Coastal Chile...the land of sunsets

We rolled into Pichilemu – Chile’s premier surf town – a couple days ago. A smallish town of about 12K along Chile’s mid coast, it’s a nice place to hang out and take in some Chilean culture. Although, everywhere we have been in the past week or so, has seemed all but abandoned, including here. It’s that “back to school, summer’s over” feeling. The tourist info places are all boarded up. The up side, however, is that there is always lots of space wherever we go, and often have the place to ourselves. Just us, and the odd lunatic surfer. Man that looks cold! Sitting in our down jackets watching the sunset the other day, and watching the end-of-day surf dudes doing their thing, Amy says “you couldn’t pay me enough to be in that water”. I reluctantly agreed. The average water temp here, summer or winter, is about 13 degrees...nippy!


From Isla Negra we cycled down the coast a ways to the village of Mantanzas, a tiny out-of-the-way place, but a beautiful up-and-comer in the Chilean surf scene. The place was deserted except for, as mentioned, a few lunatic surfers donned head to toe in 6-mm wet suits. I think the surf missions here these days are 95% beer and good food, 5% surfing.  On our overnight stop to get there we were reminded of just how much more expensive Chile is than everywhere else we have been. The cheapest place we could find was 90 bucks. Whoa! There goes our daily budget up in flames...actually two daily budgets! 40 bucks/night is the new “cheap” here. Good wine is still affordable though...thank god! (we would have to leave immediately otherwise)


So Chilean culture...not exactly sure what to say just yet. Definitely the most “developed” of the bunch of countries that we have been through. Hardly any bombed-out concrete, and virtually no abandoned burned-out cars. Houses are pretty much complete, and include microwaves. The beds, and bathrooms, in particular are a few notches above what we’re used to. Showers are steaming hot and tend to come right out of the display cases in home building stores.


Avocadoes or palta here in Chile, as previously mentioned, are plump, delicious, and cheap, and appear to be their national food. The primary palta delicacy appears to be the infamous completo – a hot dog smothered in guacamole, mayonnaise, and other fine toppings. My 2-for-1 completo deal the other day sat in my stomach like a pound of nails for the rest of the day. However, following suit, Amy’s infamously delicious wine-snack-plates have evolved away from olives and cheese (Argentine specialties) to guacamole and veggies...”when in Rome...”


A fascinating aspect of Chilean life, somewhat reminiscent of Argentina, is the daily schedule. Thankfully, they don’t seem to follow the Argentine 11-pm dinner and 3-pm bedtime schedule. As far as we can tell, bed time is more or less normal. Mornings, however, are very slow. Ridiculously so, given my tendencies towards early-rising. 8 am is pre-dawn here. Not a soul up. You have the world to yourself (my favourite time). 9 am...might be able to find someone up. 10 am...should be able to do business, but depends, no guarantees. Our theory is that it’s a combination of it being dark until 8 am, and, the houses are so freakin’ cold that no one wants to get up when it’s dark and freezing (Amy is loving the freezing house thing...NOT). The result is an entire society waiting until about 9 am to get out of bed. Moral of the story: heat your house, so you get an extra two or three hours of productive time in the morning!


And then there’s “onces”. Haven’t pieced together the full story on this one yet, but from what we can gather, it’s “tea time” at about 5 or 6 pm, where Chilean’s typically sit down at the kitchen table and have tea and bready/cakey snacks. Basically it’s dinner – lunch, at about 2 pm, is their main meal of the day. They seem to have inherited this “tea time” ritual from the British who immigrated here in the 1800s. Interestingly, once means “eleven” in Spanish. Even more interestingly, no one seems to know where the origin of the term once came from. There are theories, but none of them really add up as you’re listening to a Chilean tell the story. My rudimentary google research tells me that it comes from the British “elevenes” which is a morning tea time back in the motherland that obviously got shifted towards the end of the day here in Chile, and into the more traditional afternoon “tea time” time slot. Regardless, the end result is us gorging on a huge plate of pasta and a fine bottle of Cabernet while the Chileans have a cup of tea and a biscuit with jam. Silly gringos.


So now what? We believe we have hit the southern extent of our mission, and are now looking north towards warmer climes. Time to turn around and go back, as it were. Our good-weather days are definitely numbered. Amy’s down jacket has become glued to her body. From here, our plan is to make our way to the big smoke of Santiago, Chile’s capital and main megatropolis, and chart a course back to our homeland...with a few stops along the way that we haven't 100% worked out yet. As always, more on that soon. Hasta la proxima baby.