In San Pedro, I learned that the name Pinochet could stop a conversation

The last time I was in Chile it was the anniversary of the accession to power of General Augusto Pinochet. I had been unaware of the holiday. My companions and I had walked down from the high Andean plateau of south-western Bolivia into the little desert town of San Pedro de Atacama in the extreme north of the country.

About 1,000 miles from Santiago, this is close to the great copper mine of Chuquicamata, source of so much of Chile’s wealth; not far from the sticky, seedy mining port of Antofagasta; not far from the Pacific. But San Pedro inhabits a different world. Its situation is high and, in winter, cool; the air is dry and clear; the sky is eggshell blue; and on the horizon stands a range of exhausted volcanoes which it is easy to imagine Disraeli had in mind when comparing such a sight with his political opponents. The stone and adobe settlement has one of the oldest churches in South America — small, simple and serene — and a timeless, unspoilt quality which draws discerning visitors both from abroad and from within Chile.

The day we walked in was almost a quarter-century after Pinochet’s coup and years after he had quit the presidency. He was already an old man, clinging to the title of Head of the Armed Forces, but being delicately edged from the political stage. Over the years he had acquired some measure of international respectability, but was almost a spent force.

Yet you could feel the tension in the air in San Pedro that night. Both among inhabitants and among Chilean holidaymakers, the unease was palpable. It was not fear: the General’s capacity to terrorise had passed. Nor was it active political anger or sympathy, or attachment to one or another cause: Chilean politics had moved on.