Chile: A Brief Geography

Basics: Chile can be found on the south western part of South America, bordered by Andes and Argentina in the east, Peru and Bolivia in the north, the Pacific Ocean in the west and the Antarctic in the south. Chile has an unusual shape, probably the most unusual in the world. From north to south it stretches 2450 miles ( c.f. with UK 645 miles) but only averages 110 miles in width. Chile has sovereignty over the Easter Islands, Robinson Crusoe Islands and part of the Antarctic. Many consider Chile to be an island due to this isolation and it has for example spared Chile from the devastating Phylloxera , which attacked and destroyed most of the worlds grapevines, hence Chile is very careful in terms of importation of plant material into Chile.

Some Scary Information:
The northern two thirds of Chile lie on top of an unstable plate that is moving east and downwards under the the continental plate of South America, at the rate of 10cm per year, hence the earthquakes. This movement has resulted in Chile having a very deep trench lying beyond a narrow band of coastal waters off the northern 2/3rds of the country. The trench is about 93 miles wide ( note Chile only 110 miles wide) and averages 16,000 feet deep. This means most of Chile lies on top of a cliff and could just topple in.. ahhh!

This collision between the plates created the Andes,  a geologically young mountain range that, in the Chilean territory alone has 620 volcanoes , many of them active. About 60 have erupted in the last century and there has been two major eruptions so this century. During the 20th centuary, Chile has been struck by 28 major earthquakes, all with a force greater than 6.9 on the Richter. The biggest occurred in 2010 (8.8) and in Valdivia (9.5) in 1960.

The Ocean Border
Much of Chile's coastline is rugged, with the ocean creating fantastic surfing opportunities and surfs that explode against the rocks that line the coast. The collision of land and ocean gives way every so often to lovely beaches. 
The Humboldt current, which originates from the Antarctic runs the full length of the Chilean coast making the water cold. So swimming at Chile's popular beaches in the central part of the country, where the water gets no warmer than 15C in the summer requires some fortitude. Actually I tried it once off the coast of Valdevia, and it was blooooooooooooooody frezzing, I was in for about 20 seconds.

Summary: Courtesy of Wikipedia

Area:
total: 756,102 km² (291,933 sq mi)
land: 743,812 km² (287,187 sq mi)
water: 12,290 km² (4,745 sq mi)
note: includes Easter Island (Isla de Pascua) and Isla Sala y Gómez

This does not include the Chilean claims to Antarctica, which overlaps with the Argentinian and British claims. All Antarctic claims are frozen under the Antarctic treaty.

Area - comparative:
Canada: roughly half the size of Quebec
US: slightly smaller than twice the size of Montana

Land boundaries:
total: 6,339 km (3,939 mi)
border countries: Argentina 5,308 km (3,298 mi), Bolivia 860 km (534 mi), Peru 171 km (106 mi)

Coastline: 6,435 km (3,999 mi)

Maritime claims:
contiguous zone: 24 nmi (44.4 km; 27.6 mi)
continental shelf: 200–350 nmi (370.4–648.2 km; 230.2–402.8 mi)
exclusive economic zone: 200 nmi (370.4 km; 230.2 mi)
territorial sea: 12 nmi (22.2 km; 13.8 mi)

Places I have Travelled to and my favourites

1. Easter Island, Chile
2. London, UK
3. New York City, NY, USA
4. Gaucin, Spain
5. Edinburgh, UK
6. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
7. Ronda, Spain
8. Rome, Italy
9. Santiago, Chile
10. Valdivia, Chile
11. Philadelphia, PA, USA
12. Paris, France

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Winter Arrives _ Rain at Last!

At  end of May the weather started to turn. The days are still been warm (between 16 to 20C with bright sunshine) but night time tempertaures drop to between -8 (out here in Lampa) and 5C. It has only rained a handful of times since November last year so the air is quite dusty in Santiago. The other drawback of the warm daytime temperatures is the temperature inversion effect like in Los Angeles. The pollution in the city is pretty bad. It is like a really foggy day in the UK, except the poor visibility is caused by pollutants. There are vehicular restrictions with heavy fines if you use your car. So you have to check what plates are allowed into the city on a daily basis: in fact I get a text message to warn me if I cannot use my car. But after it rains the views are amazing. 

Clear Santiago after a days rain

Clear Santiago after a days rain

Since January many things have happened:


We had non-stop coverage of Obama's  visit to Chile in late January. He brought with about 700 staff and a whole host of vehicles. The roads were closed for hours around Santiago preventing people from getting to work and around, many were really pissed off with the amount of attention accorded. And in the heart of the nuclear problems facing Japan after the earthquake and notwithstanding that Chile has experienced the two worst earthquakes ever recorded worldwide,  the USA and Chile signed a pact to help develop nuclear power in Chile. Bloody mad! 


