Adventures in a Narrow Country

We had a barbecue on Friday. Three girls had just moved into Alejandro's apartment on the second floor, and it has become some sort of tradition to throw a celebratory asado to welcome newcomers to the building. The party ended up comprising 15 people- and somehow we still managed to buy too much food! Alejandro drove Anna and I to the working class outskirts of Santiago (the class system is very apparent here, and nobody seems embarassed of it), where the buildings change shade from the creams and brick-reds of Providencia to the Mexican yellows and pistachios of the graffiti-strewn suburbs. The butcher that Alejandro frequents is located in someone's garage in one of these communities. We pulled up to the curb, waking a couple of stray (or otherwise uncollared) dogs, who were free to roam in and out of the butcher's premises, and were introduced (with besitos, of course), to the butcher, his family and coworkers, and their resident pooch, as Alejandro's two 'rubias'. Seeing that we were English, they promptly offered the obligatory "Hello, how arrre yew". But we weren't interested in niceties; we were just worried that there were no gloves or plastic sheets involved in touching, weighing or wrapping the hunks of steak and sausages we were about to buy. "They'll be cooked anyway..." we told ourselves.

Screeching away from the butcher, we spotted a lady selling vegetables in her front room, so Alejandro reversed at about 30mph into oncoming traffic to backtrack and buy some tomatoes. 5000 pesos and 4 bags of vegetables later, we headed home to start cooking. The pisco flowed freely, and there was so much food left over that we're still eating it today! Anna and I headed to bed as the others ventured to pubs and clubs at 2am- we were planning on paragliding the next morning...

Five of us girls headed into the mountains the next morning with the intention of finding some sort of adventure, and, although paragliding didn't come into play, we happened across a national park and decided to ride some horses. I'd never ridden a horse before, but Choncho took fairly good care of me in spite of the occasional wild canter and frequent pitstops (he definitely had the munchies). I reckon our horseride through the wilderness, with the snow-capped mountains peeping up towards the sun, was the best thing I've done so far in Santiago. It was tranquil, but exciting, and I still ache- that must mean it was good exercise! There's still a way to go before I attempt the 6 hour ride and asado on offer, though!

La Entusiasta
xxx