Dogs and Camels

Sunglasses are essential during sunny weather. In Santiago, you need them pretty much all year round. While officially not summer here yet, the fact that there are more sunny days above 25°C than not, makes it summer in my book.

The hotter weather has a noticeable effect on the many aspects of Santiago life. Dogs are less mobile. Their scavenging activities are punctuated by lots of siestas, usually at the top of metro steps, the pavement or pretty much anywhere they damn well please. This makes them more nocturnal and bouts of barking at night more frequent.

Hot weather also means ice cream. Ice cream is another source of the junk food that Chileans gorge themselves on but more so in the summer. Buses and streets are abundant with leather-skinned flaites who take a break from drug dealing to scream heladoheladohelado followed by chirimoyafrutillamorapiña.

The third most notable effect is the increase in the amount of female flesh on display.
Female natives are quite conservative in comparison to their more extrovert Latina neighbours. They wear the Latina label with pride and are proud of their prudishness. They think Argentinian and Colombian women are nothing short of putas. Chilean women do not flirt with strangers (at least not while sober). Chilean women will not come up to you in a bar and just start talking. Having said that, if you go and talk to them, they won't tell you to get lost (at least not right away).

Chilenas, like all Latinas, are blessed with a serious amount of curvature.  These gifts are more abundantly on display in the hotter weather. Chilenas, however, love their jeans. They generally wear them all year round except as office attire when they switch to pants.

Jeans and pants here are designed with the Latina anatomy in mind. A short walk through the clothing district of Patronato will expose you to the extra curvy mannequins on display. At first I thought this was hilarious how those dummies carried so much much junk in the trunk but it's entirely justified. Latinas are a curvy species.

Chilean women don't like wearing skirts or dresses even in the very warm weather. You will see them being worn but not as many as you'd think. I've queried this and the general consensus seems to be that they don't like the unnecessary attention they get if they reveal their legs. Strangely, though, they don't have a problem wearing figure hugging low cut tops or teeny weeny shirts which always look as if one of those buttons are on the point of flying off and popping an unsuspecting eyeball. Hence the sunglasses!!

Jeans and pants here do not leave much to the imagination. Walking behind a Chileana you will be amazed how far the gusset goes up. From behind, a Chilena looks as if her pants have been spray-painted onto her body. I'm not complaining. I've got blood in my veins and little gifts like that make my day go a little smoother but doesn't it hurt them?

If the pants are tight at the back then logic dictates that they must be tight at the front. Let me tell you, they are. As far as jeans are concerned, the effect is not as noticeable. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of pants, trousers, slacks, whatever you call them.

I had never noticed this until a female colleague pointed it out. After all, as a man faced with a frontal view of a woman we are not looking below the waist. Shoes don't interest us, eyes do!

It's well known that us simple men are more attracted to the partially clad female form rather than the buck naked. We like to let our imaginations run wild. We like when it when a woman gives us a clue to what lies beneath rather than actually showing us. There are some clues, however, that a man does not need or want to receive. A man does not need to see pants so tight from the front that he can see your tonsils. Once my female colleague had pointed this out I was hooked. It's car crash TV, I can't stop looking now. It mildly disgusts me but yet fascinates me. Has nobody ever pointed this out to the Chilenas?

I never go out without my shades.