Donde están los homosexuales?
The words contained in the subject of this post where the words my travelling companion, Steve, assured me would be the only ones he would need during his entire trip throughout South America. I can´t comment for the reasons behind him choosing these words, I´m guessing he only meant this in jest, even if they have the ring of immaturity about them - but hey, my friends and myself have never been known for anything but immaturity.
The language barrier has been a slight bit daunting for myself. I did a few spanish classes at IML a few years back, but the only words I can remember are ¨Quién posee ese burro hermoso allᨠ(Who owns that beautiful donkey over there), and a few random greetings and farewells (´Hasta Manana!¨). I´m getting by by using a combination of spanglish, hand signals, and some help from some fellow travellers with much greater skills. By far my most popular spanish words have been phrases such as ¨Puedo tener un agua contemplora¨ which I think means something like ¨Can I have a bottled water¨ and ¨cerveza, escudo, dos, por favor¨ (beer, escudo, two).
Steve has been buying local newspapers then allegedly saying ¨gracias, nunca deseo verle otra vez¨, which means something like ¨Thanks, I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN¨. Apparently this has caused many chilean street vendors much confusion and some distress.
Like the gringo that I am, I didn´t realise that ´true´ spanish differs a lot from south american spanish, so I´ve ben going around pronouncing my C sounds as a th, which my spanish phrasebook assures me was the way to do it (i.e. barcelona is said like ´bar-th-lona´). Many of my new chilean friends must have been all secretly laughing at me.
Anyway, I leave Santiago tomorrow to go to Pucon, in the lakes district of Chile (11 hours by bus), to climb volcanoes and do other various adventure activities. I have many more tales to tell.
The language barrier has been a slight bit daunting for myself. I did a few spanish classes at IML a few years back, but the only words I can remember are ¨Quién posee ese burro hermoso allᨠ(Who owns that beautiful donkey over there), and a few random greetings and farewells (´Hasta Manana!¨). I´m getting by by using a combination of spanglish, hand signals, and some help from some fellow travellers with much greater skills. By far my most popular spanish words have been phrases such as ¨Puedo tener un agua contemplora¨ which I think means something like ¨Can I have a bottled water¨ and ¨cerveza, escudo, dos, por favor¨ (beer, escudo, two).
Steve has been buying local newspapers then allegedly saying ¨gracias, nunca deseo verle otra vez¨, which means something like ¨Thanks, I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN¨. Apparently this has caused many chilean street vendors much confusion and some distress.
Like the gringo that I am, I didn´t realise that ´true´ spanish differs a lot from south american spanish, so I´ve ben going around pronouncing my C sounds as a th, which my spanish phrasebook assures me was the way to do it (i.e. barcelona is said like ´bar-th-lona´). Many of my new chilean friends must have been all secretly laughing at me.
Anyway, I leave Santiago tomorrow to go to Pucon, in the lakes district of Chile (11 hours by bus), to climb volcanoes and do other various adventure activities. I have many more tales to tell.