In February we spent our first Valentine´s Dday together. As a surprise I took Eli to this wonderful boutique hotel, The Aubrey in Santiago, had a romantic meal and enjoyed explored Bellavista. It was some exploration as I spent £400 on a sculpture of Don Quijote.                                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                             Eli surprised me with a kitten - Seve is his name. It was a romantic day. It's a bundle of fun now, running around the house with its big bushy tail held up high and annoying all the dogs in the street. 

We also had our first visitors from the UK since I got here. We welcomed Ella and Doran. We spent a great week togther showing them Santiago and tasting the food and drink of course.  

http://www.oceanpacifics.cl/main.htm

http://www.theaubrey.com/

I also had my operation to remove my lesion in my colon in February too. The doctors were able to safely remove pre-cancerous cells and undertake a full colonscopy with biopsies every ten 10cm. The operation was at University Catholica Hospital,  which was very modern and efficient but you had to have health insurance. Please please don´t support the destruction of the NHS, because the private system, no matter what people say is there to make money.There were more staff administering the admission to the hospital than there were health workers. The amount of checks and forms that needed to be completed before the doctor is given permission to continue is madness. We found out  when I was admitted that my Medical insurance did not cover me automatically to have operations at that particular hospital, and it was decided by the hospital a month before and nobody informed us. This meant paying up front first , a cool 2000 pounds and claiming afterwards. Of course all of you have experienced how efficient insurance companies are at paying up.. they are evaluating my claim at the moment. .. ha ha!

At the beginning of the March, Eli started a new job, she joined Pontificia Universidad Católica de Santiago and she was very happy but the struggle with her power crazy boss ended with her resigning. She was meant to Head of Projects but she spent much of her four weeks having her PowerPoint presentations rewritten and simple letters to clients corrected. Although Eli had no problems with this, her boss has no idea of Pareto´s Principle and spent an inordinate amount of time making minor minuscule corrections that it drove Eli round the bend. Anyway she has another job to go to,which is good.


Work wise , I have more students and more work. I have started working for two schools: Bridge Language Group and  Executive English Solutions. Both together provide me about me with 30 hours a week work  plus I also have a whole host of private students. This is not helping me with my Spanish practice though. I work with students in some big companies like : Johnson's, Becthel, Schnieder-Electric. The age range of my students is between 24 and 61. They are mostly men, mainly engineers. It looks like there is a real push in Chile to make English the second language. 


May was spent in Malaysia, which was Eli's first visit.. see my FaceBook..many photos there. 


In our spare time, we continue to go trekking and have seen some lovely areas out and around Santiago. The Andes is now covered in snow and the ski season has started. A 45 minute drive takes you to three ski resorts just outside the city.I  The best one is Valle Nevado (looking forward to going up there in the next few weeks) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valle_Nevado

It's the end of July and I am getting into a routine, so my next blog entries will tell you about Chilean food , a little history etc. 

Good News for the start of 2011

Hello all, sorry I have been off line for a while. What does that mean? Well it may be that I am getting into a routine. .... : On Monday's at lunchtime I teach English, on Tuesday night's I go to the English-Spanish Language group, on Wednesday's I generally do lesson prep and on Thursday's I again have English classes. On Friday's I relax , do some washing and ironing and other household chores. The other half now works Mondays to Fridays so I only see her in the evenings. Every other Saturday we go trekking and on Sundays we head to the California Cantina to watch American football ( boo hoo only three more weeks to go to the end of the season). Does that sound like routine?

But that is all going to change now that I have got my temporary residents visa.. yes it has finally arrived. I am legal and I can work now. Yesterday I went to the office of the International Police to register and then off to another office to get my identity card. In two weeks I will have a rut number and my cedula de identidad.. wooo hoooo.

About Santiago Trekking, we were invited to join the club which goes trekking every other Saturday. We went on our first trek up El Cerro Conchali,(Conchali Hill) on (8/1/2011) just outside Santiago. It was a very hard trek as the temperature was about 30C and there was very little shade. But it was great exercise and we climbed to about 1800m from just over 700m. From the top we had a great view of Santiago and surrounding countryside. There were some amazing hugh cacti on the way... you wouldn't think that cactus would be so beautiful, but they were. Both of us were absolutely exhausted after the trek but were are looking forward to the next trek. We also met some really nice people.

On the Sunday, we had a, what was a traditional chilean picnic. We got together with a a few of our neighbours and hired a picnic area, it had a barbecue, a swimming pool, changing area and etc,  needed all we needed to bring was the food and drink. It was great fun. It was a hot day, the barbecue was going, there was plenty of beer and we were there from 1100am to 8pm.

