The Clan

Tucked away in the muralled backstreets of Bellavista lies Bar Clan, hidden away but a good venue to catch some great local live music, from folk to electro to rock to cumbia to hip hop. The name is short for Clandestino and, as such, there is no sign to mark the place although the music and queue is usually a pretty good sign that it's there. But still, you`ll need to have a rough idea of the address to find it so head for Bombero Nuñez 363.

The place is decked out in some pretty hippy strokes, lumescent designs on the walls and a mellow vibe in the darkness. There's lots of nice little alcoves to sit in and cosy up with whoever and a tree grows from the bar out the back which is a terrace in summer and enclosed in winter. There's a friendly ambience and it's not as much of a piss-up as in Onaciu or the meat market that is Bar Constitución, meaning you can take your girlfriend or date and stilll go to the bathroom reasonably confident that you won't return to a ring of slavering ogres surrounding her.

The entrance takes you into the main bar, where the stage is at, and there's another area at the back which is more chilled out (with the aforementioned tree). It's a pleasant enough layout but the biggest problem with Bar Clan is the location of the stage. The venue is spread of the two rooms in a long rectangle shape. Unfortunately the stage is directly in front of the main bar, meaning that as soon as there are any decent number of people there, the whole thing gets bottlenecked. There's space to the sides but they really ought to have a look at rearranging the place so as to maximise the space. There's little room to dance, and bearing in mind this is Latin America and not the UK, that's a big thing. It's still a good venue although I can't help thinking a financial splurge on changing things around would make it one of the main places in the area.

But the standard of most of the musicians makes up for that more or less and gives a good mix of musical styles. In Bellavista it's probably the most diverse venue and is always worth a gamble if there's not much going on and you're after some tunes. Also, the streets outside are covered in hippy murals and graffiti pieces that give the neighbourhood a rather charming bohemian sheen, in a decrepid and dog shit smeared kind of way.

This week, they've got some experimental hip hop fusion (interesing!), punk surf rock (obviously) and a night of Afro-Latinamerican beats (nice). Here's the link to Bar Clan: www.elclan.cl

Loreto

The main drag of Bellavista is Pino Nono (if you're under twenty and like reggaeton) of Calle Constitución (if you're not). This is where most of the bars and restaurants are and, as a result, it's where most newcomers to Santiago head for a drink. Pio Nono is packed out with students, tourists and drunks drinking in the street or in the many gaudy bars that blast out heavy metal or cheesy latin beats while hippies sell all kinds of trinkets along the pavement. Parallel is Constitución which has some very nice restaurants and decent bars and is more upmarket. Anyway, everyone knows about this area and it's hardly Santiago Underground so let's move on.

My reason for bringing this up is that, while this is the well-known part of Bellavista, the back streets are far more interesting and make up one of the true eclectic barrios of the city. A mixture of grand old villas, ramshackle warehouses, colourful terraces and some decent bars and restaurants tucked away, the area is decorated in a thick coat of street art, both good and bad, that further characterises the place and gives it a warm charm. During the day that is, at night it can be a bit sketchy with drunken wankers.

One of the main streets in this part of Bellavista is Loreto, which has a bunch of stuff to check out. If you cross the bridge near Belles Artes Museum you arrive at the bottom of Loreto which cuts and arches through Bellavista and ends up near the foot of San Cristobal. There are interesting pieces of graffiti all along the street (some pretty awful ones as well) and the mix of buildings, old and new, grand and humble, swanky and dilapidated, give it a nice varied flavour.

As far as places to go for something to eat or drink go, the first place of any note that you pass heading from the river is Toro, a Spanish-style resto-bar that is apparently down with the media celebrity crowd (I just have friends' words to vouch for that as I don't really recognise these people) and was very nice the only time I ate there, when I had a very good cerviche. I've been there just for a drink a few times as well and I like it's scruffy low-key vibe.

On the bend is the Fonda Permanente, which is this raucous joint that specialises in Cumbia and Pachanga parties. They have lots of live bands who create a wild and impassioned atmosphere which is much closer in spirit to Latin American traditions than other bars and venues round here but is admittedly not always to everyone's taste.

