Chile

Chile=> narrowly stretches along the southern half of the west coast of South America. The bordering countries are Bolivia, and Peru in the north and over the Andes, to the east, lies Argentina. Chile has over 5.000 km of coast on the South Pacific Ocean. It also has a claim to a portion of Antarctica.

Regions

Geopolitically, Chile is divided into 13 regiones (regions). Ordered from north to south they are:

Tarapacá
Antofagasta
Atacama
Coquimbo
Valparaíso
Metropolitana de Santiago
del Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins
del Maule
Biobío
Araucanía
Los Lagos
Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo
Magallanes y de la Antártica Chilena

note: Argentina and Chile's claims to Antarctica overlap. The US does not recognize any country's claim to Antarctica, but "reserves the right" to make a claim itself in the future.

Cities

Other destinations

San Pedro de Atacama
Pucón
Cochamó
Patagonia, especially the Torres del Paine National Park
Easter Island
Chiloe Island
Robinson Crusoe Island

Eat

Pastel de choclo: maize pie filled with ground beef and sometimes chicken
Empanada de pino: a baked pie filled with ground beef, onion, raisins, a piece of boiled egg and an olive. Watch for the pit.
Empanada de queso: a fried pie filled with cheese. Found everywhere, including McDonald's.
Cazuela de vacuno: beef soup with a potato, rice, a piece of corn and a piece of pumpkin.
Cazuela de ave (or de pollo): chicken soup with a potato and rice.
Cazuela de pava: turkey soup with a potato and rice.
Porotos granados: fresh beans with corn in three varieties
*con choclo: with grains of corn
*con pilco or pirco: with corn thinly chopped
*con mazamorra: with ground corn
Curanto: lots of sea food, beef, meat and pork, prepared in a hole in the ground, a dish from Chiloe
Southern sopaipillas: a fried pastry cut as 10 cm circles, with no pumpkin in its dough (see Northern sopaipillas in the desserts section). They replace bread. They are known South of Linares.
lomo a lo pobre: a beefsteak, fried potatoes, a fried egg (in restaurants you should expect two) and fried onions.

Besides typical foods, you should expect food you normally found in any Western country. Normal diet includes rice, potatos, meat and bread. In central Chile vegetables are abundant. If you are concern about the amount of food, consider that the size of the dish increases when souther you go.

With such an enormous coastline you can expect fish and seafood almost everywhere. Locals will eat bundles of raw shellfish, visitors should be cautious on raw shellfish, though in good restaurants and coast locations it is generally safe. Chile is the worlds 2nd largest producer of salmon, as well as number of other farmed sea products, which include ysters, scallops, mussels, trout, turbot. Local fish offer includes corvina (sea bass), congrio(conger eel), lenguado (flounder), albacora (swordfish), yellow fin tuna, etc.

Sandwiches

Hotdog or completo. Not similar to the American version. This one takes mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, tomato, mashed avocado (palta), sauerkraut (chucrut) and chilli (ají). All of it makes a full sandwich, i.e. un completo. With mayonnaise, tomato and avocado it's un italiano with the colors of the Italian flag.
Lomito. Cooked pork steaks served with anything that can go in a hotdog. Italiano is the preferred form but German purists prefer it with sauerkraut (chucrut).
Chacarero: a thin beefsteak (churrasco) with tomato, green beans, mayonnaise and green chilli (ají verde).
Barros Luco: Named after President Ramón Barros Luco. Beefsteak with cheese.

A common combination is meat with avocado and/or mayonnaise, e.g. Ave palta mayo (chicken with avocado and mayonnaise) or Churrasco palta (beefsteak with avocado). The strong presence of avocado as an Chilean standard for sandwiches even make to the fast food franchises to put it a place in their menus.

Desserts

Mote con huesillos: dried peach (huesillos) cooked with with lots of sugar (giving a fresh syrup) with optional mote added. Mote is fresh cooked wheat with almost no flavor. Since the syrup is very sweet, the mix is good.
Northern sopaipillas: a fried pastry cut as 10 cm circles, which includes pumpkin in its dough, and normally is eaten with chancaca, a black treacle or molasses. It's customary to make them when it rains and it's cold outside. Sopaipillas as a dessert are known only north of San Javier. From Linares to the South they are not dessert and they are made with no pumpkin. So, when it rains, Chilean Southerners must cook picarones.
Kuchen (or cújen, pronounced KOO-hen). It's German for pie. In the South ask for kuchen de quesillo, a kind of cheesecake.
Strudel (pronounced ess-TROO-dayl). A kind of apple pie.
Berlín. When they translate John Kennedy's famous gaffe they say it's a “jelly doughnut”. The Chilean version is a ball of dough (no hole) filled with dulce de membrillo, crema pastelera or manjar. Powder sugar is added just in case you have a sweet tooth.