Eli's graduation (Ester's in the middle)

Eli graduated with a Diploma in Human Resources last week, it is the first part of the study leading to her Masters in HR. It was at the University of Chile. The graduation was like graduations everywhere else but I met some interesting people there.
One person in particular was Maria Ester Feres, a famous Chilean human rights and labour rights lawyer. Her family and her fled to Germany during Pinocet's regime. What a smart, happy and intelligent lady and what a history! She was one of Eli's lecturer. She was full of praise for Eli's energy and leadership abilities. I am very proud of her.

On a sad note, Eli finally received her Christmas gift, which was posted in the UK on the 3rd December.  Not only did it take a month and a half to get here but somebody had taken the giftvout of the box and repacked it. It was sent by registered mail, so it must be a postman who's taken it. Fucking assholes! She was so upset. Well what can one do! I think cut thier hands off if they ever get caught.

Escuela Espanol Bellavista and more

Week 7 has just passed by. Christmas and the New Year draws closer and Christmas lights have started to appear everywhere. Ít´s quite strange when it's warm and sunny outside.  I actually feel quite sorry for the Father Christmas's in the stores... it's Ho, Ho, Ho .. but I am sure they are saying HOT, HOT, HOT!  They also seem to be mostly slim line and female, without the beard thank god!. Eli has been super efficient and all the presents have been bought, wrapped and under the tree which went up yesterday. I wonder what she has bought me?

Two weeks ago I started the Spanish classes at Escuela Espanol Bellavista. It is good fun. I am undertaking a three week intensive course to refresh my Spanish. I felt a little happy as their assessment put me in an Intermediate Class, so I have improved a little. 


My classmates come from around the world. a German, a Mongol, a South Korean and another Brit, a Brazilian and a Swede. The South Korean calls himself Pedro as he believes that his real name would be difficult to pronounce... well he is right, the teachers have a real problem with his name. The Mongol.. looks like Genghis Khan ( fits the stereotype perfectly just give him a sword and put him on a horse) until he starts speaking . He is Austrian, having moved there when he was 13, passing via Russia and Germany and speaks fluent German. The Brit seems to be lost, going through a 'trying to find himself phase'. A nice guy, but has a very irritating habit. He clicks his tongue when he does not remember a word, and that´s in English too. The Brazalian is a female who is really nice and speaks Spaninsh with a wonderful melodic Portugese tone.  The Swede is engaged to a Chilean and he is looking for wedding venues at the moment. 


There are some other characters - for example a 'Gringo´( what they call Yanks here) who is married to a Chilean. He knows f..king everything! You name it he knows it. He has lived in Chile for six months and he knows the entire Latin American problem, the Chilean tax system etc. I just thank god he is not in my class. The other day in a coversational session he was arguing with the teacher about the Chilean identiy card and he was convinced he was right , you could see the ot have a clue. Another charater is a Scot, who obviously comes from a wealthy background and is hoping to travel from the bottom of Chile all the way to Alaska.

I have three 'profersors' , Sergio, Jenny and Vanessa. Sergio and Vanessa are a little reserved whilst Jenny is the complete opposite..mad as a hatter and good fun. The school itself is a very happy place and they arrange many activities in the afternoon and evenings to help improve the langauge.

Well, I have finally got my current account and my cards.. woooohooooo. Absolutely amazing seeing that I have not got my Visa yet. My bank executive was saving that I was very lucky as the banks here never open accounts for foreigners without residence visa´s. What´s more they gave me a Platinum visa, which really pissed the other half off as she only has one of those 'normal' cc´s. Ha Ha!


Last Saturday we went out with a another couple to a restuarant is the so called French quarter of Santiago. The restuarant Peluqueria Francesa, has a french barbershop on the ground floor, where one can still get a wet shave.The food was very good, it came to about seventy pounds for the 4 of us, three courses, coffee and two bottles of wine.. increíble! It also rained that evening, first time in six and a half weeks.

This weekend is a quite one, preparaing for a class on Monday.. going to go through some slang and swear words..which should be interesting. I have also got to write Cinderella in Spanish for Monday´s homework. So I better stop. Muchos saludos all.
 http://www.boulevardlavaud.cl/english/history.html

A month since I left UK

It will be four weeks today ( 25th Nov) since leaving the UK and time has flown by.  Last week, mainly involved the continuing trauma of trying to open a bank account with El Banco de Chile. Maybe it is a good thing, after what banks got up to in the UK and US, but it appears that the banks here are very risk averse to opening accounts . They need to see all your documents, your money, they take your photo and your thumb print. I actually thought at one point they were going to want to measure my penis... well if they had, they definitely would have opened an account for me.... oh yes be afraid! be very afraid!..ha ha ha ha ha ha ( in a shrill demented  voice).


I have met some interesting and some odd characters at the English Spanish group. V who organises the group is a petit Chilean lass who is an architect. She is lovely, friendly and makes sure the group sticks to the rules. That said, I have yet to discover why she runs the group and spends a considerable length of time organising other activities. 


