CHILE

Chile is a long and thin country flanked by the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountain Range, and goes along from Peru up to the Antarctica. That’s why it has so many different climates: desert, polar and mountain. It lacks the tropical and subtropical climate but I can assure you that it is a rather complete country, with plenty of landscapes to watch and enjoy. For instance, you can take a walk in the Atacana desert, on the northern part of the country, which is the driest place on earth.

Going towards the centre there is an spectacular valley, where very good wine is produced and where you can also find the country’s capital city, Santiago de Chile, with 7 million people. Going a little bit towards the south there is Temuco, where our dearest Mapuche friend, Raquel lives. She taught and showed us so many things like that Temuco means "Temu Water" in Mapudungun, mapuches language, and it is the capital of the Araucaria region.

Nowadays, Temuco is one of the most important cities in Chile, as there is an administrative, commercial, tourist and cultural centre as well as a university, which Raquel will attend when she grows up. Right on the southern part of the country, there is an area full of fiords, lakes and many part of the land that goes inside the sea. There you can find the Strait of Magellan and the Cape Horn.

Chile is also known as the first copper producer in the world. Besides Chile’s famous wine exports, it also exports fish, a delicious shell-fish, fruit and salmon. Raquel told us that salmon in Chile is not an autochthonous fish, so its breeding pollutes the environment. There was a bit of a controversy here.

Oh, the Squirrel has just reminded me that Chile is the only country on Earth that

keeps its original vineyards. Since Chile has such a rough natural borders like the ocean and the Andes mountain range, this prevented the phylloxera – a parasite insect in vineyards – to kill any grapevine, like it happened with the rest of the world. For that reason, they have never needed to graft using the resistant American rootstock, as happened in the rest of the world.