Chile Dog !!!

Earlier this week, I spent three days in San Pedro de Atacama, located in one of the driest deserts in the world. The town is over-run with tourists and solely geared for us with over-priced restaurants, inflated food and drink prices, tour agencies, internet shops and hostals, hostels and hotels. Any ¨small town¨personality has long disappeared with the prospect of making money. While the town was in my opinion unimpressive, the scenery and landscape more than made up for it. The surrounding red canyons, rocky or sand-duned landscape, wind or rain-sculptured rock faces, meadering river or dried river beds are all for the exploring. I rented a mountain bike and with plenty of water, happily got lost in the canyons, following a trail and empty river channel, clamouring over fallen boulders.

You can also watch the sunset at Moon Valley and most impressively catch the sunrise on the geyser fields. A 10 square-km field of therma-steam eruptions, best viewed in the early morning as the cool air and sudden volcanic heat creates funnels of steam. There is also a hot spring to swim and nearby gaint geyers are bubbling away.    

I have been in Santiago for three days walking in various barrios, Buenavista, Brasila, Golf and Centro. Unfortunately, the Plaza De Armas (a common name given to many main squares in South America as the Spaniards use to store their arms in that location and if attacked, the citizens would go there to arm themselves) was behind green walls for renovations. Many parts of Santiago feels like a European,
Canadian or American city complete with a palace and changing of the guards. There are plenty of malls with people shopping name brand goods, familiar Starbucks, McDonalds and Burger Kings around, and modern amentities, like safe drinking water from the tap and sinks with hot water again.

There are also these distinct ¨cafe con piernas (coffee with legs)¨shops in the downtown areas where women serve coffee in mini-dresses and high heels, often on cat walks. Cafe Do Brasil, Cafe Caribe and Cafe Haiti are popular places where there are only visible counters to stand and sip strong coffee, surrounded by
mirrors to promote the scenery. These cafes are only opened during the daytime and mainly caters to office workers and businessmen. The coffee (accompanied by a small glass of soda water) is not bad considering instant coffee is what you typically get when you order coffee in Chile. Aparently, the ¨cafe con piernas¨ started in the 1980´s or 1990´s as one failing coffee shop decided to employ this new scheme to draw patrons. It worked and was then copied by others, and the trend continues today.      

After a week and half, I have concluded Chileans love hot dogs. In particular, the ¨Italian Completo¨ which consists of a rubbery, boiled wiener generously topped with avacado, minced tomatoes and
mayonaise on a white bun (yes, that is correct, the colours of the Italian flag) or simply ¨Complete,¨ with sauerkraut, tomatoes and mayo and the same rubbery wiener. Starting at lunch to after-work and after the bar, these hot dogs are relentlessly consumed from street stalls, fast-food shops to restaurants. Let it not be said that I did not try this national obsession in my endless search to find local specialities. It tasted exactly the way I thought it would. Filling and meat that didn´t taste like meat and with each bite, I knew it was bad for me.

I was also surprised how big Holloween is in Santiago as many street vendors and stores are selling costumes, bagged candies and the usual cheap Holloween decorations found at home. Holloween is an holiday in Chile as well as the following day, with the religious All Souls Day. Banks and everyday stores are closed and the sidewalks full of families enjoying their day off. In the late afternoon, children started walking around in costumes with their parents collecting candy.

Off to catch a bus to the nearby port city of Valparaiso.