Renting a car and driving through Chile’s Lagos region (Los Lagos) from Temuco to Pucon and then on to Valdivia, Puerto Varas, and Puerto Montt was the ideal way to get a sense of just how big the country is. I was surprised at the number of volcanoes that walled the western horizon and how vacant the landscape appeared alongside them. Stretches of road feel like you are in an untouched, virgin frontier that has yet to succumb to people. Marce navigated through the geography as a copilot, flavoring my understanding of the Lagos region with anecdotes about the local cuisine, personal stories about eating it, and also helped translate Chilean when needed. For example, as good as I think my Spanish is (“meh”), it’s not good enough to understand turbo Chilean from the huevón facilitating my rental car at the Temuco airport. You’ll want to have a Marce for that. In case you are unaware, Spanish speakers often cite Chilean Spanish as the most difficult dialect to understand owing to the many idiomatic expressions and slang terms in use. Chileans have their own separate vocabulary, cachai? It’s a good thing I was with a woman who listens to Chilean […]
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