Then there is a Al, a Brit, who is a bright young female  with a doctorate in Astronomy, She and her team has just discovered , wait for it, a unique and exotic star system with a very cool methane-rich (or T-) dwarf star and a 'dying' white dwarf stellar remnant in orbit around each other and apparently it is a 'Rosetta Stone' for T-dwarf stars. All very interesting if I had a clue what she was taking about.. but really.. she is nice and speaks Spanish and teaches at the University of Chile.


E, a Chilean guy.. well he is weird.. always looking down on the floor, slagged off Chile, had enough of it people, slagged off the Bank he worked for and wanted to be anywhere but Chile.  I could not find one thig about Chile he liked. I tried to get away from him as rapidly as I could. 


J also from Chile who was with his girlfriend, spent most of the night eyeing up every female that moved.. he would cut a conversation short and head straight for the women. As for his girlfriend, an American - whose bright white teeth dazzles, was a stereotypical gringo,  so false and pretending to be really interested in what you had to say. I think they deserve each other.  


There were many more  a couple of Swiss guys, a Frenchman, Germans, Brazilian, Chinese .. a fantastic mix of people..

http://www.morande.cl/

The weekend was spent down on the coast. We had a lovely time in El Quisco and Valparaiso with our friends Jorge and Ximena. We had lunch at The House of Morande in the Casablanca  Valley. It was good but at the moment El Cuadro and Santa Rita are ahead in the wine and food stakes. 

El Quisco- view from the house

After a lovely lunch we got to El Qisco, which is a seaside town but not of the same standard as Valparaiso or Vina or Algorobbo but it made some of the loveliest empanadas I have tasted. We spent the night at Ximena´s unlcle´'s place by the sea side chilling out and playing cards until 3am. 

The following day was spent in Valparaiso. We ate at a Belgium Art Deco Hotel restuarant. called Via Via Cafe. I recommend it highly.  

Well I will sign off with reports of my first quake experience. There was a loud rumble whilst the house shook for about 3 or 4 seconds about 11pm last night. It was amazing. Eli was non plus! but I got some quake advice from Eli.. like don´t stay in bed, Get out to the street or get up open the door so that one can get out quickly it needs be.  

Valparaiso Bay

Week Three : November 8th to 14th.

The week started with the excitement of my first job in Chile and that was fun.

Tuesday was relatively quiet as Eli was at a conference in town and I spent the first day in the house alone. I decided to go to the supermarket and do some shopping. It wasn’t too far away so I walked, that said I had no option but to walk. It’s amazing how a simple task of going to the supermarket made me feel nervous. I was worried that I could be asked questions which I would not be able to answer. No, actually, it was the fear that I would be asked questions in rapid, quick fire Chilean Spanish and that I would be left floundering like a fish out of water. In any event I managed it, and the only difficult question I faced was one that is asked by thousands of checkout staff all over the word. Yes, you guessed it! ´Do I have a loyalty card or collect points?’Ahhh!

Wednesday I decided to join the Santiago English Spanish Group. They meet every Tuesday, yes stupid me.  I went to the meeting and not a soul was there. Eli had dropped me off and had gone off to meet some friends miles away, so I had a couple of drinks and wondered the streets of BellaVista for a few hours. But I will be going tomorrow..

Thursday was my second English class. I got an extra student, more dosh. I am beginning to enjoy it. I led some role plays of airport scenarios. I think the guys will progress very quickly.

Friday, I saw my doctor in the morning. He gave me three options. Have the whole colon out so will never have any more problems or take medication again for it. But it is major surgery. The other was remove the mass using endoscopy, and start a regime of regular surveillance or do nothing with a 50:50 chance that I might become cancerous. Have to think about it. So Friday was a little depressing but drank the night away with a wonderful barbecue at Marco´s house.  

Saturday and Sunday was quiet as Eli was away and it gave me a chance to sort out some of my books, notes, CV etc. Great win for ENGLAND against the Aussies.. great match – watched it this morning on ESPN. Unfortunately CHELSEA lost . Flycick also kept me company online..thanks Flychick.

Hey, I have not described our house to you have I? As you can see it is a new build (just about 4 years old) in a suburb called Valle Grande. It’s situated in the north-west part of Santiago called Lampa, a 30 minutes drive to the center of town. La casa has 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms, a small kitchen and a living room. There is a back garden and a driveway to park the car. Eli’s dog, Almendra, usually sleeps out the front. The garden has got lemon, lime, orange and avocado tree. The house faces north and from the side of the house and garden there is a wonderful view of the Andes. It withstood the rigorous testing of 8.6 magnitude earthquake and therefore I think it’s been built well.  

Well another week beckons.. still waiting for news about my visa, my bank account and my health scheme. 

Hasta lueo