The South Chile Diet (Do not try at home)

"Sin Mayonesa."

They didn’t tell me this at the orientation events, but these have been the two most important words in the Spanish language during my trip so far. If you forget, eater beware, as more often than not you’ll get a whole lot more than you’ve bargained for, and on dishes you wouldn’t imagine.

Take the Chilean salad, which already leaves a little to be desired as it usually consists of a pile of lettuce and a stack of tomatoes, set next to each other. But when you add the mayo—and my host mother took a Jackson Pollack approach to one last week—it gets, well, even more interesting. The ultimate irony came yesterday when I was served an artichoke, a vegetable I actually enjoy dipping in mayonnaise, without mayo but with lemon juice. Go figure?



The typical Chilean diet would make an American nutritionist squirm: tons of white bread, fatty meat, salt, sugar and, of course, mayonnaise. While nutritionists in the states are pushing for multiple, smaller meals throughout the day, Chile has embraced the two huge meal-a-day philosophy with gusto. And when breakfast sometimes comes with a slice of coffee cake, and dinner is merely cake or white bread with tea or coffee, sweetness seems to reign supreme.

And sometimes that isn’t enough. When we were served a tamale-like dish (corn wrapped it its own husk and cooked, but without meat) after dinner the other day, I assumed it was merely another course. But after my host mom dumped a mountain of sugar on top (no joke, you could no longer see the corn) I realized dessert had been served.



To be fair, most of the food isn’t all that bad. To their credit, Chileans eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, and put avocado (palta) on everything as well, which is definitely a plus. The completo, a hot dog with avocado and tomatoes as garnish is the perfect late night snack—sin mayonesa, of course.

It begs the question: how is the entire nation not massively overweight like the U.S.? Everyone seems to be in decent enough health, and obese individuals are few and far between. Still, considering the diet, it’s hard to imagine how the country isn’t a walking triple bypass.

But that’s the kicker: walking. As in, everyone walks everywhere. Sure, the Metro and busses are necessary to go long distances, and cabs and personal cars clog the streets during rush hour, but there’s a good amount of pedestrian traffic that U.S. cities, at least residential areas, sorely lack. Even at 11:00 on a Friday night I see elderly couples on walks around the neighborhood.

Hopefully the U.S. will take notice and start building its communities around mass transit and pedestrian traffic avenues. Unfortunately, in its zeal for modernization, Chile’s press has been hyping the idea of cars for all families by 2018. If that happens, the personal freedoms Chileans gain by driving may come back to haunt them, both in smoggy skies and expanding waistlines.

Who let the dogs out?

Here in Latin America, the elephant in the room seems to be the dogs in the street. And there are tons of them. Some estimate that there are almost 500 million stray dogs out there in the world, and from my informal estimates a decent portion of that is in South America. Even this weekend, spent in sunny Valpraiso, I couldn't walk the street for more than 100 feet without running into a stray dog or two. It was the same in the southern regions, such as chilly Puerto Natales, and in Santiago--to a smaller extent.

Paola, our cheery host at Nikko's II, informed us while speeding down the Puerto Natales streets in a van that the stray dogs were rampant throughout South America, not just Chile. Very few seem to be fixed, and they get by rummaging through trash or scraps dropped by friendly neighbors. Nobody seems to mind them, or want to do anything about them. They're as much part of the steet culture as renegade taxis and grafitti murals.

Even the dogs with owners aren't fully under control. I learned this walking the hilly streets of Valpo, as I looked up to find a small dog nearly fall out a second-story window, barking at the rogue cannines on the avenues below.

Free the Finger!

No, this isn't about my good buddy Taj.

But my left ring finger, which I had broken over a week ago at Torres del Paine, is now splint-free. But now that it's not being supported, it's starting to hurt, and typing is still a chore. So there still may not be regular blog entries for the week, and I'm still going to refer to the park in Patagoia as Torres del PAIN. In any case, I tried to play a guitar at the Santiago mall the other day, to no avail, so hopefully I can make progress there now that I'm liberated. We have weekly Thursday musical jam sessions, "jueves musicales" as they're being called here, so by next week I should be up to speed.

Speaking of health, the Chilean health care system is remarkably modern and efficient. They had me in and out of there in 10 minutes. And the doctor was cheery and even seemed to understand my broken Spanish. Hate to promulgate stereotypes here, but it's good for a Latin American country. Of course, the Chileans will be quick to point out that Chile's life expectancy is only nominally behind the US, 77.85 to 76.56, respectively. Not bad for a country that wants to put mayonnaise on everything...