Visit to the Naval and Maritime Museum

Sunday March 23 started foggy and never really warmed up.  Our coldest day of the trip- about 16C.  We layered up under our leather jackets and headed out to the one museum in our neighbourhood; the Museo Naval y Maritimo (Naval and Maritime Museum).

Museo Naval y Maritimo with cannons

There was an imposing statue of Admiral Jose Toribio Merino (1915-1996), who helped create the museum.  The museum is organized chronologically and one of the last rooms is dedicated to Admiral Merino, who it turns out was one of the four principal leaders of the 1973 coup.  He directed the Navy Blockade of Valparaiso on September 11, 1973 and was responsible for the economic measures of the junta.  He remained in the junta from 1973-90 and was also Commander in Chief of the Navy. He also served as Vice-President during part of this period.

Jose Toribio Merino 1915-1996

At the entrance to the museum were two torpedoes and a sign saying that one should demonstrate respect in the museum, followed by Viva Chile!

The entrance to the museum

The first room we entered had a beautiful stained glass map of Chile.

Viva Chile!

We then entered a room devoted to Bernardo O'Higgins (1778-1842), a leader along with Jose de San Martin of Chile's independence.  O'Higgins, the illegitimate son of an Irishman who had served the Spaniards as Viceroy of Peru, became supreme director of the new Chilean republic in 1818.

Bernado O'Higgins leading the way

Battle for Independence

We then entered a room with beautiful stained glass pictures of a number of the great Chilean heroes.  Three of the key players were Lord Thomas Cochrane, Bernardo O'Higgins and Arturo Prat.

Lord Thomas Cochrane (1775-1860) founded and commanded Chile's navy.  He also helped lead independence battles for Chile, Brazil, Peru and Greece.  He was made a Chilean citizen.

Lord Thomas Cochrane

Bernardo O'Higgins

The third portrait was of Arturo Prat (1848-1879), a lawyer and Navy officer killed after boarding the Peruvian ship Huascar in 1879 during the Battle of the Pacific against Peru and Bolivia, which lasted until 1883.

                                                                                          Arturo Prat

There were also two large stained glass world maps- one with pictures of  Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan and the other with Nicholas Copernicus and Neil Armstrong!

Copernicus and Armstrong

There were also separate rooms dedicated to O'Higgins, Cochrane and Prat.  There was a great sign-up poster from London, England looking for seamen to serve with Captain Lord Thomas Cochrane.  I like the reference to the fact that under his name it says "who was not drowned in the ARAB as reported".

There were a number of pictures in the museum of the battle for independence.

Battle for independence

Cochrane, who was born in Scotland, became a member of the Royal Navy and also a Member of Parliament  He was dismissed from the Royal Navy in 1814 after the Great Stock Exchange Fraud.  He also maintained his innocence in that scandal.  He then helped organize or lead rebels for independence in Chile, Peru, Brazil and Greece.  He ultimately was pardoned by the Crown and reinstated in the Royal Navy.  He died in 1860 and was buried at Westminster Abbey.  Every May, representatives of the Chilean Navy hold a wreath-laying ceremony at his grave

Lord Thomas Cochrane's gravestone inscription

We then went into a room dealing with the War in the Pacific which took place from 1879-1883.

There was a gallery of photos of the key players who participated in the war.

                                              Gallery of those who fought in the War in the Pacific                             

There was a number of other rooms dealing with the Battle of the Pacific.  One room had a large mural featuring the players in the battle, including Captain Artuto Prat.

Arturo Prat

Mural with Prat on left side upper corner

Prat was the Captain of the Esmeralda.  He was killed when he boarded a Peruvian battleship.  The Esmeralda had been rammed by the Peruvian ship and later sunk.  The Chileans carried on with the battle, which they ultimately won in 1883, claiming a part of what is now northern Chile from Peru and Bolivia.  There were many relics in the room. 

There was also a room entirely devoted to Arturo Prat.  His picture is on the left wall.  There were pictures of him at various ages, many personal affects, and a large Chilean flag from his era formed a canopy in the room.

We then headed upstairs to the second floor of the museum.  There were rooms devoted to the merchant marines, and model ship builders.  The most interesting was the room devoted to Admiral Jose Toribio Merino, the Commander of the Navy from 1973-1990 and member of the junta.

Jose Torbidio Merino

With Francisco Franco

There was a fascinating document signed by Pinochet in1990 to Admiral Merino thanking him for his service from September 11, 1973 to March 1990 with the phrase "Mision Cumplida" (Mission Accomplished)!  Yikes! 

Mission Accomplished!

After visiting the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, it was a bit much seeing the glorification of Admiral Merino.

In the courtyard, there was a lovely figurehead from the brow of a boat representing "the woman in the heart of the brave mariners."

Blanca Estela- White Wake

The inner courtyard was filled with other relics, including a number of torpedoes.

                                                                     Aye, Aye Captain

There was also a display of one of the capsules that the Navy helped build to rescue the 33 Chilean miners trapped 630 m underground in 2010.  The capsule was very narrow.

                                                              The Fenix capsule used to rescue miners

              Alongside the capsule

We took another picture of the port from the museum vantage point.

We then went for a walk in our neighbourhood.  We passed a corner store with a number of reproductions of old Coca-Cola posters.  Coke is huge in Chile.

                                                                   50th anniversary of Coca Cola 1886-1936

It was then back to the B&B for a chicken dinner.  It was very cold in the evening as there is no heat.  Hard to think we are only 1 1/2 hours from the lovely dry heat of Santiago.  We have not been wandering too far afield in the evenings, as people keep telling us to be wary.  It is a rough port town.  However, post UNESCO designation, there has been a lot of money poured into the city for revitalization.  A work in progress.