A bit further along, there are two of Bellavista's main late night venues, Onaciu and Loreto. Onaciu is in this old house and gets packed out at about 2am, has live bands earlier in the night, and DJs who seem to always play exactly the same songs (popular rock and electro mainly : it's difficult to go out in Bellavista without hearing Girls and Boys by Blur at least once over the course of the night). Anyway, it's an Ok place of you like going out till late and the building is pretty cool in its rickety old way.

Opposite is Loreto, which is cooler and seems like more of a club than a bar. A lot of hipsters hang out but again there's nothing particularly special other than live bands, DJs who at least mix it up a bit more than Onaciu but prices are similar. I've usually had a few drinks by the time I arrive at one of these places so it doesn't really bother me which I go to. It depends on who I'm with really.

There's also an 'after' (late night not-entirely-legal drinking venue) just before you reach the bend in the road which if you're pissed and want to keep going until seven or eight in the morning gives you an option although it's not always open. It's in this crappy and dirty old warehouse place with filthy toilets but by this stage of the night it's unlikely that'll bother you. Women generally get in free and blokes pay although that should come with a 'cover' (drink). It can be a shit place or an Ok place to keep drinking depending on various factors: how drunk you are, how drunk the other people are, if you're with mates or girlfriend and so on. At least it's somewhere to go but don't expect to do much the next day.

So you get to end of Calle Loreto and it hits the bottom of San Cristobal on another typical Bellavista street, more shabby but colourful buildings, more street art, more grand old mansions. So there you go. At night it's a more tucked away but very popular and more local place to go out, and by day it makes an interesting neck of the woods to have a stroll around. There's a nice sense of charm, in a run-down sort of way.

I also met this cat on my travels researching this blog. It seemed to live in this corner shop and went by the imaginative name of Kitty. It had an incredible face and was very friendly, climbing up on me as soon as I showed it just a bit of attention. The floozy.

The new local

One of my favourite bars in Santiago is Cafe Brazil, this cool rickety old place with walls plastered with posters of long-gone festivals and demonstrations, obligatory Chilean leftist iconography of Che Guevara, Victor Jara and Salvador Allende, and the scribblings of years of beatnik intellectual contemplation (to be honest I haven´t got round to reading the walls and it could just as well be Jose 4 Sonia or Diego woz 'ere although the bohemian vibe and sixties and seventies political slogans allows you to suspect such a thing). The bar is mellow, there´s live music most nights (bands, singers and spontaneous jams), cold and reasonably priced beer, healthy measures of pisco, and complimentary popcorn of the highest calibre! So, all in all, it´s a pretty swinging joint.

I guess Cafe Brazil is a bit of a local institution whose regulars have been going there for years. It started out as a smaller cafe in Plaza Brasil and became a venue for political meetings and discussion, as well as other themes, due to a lack of alternatives in the barrio. Over time the place started to get more popular with students, musicians, writers and artists, gradually developing into a centre of left-wing politics and alternative culture. It´s small size eventually became a problem and they moved around the corner to bigger premises in Avenida Cumming, in a building previously the headquarters of one-time presidential candidate for the Communist Party, Gladys Marin, and subsequently used by other affiliated political groups. It remains there today and is typical of the shabby but charming old buildings that make up this part of Santiago.

They put on a lot of decent music on most nights of the week, with Chilean folk and andina musicians very popular and welcome thanks to their intrinsic links with the left-wing political movement. There is also regular poetry, dance classes, theatre workshops and so on. It also maintains its political identity: outside in the street there is a display which documents the positive steps taken by the socialist administration of Allende to improve the lot of the people and the subsequent reversals implemented by the dictatorship. Then there´s this old boy, who I take to be the dueño (landlord), who wanders around the tables stern-faced and impeccably dressed. For me, this is what a bar should be: venue, meeting place, cultural and community centre and workshop.

There are a lot of nice bars and places to eat in this part of town but Cafe Brazil is pretty unique. It´s also my new local as I just moved in around the corner and expect I´ll be heading there regularly in the evenings. Last night there was this female group who mixed it up a bit with traditional andina songs and then some cumbia. I´m not sure what´s on this weekend but it doesn´t matter, you can just head over and pay a couple of luca on the door and there´s likely to be something interesting going on. The link to the website´s at the side of the page to the left. Definitely a good place.