A Few Facts About Chile

Having spent nearly 9 days in Chile now, I feel it is my duty to inform you a little about this ridiculously thin country.

1. Whereas in London on the Underground you are never more than 6 metres from a twat, in Chile it's much more exciting: you are never more than 7 feet from a Volcano!
2. There are more Germans in Chile than there are in Germany. This is evident in, amongst other thing, the amount of Kuchen available to buy.
3. The widest point in Chile is 37 kilometers, and the shortest point just 2 metres. If you fell off any of the Andes, you would land in the sea. There are three places in the country where you can reach both the East and West borders by standing on tip toe. Many parts of the country are so thin there is only a one way road, and 3 point turns are impossible in huge lengths of the country.
4. At any moment in Chile a volcano is erupting. Chileans loves to mis-quote Dennis Hopper from Apocalype Now, saying I love the smell of lava in the morning which is very drole. The Germanic influence evident once again.
5. The average Chilean owns 3 dogs: 2 of which at any time are tethered outside a hostel, all of which are barking.
6. Santiago has infamously just upheaved its public transport system, to the disgust of its inhabitants. Formerly, from what I can gather, every citizen was picked up from their breakfast table and taken to work for free in no less than 10 minutes. Now, the system is based on the London model: you walk 5 blocks to a stop for a bus that never comes, and if you don't have the exact change in the denominational coins that the driver specifies and in the right order, you are denied access and abused. Still, better than Mexico.
7. Chile has a population of around 17 million. 11 million of them have, in the last 48 hours, stood in the middle of a busy road for no apparant reason.
8. Chileans, unlike English speakers, especially English speaking fathers, do not feel honour bound to make puns on the similarity between the country's name and the English word indicating that you are quite cold.
9. A MORI poll recently contradicted the common myth that the most common form of unnatural death in Chile was not 'walking into a mountain', finding that it is 'drowning in lava', edging into 3rd last year's unsurprising winner 'being run over'. 'Being barked to death' is prominent, but due to the social taboo people rarely report such fatalities. That's statistics for you.
10. Chile is very very long and thin.
Question: If you were to take Chile's most Northerly point, and flip it vertically in a Southerly direction, do you know where its most Northerly point would land?
Answer: That's right. The Moon.
11. The Salmon industry is the fastest growing in the world, but not without controversy. It is very unsustainable. I read that you need to feed a salmon 4 salmons just to make one salmon.
12. The national sport of Chile is Motorway Wandering. the rules are exactly as you would expect. It should be that crap bat and ball game (again, rules are quiet easy). Absurdly high quality of that beach bat and ball game as evidenced by the beaches of Vina del Mar.

Oh, and do you know what Cafe Con Piernas are? No? It's definately googleworthy, as one of those people you might be 6 metres from in London might say.

And now you know some things.