“This is how I imagined Chile: strange men offering me avocados on the bus.”

Ashley and I took off for a day trip yesterday to the small town of La Ligua, about 3 hours from Valparaíso. Towns in Chile have a odd tendency to specialize in one thing, and everyone in the town takes up that trade. Last week we went to Polmeire, the pottery town, this week was the town of sweaters and sweets. Unlike Polmeire, where every store seemed to have the exact same things, the sweaters of the Valle Hermoso in La Ligua were often distinct. Unfortunately for the sweater lover in me, but luckily for the cheap college student in me, a lot of the sweaters were more thinly woven, light sweaters since it’s spring, and I had more interest in warmer winter sweaters. Still, that didn’t stop me from buying several Christmas presents and two items for myself, along with several dulces, sweets, the main ingredient of which is manjar – Chilean dulce de leche, or a caramel type spread.

The whole thing was a really awesome experience, and another fun cultural glimpse. Ashley commented on how she couldn’t imagine living in a small house and knitting her whole life, and a certain spoiled someone responded, “I know, I bet there’s practically no internet.” (Meaghan, maybe I’m starting to understand your fear of boats.) The waiter at the restaurant (and when I say the restaurant, I really mean that it was one of only two restaurants on the street), rather than handing us a menu, asked if we wanted the stew or the chicken. I had chicken breast – white meat! – for the first time since being here. The food was amazing, but the two-item menu definitely threw me.

The most insane experience of the day, though, was the trip home. Ashley and I chose the cleanest looking seats on our bus, about 5 rows from the back. Spread out throughout the bus were about 10 children, all dressed in school uniforms (not a shock since public and private schools wear them here, so uniforms are the natural and expected attire of all kids everywhere in Chile), and all between the ages of 6 and 14. Gradually, these kids began making their ways toward us until Ashley and I were literally surrounded on all sides by children. There was a man sitting in one of the seats in front of us, but besides him, every seat remotely adjoining ours, plus the aisle, was filled with kids, standing and staring at us.

Finally, Ashley took the first step and said hello to one of them, and gradually the questions began. The most interesting were about transportation to and from the US: How did you get here? How long did it take? Can I take a bus if I want to go to the United States? It was about then that we realized that not only had these kids never been anywhere near an airplane, but telling them 9 hours on a plane meant absolutely nothing to them in terms of distance. The kid sitting behind me kept touching my hair in amazement, and one of the kids sitting near Ashley smelled distinctly of urine. In the midst of the cultural drill session (the questions didn’t stop, which was fine because it was better than them staring at us), the man in the seat in front of us turned around to face us as well. I thought he was going to offer some words of encouragement, but instead, he just handed each of us an avocado and turned around again. Talk about the bizarre express.

Luckily, the students got off in about 20 minutes. I was willing to answer questions for that long, but certainly not 3 hours worth. Somewhere during all that time, the man turned to us again and instructed us to eat our avocados. Because that was exactly what I wanted: raw avocado on a bus in rural Chile. Not knowing what else to do, we dug in, and Ashley turned to me and said, “Somehow, this is exactly how I imagined Chile: strange men offering me avocados on the bus.”