No entiendo

“I don't understand”

In our first few days in Chile, this was one of our most used Spanish phrases.

To be fair, I had learnt it at high school. I'd even done an AS-Level, although I got a D. But all that was over 6 years ago, and apart from a week in Barcelona I've never had the opportunity to practice it. So, when we arrived in Santiago, I felt like I barely remembered a thing. It doesn't help that Chileans are renowned for speaking super-fast and dropping their S's (much like how we might sometimes drop the 't' when saying 'water'). So even if people were saying something I'd learnt before, I wasn't likely to recognise it.

Karl's situation was even worse. Let's just say that he'd paid so little attention to any language classes at school that we may as well say that he's never tried to learn a second language before. Beyond being able to count to 100 (he learnt while we were in Barcelona) and say the usual “pleases' and 'thank yous', he didn't know a word. For him, grammar was a complete mystery.

So our Spanish tutor Jesus had quite a job on his hands. I badly needed to refresh my memory (the knowledge was in there somewhere, I was sure of it) and Karl was desperately in need of some education.

On our first day, we went through the phrases that you might use to introduce yourself to someone. Talking about where you're from, what you do, your age, and so on. Unfortunately, Karl was running into some difficulty with regards to pronunciation. The tutor asked Karl his age, in Spanish, The phrase is 'Cuantos años tienes?' and in English it translates literally into “How many years do you have?”. The squiggle over the 'ñ' creates a 'ny' sound. For me, the answer was “Tengo 25 años” - “I have 25 years”. Karl's answer was a little more unusual.

TUTOR: Karl, cuantos años tienes?

KARL: Tengo 27 ano.

TUTOR: No, you need to pronounce it 'años'. Ano means 'arsehole'. You've just told me you have 27 arseholes.

To be fair, he hasn't got that one wrong since.

There was quite a lot to cram in over the five-day course, and with 4 hours a day as well as a couple of hours practice each evening, it wasn't easy. It was well worth it though. I realised that I remembered a lot more than I'd given myself credit for, it had just needed some unearthing and refreshing. And although the amount of new information could often be overwhelming, and the difficulty of trying to remember it all was often frustrating, Karl's come quite a long way. Don't get me wrong, we're not discussing politics with the locals or anything, but we can at least order stuff from the deli counter, buy a bus ticket, have simple conversations and get our laundry done without too much difficulty (there are good days and bad days). Karl even managed to get a decent haircut, asking for everything in Spanish!

Now, to make up for not having any photos so far, or in my previous post, here are some snaps of the gorgeous views from Cerro San Cristobal, a huge hill in the middle of the city. You can see the whole city, with a backdrop of the Andes. Truly magnificent.

Check out that view!

We travelled up the hill in the 'funicular', which is basically a fancy way of saying 'train on an inclined track', and it basically transports you up steep hills with ease (and some creaking):

Furnicularing

We'd been told that the walk down was quite pleasant, but unfortunately we took totally the wrong path (there were hoof marks, so I'm thinking it was perhaps a horse path?) and ended up scrabbling and scooting cautiously down mud paths and through bushes. Once we'd got down to the bottom of this 350m hill, we were faced with a wire fence and a steep drop to the road, but luckily there was a happy looking young, stoner couple sitting on a log and staring into space who very kindly pointed out a little exit path. I'm surprised there weren't any signs in English at the top of this path telling people NOT to go down it (there was lots of stuff in Spanish, none of which we understood), but I guess this just proves how important it is to learn Spanish before you travel to South America.

Part of our path downhill. What do you mean 'Where is it?'

And yes, those things ARE spiky.

After Santiago we journeyed on to a little coastal town called Valparaiso where we spent a lovely day wondering around the hills and riding more inclined railway thingies, except here they were called 'ascensors':

Oh, and I couldn't resist making Karl pose for this photo:

We also used our Spanish to buy a huge selection of food from the market. For 5000 Chilean pesos (about £6.50), we bought half a kilo each of cherries, tomatoes and avacados, 250g of olives, some chilli sauce, a red pepper, minced meat, loads of bread and a piece of lemon pie. Karl cooked up a delicious batch of chili and guacamole, and the rest of the evening was spent tucked up in bed, watching cable TV (very pleased to find an over-the-top episode of Nigella's new series, where she wears a blue outfit to match her blue kitchen. Read this article about her yesterday, which I enjoyed).

Tomorrow we're joining a 4-day tour which will take us to San Pedro de Atacama in the north of Chile, via various sights and points of interest.