Bring on the Argentinean Santa Ana's...
CHILE | Monday, 24 December 2007 | Views [1062]
We had to abort our mission this morning to climb up and snowboard down Volcán Villarica. We woke up to 80km winds and raging hot temperatures well over 35 degrees. It's like a giant Santa Ana, with hot desert winds sweeping in from Argentina. And for those of you who don't know what a Santa Ana feels like, it's like sitting on a 35 degree C day with someone holding a life sized hair blower on super hot, blowing full speed over your entire body. It's also very dusty here, many roads are not paved, and everywhere are dirt devils swirling in the streets. There's not much we can do in this outdoor wonderland under these conditions, so we seek out cafes with shade and wind blockage, and just hang out until the cafes close for the usual mid day siesta. The "siesta thing" really throws us off here, similar to Spain, Portugal and the rest of Central and South America, shops close down around 1:00 p.m. for several hours so the owners can go home, eat and sleep. For a highly touristic town, it's amazing to us that they prefer siesta'ing to profits, but there's our typical "US" work regimen kicking in. In the US, things are always open, always available and business owners are all about "every last sale" they can make for the day. Here, people value their family and self time, and prioritize general well being over making more money. Imagine that! It's a bit inconvenient for travelers, but once we get on the time schedule and also learn how to take naps and relax mid-day, it's easy to slip into the local rhythm... you'd think we'd have learned this by now, having been in Latin America since September, but old habits dye hard.
We do manage to find just a few restaurants open for Christmas Eve dinner this evening. While our Italian restaurant dinner is certainly nothing to write home about, the traditional fare that the locals are preparing definitely is. As we walk back to our guesthouse around 11:30 p.m., literally, every family is out in either front or back yard, roasting up a big beast of an animal over a huge rusty BBQ. It looks like some are giant pigs, others have lamb or cows, but everyone's got their roast going on at this late hour, getting ready for tomorrow's big full-day family Christmas feast.