As a major fruit producer, in Central Chile you can easily get fruit for dessert. There is a broad offer that includes apples, oranges, peaches, grapes, watermellons, strawberries, raspberries, ''chirimoyas', etc.

Drink

Wine: Chile produces fine wines, competing with California, Australia and New Zealand for world markets. Look out for Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenere in red. Whites from the Casablanca valley.
Mote con Huesillo: Dehydrated peaches with stewed barley often in water or peach juice.
Chilean Pisco: Brandy made from Muscat grapes. Popular brands are Capel,Alto del Carmen,Valle Elqui
Piscola: Pisco and Coke
Borgoña: Red wine and strawberries.
Beers: Cristal is the most popular (light). Several other main brands, Heineken, Brahma, Becker and premium Kunstman.

Sleep

Chile has many types of hotels in the cities like Sheraton, Kempinsky, Marriott, Hyatt, Holiday Inn, etc. and a lot of hostels and little hotels of varying qualities. In the backpacker trail a local hostel version can be found in every small city residencial. There is also a variety of accommodation in the mountain ski centers, the world class resort Portillo, 80 km north of Santiago, "Valle Nevado" in the mountain close to Santiago (35 km) or "Termas de Chillan" ski resort and hot springs, about 450 km south of Santiago.

Learn

Along with Mexico and Argentina, Chile continues to grow as a preferred destination for studies abroad. It is not uncommom to find groups of European or North American students taking interdisciplinary studies in Spanish in one of its many reputed universities.

Universidad de Chile=>
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile =>
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso =>
Universidad de Santiago de Chile =>
Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María [http://www.utfsm.cl/ ]

Stay safe

Santiago suffers from a high rate of pickpocketers and muggings. Do not travel in the downtown area with any expensive jewelry, even during the day. Stay alert and be especially careful in the area around Park Forestal.

Chilean Carabineros (National Police), Investigations Police

Diplomatic representation from the US: embassy: Avenida Andrés Bello 2800, Las Condes, Santiago
mailing address: APO AA 34033
telephone: [56] (2) 232-2600
FAX: [56] (2) 330-3710

Disputes - international: Bolivia continues to demand a sovereign corridor to the South Pacific Ocean since the Atacama region was lost to Chile in 1884; territorial claim in Antarctica (Chilean Antarctic Territory) partially overlaps Argentine and British claims; dispute with Peru over the economic zone delimited by the maritime boundary

Illicit drugs: A growing transshipment country for cocaine destined for the US and Europe; economic prosperity and increasing trade have made Chile more attractive to traffickers seeking to launder drug profits, especially through the Iquique Free Trade Zone; imported precursors passed on to Bolivia; domestic cocaine consumption is rising

Thankfully for many visitors, Chilean drivers are not as erratic and volatile as those in neighbouring countries.

Stay healthy

Having relatively good standards in medicine throughout the country, it is not difficult to stay healthy. However, one will usually find more refined resources at a private medical facility.

Respect

Formerly a deeply conservative nation, Chile has since liberalized many facets of its society. Simply keep in mind that it has a largely Catholic population.
Unlike other countries in Latin America, the Chilean police force, despite not being really well-paid, is admired for its honesty and competence. Report any complaints to the police the moment you receive them, including that of a crime. Bribing is not acceptable in Chile in comparison with the rest of the Latin America, and you'll likely get arrested for it.

Contact

Phone

Chile has an extense network of communications. Mobile telephony (mostly GSM networks) is ubiquitous in major cities and central and southern Chile. If you stay for a consirable amount of time, you could even buy a prepaid cellular phone. Prepaid cards for mobile phones and landline networks and sold at most newspaper kiosks. A prepaid SIM card from ENTEL costs 5000 pesos. You don't need to show an ID card. It comes without credit though, which you need to buy as well to be able to call. The phone system is not as ridiculously complicated as in Argentina.

Internet

There are cybercafes in every major and midsize city and at all tourist destinations. In some remote locations, public libraries have internet satellite connections.