Tastes of Chile
What follows is my own personal collection of relative oddities about Chile:
Busking. Rather than the usual forms of busking for money (singing, instrument playing, etc.) we witnessed a new form of an old trade: juggling for money in the intersections. Often, we saw young guys performing some exceptional juggling acts for the cars waiting at stop lights, and then take a bow before collecting donations. It’s a pretty good show if you’re sitting at an outdoor cafe near an intersection.
Advertising. Speaking of intersections, in some of the really heavy traffic zones, there were people that were hired to carry out oversize banners into the street for the cars waiting for the light to change. One on each side, they would trudge out into the crosswalk and display the ad for about 20 seconds before moving back to the sidewalk. On a good day, this would be a pretty dull occupation; standing in the sun on a hot day wouldn’t make it any better.
Pisco. This is a brandy-like drink whose origin is a major point of contention between Chile and Peru. Each country insists it is the home of this fiery liquor but neither can conclusively prove it so the battle rages on. It’s not just a mild disagreement, either; apparently, it’s quite a serious issue. We tried a couple of varieties of the Chilean pisco: pisco sour (imagine pale brandy with lemon juice and sugar) and piscola, a blend of pisco and Coke. Chileans drink these as aperitifs, but after two of either, we were under the table.
Coca-Cola. Why is it that so many people enjoy a Coke with dinner? I mean, it’s no secret that people in North America drink a lot of pop, but it seems a trifling amount compared to our South American counter-parts. Coke Zero is huge here.
PDA. People in Asia would be shocked to witness the public displays of affection in Chile. In a restaurant for dinner one evening in Santiago, we were the only couple not making out at the table, no exaggeration. And it went on for so long, it was pretty distracting from eating.
Fast Talking. Just when I was starting to get used to Argentine castellano, we arrived in Chile where they speak in a blur and drop letters off of some words. “Gracias” becomes “gracia” and “por favor” becomes “po favo”. Even the Argentines think the Chileans speak too fast.
Queuing. An interesting phenomenon that we’ve witnessed only in Chile and Argentina is the queuing for the bus. Lines of patient people snake along the sidewalks waiting for the buses to arrive and then – so organized! – people climb aboard one by one until it is full to capacity. Never did we see anyone budging in line or crowding the doors. Amazing.
Showers. This is new: instead of automatic, continuous-flow water heaters that start when up the faucet is turned on, the heaters for some Chilean showers must be manually ignited beforehand. In other words, they use gas heaters that one must light like a furnace with a pilot light each time one wishes to have a hot shower. (Speaking of odd showers, we’re in Bolivia now and this is the first instance of the shower-head-mounted electric water heater I’ve seen. Our guidebook says to wear rubber-soled shoes in the shower to avoid unpleasant shocks.)
The perplexing persistence of Nescafe. How does this product survive?! It is an insult to real coffee and yet its existence is ubiquitous. I’ve actually given up coffee and have taken to tea so as to avoid the risk of ordering coffee and getting sludgy Nescafe.