Purple beards, wrestling masks and Children of the Revolution

Sian has left me to fend for myself. It's like being deserted in a very comfortable, slightly cold but sunny jungle with ample water and the occasional fresh salmon jumping toward me. As you can imagine I'm drinking the wine instead of the water and frequently calling for salmon from my comfortable leather couch that Trevor bought at a department store. Thank goodness she thought to leave my scarf with me - otherwise I might have only had three to choose from.

Anyway I've been reading the linguist's blog recently and it's made me feel guilty, because she's been away for less than a week and has kept up to date with her life and everything (perhaps I should add her to my list of people who make me feel little. I got to South America and she's still having a more interesting adventure..). So I thought I would tell you about a few of the more interesting parts of my trip:

1. If you've ben reading recently, you might have seen my extremely brief post of Valparaiso. Apart from some of the people we met at the hostel we stayed in, it was pretty marvelous. In fact, if I ever returned I think I would like to become the captain of a tug-boat and a Child of the Revolution - I would smoke cigars, drink lattes and salsa sensually to loud, fiesta-like live music. Unfortunately we did our big-night-out on the first night we got there. I tried to salsa but all the cheap beer got the better of me and I ended up giving too much money to a pied-piper looking busker who played me a Chilean song. From then on I was content using travellers-cliches too often and planning my life as el Capitan - which translates as 'the captain' obviously, but I think is more likened to a chief. In fact the most common usage of the word seems to be as the name of a big rock in California, but whatever - people here seem to have different meanings for words.

2. We went to see a band because this guy Ricardo (whom I found out yesterday is fondly known as Richie to his friends) was playing. Ricardo is Mum's old Spanish teacher and also does a walking tour that we went on. Informative, but the night out was much more entertaining. Sian describes the band as a mix between the strokes and the beach boys with a wrestling mask twist. They looked a bit like this:

except with a bit more Chilean hipster cred, less colour and more tattoos. I should also mention that my Mum came out with us and hung around until 2am. I have a newfound respect for her. Anyway after she left we had a dance and I tried out my spanglish - describing gender studies with no command of the language is impossible. I spent about half an hour trying to describe feminism to an engineering student in spanish - unfortunately I made the mistake of actually trying to use Spanish to describe it. I kept yelling machismo machismo machismo and trying to say feminism and of course Sian pops up behind me and yells drunkenly 'man' 'woman' and does some hand gestures and he immediately understands. From now on I'm sticking to 'no entiendo', because for a while I thought that 'no hablo' explained that I couldn't speak spanish, not that I couldn't speak at all.


3. I saw a man with a purple beard at the markets. They have fruit, veg and sea food markets that move around the city every day. I also saw live barnacles (might try to eat them before I leave).
More later,

Evilboy