Chile Chile Chile

Chile is huge (more than 5,000 kms from north to South) and in the past two months I have visited the lower two third

It has been truly fantastic and to illustrate this I can just say that I was planning to spend 3 weeks in Chile and I am already at 8 with more to come (I am on my way to San Pedro de Atacama, the driest desert in the world). I stopped trying to rank countries but Chile is definitively competing with Japan for the top spot.

You'll see in all the albums of Chile (in chronological order with comments on them) a part of what makes it so appealing to me: a nature that is truly wonderful and to me it is even nicer than New Zealand which is to say how high I rate it. Patagonia where I have spent a month is a such a great place I would advise any fan of outdoor to get there because it is special and like no other place I have been to. All this time in Patagonia I have done a lot of treking. I guess around 250/300 kms in one month and at least 150 kms with my backpack including 130 kms in 6 days at the Torres del Paine which have been quite rewarding.

But I love Chile not only for what you can see in the pictures (and I have seen a lot of natural beauties before) but for many other reasons. The first one is that it is really a challenge to speak Spanish. My first month has been really hard and my rate of mistakes has been really really high. Nevertheless I hardly ever met people who did not try to understand me. There is one word you should know about Chilean. It is wueon (or huevon nobody really knows who to write it). It actually mean many things (from what you say to your good friend to arsehole) and you sometime hear it three times per sentence.

Another things are the Chileans themselves. They are truly nice and welcoming. I'll mention two of them but I have so many examples: Ricardo whom I met in Australia who introduced me to his friends and family and who let me stay at his sister place. He took me to the beach when I came back to Santiago or with him for the elections in December. He also introduced me to many cultural aspects of Chile. The second example is the family who owns the hospedaje in Coyhaique where I have spent New year Eve. From the first moment I felt at home (actually at my grand mother´s place to be honest) and they even invited us on the 31st to have diner with them and then dance with them. Unique.

Finally I had the luck to meet Florian and Eugenie with whom I traveled one month (the longest I did over the past 11 months) and their company has just been great. We also had week with Antone and Elise who added some Belgian favour to our group.