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I have many more tales and stories about the home, but will put those off for another time ... I know many are anxious to read this next blog and I want to get it published. See more photos of Neruda´s home: http://www.fundacionneruda.org/imagenes_islanegra.htm becasue we were NOT allowed to photograph inside the house since it´s privately owned.

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Our group outside Neurda´s home, overlooking the ocean. This is near the spot where Pablo and his wife Matilde are buried. Below is Anna enjoying the beautiful view.