Video: The Geography of Chile!

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Here’s a little video on what we’ve been upto the last two years in Chile, No wonder geography is one of my kid’s favourite subject!

EL TATIO GEYSERS, a sunrise spectacle of erupting water, steam and hot volcanic mud, stone and sand formations at the MOON VALLEY (where a prototype for a Mars rover was tested there by scientists because of the valley's dry and forbidding terrains!), LAKE CHAXA FLAMINGOES in the midst of rough lifeless crystals of the Salt Flats of SALAR DE ATACAMA, huddling up in the cold around telescopes to stargaze in the clearest skies at night. Lakes, Lagoons & Volcanoes, adobe huts & Llama meat.

These are apart from the road trips to the ANDIES, the PATAGONIAN RAINFORESTS, VOLCANOES, hot springs & hot tubs in south of chile.  

Humbolt Penguin Reserve {Chile} {Practical Mondays # 55}

A week before we embarked on this road trip (2 families, 6 of us) I bought  a book about Pingüinos de Humbolt to read it to my 5 year old. My over confidence about reading a children’s book in Spanish was quickly shattered when I realised I was never going to finish it! 

Although the book is still unfinished, we *did* take the fabulous trip. In case you’re here because a nice search engine showed you the way, I am obliged to give you my recommendations. First of all, all links point to ‘tours’ for almost anything in Chile, which is extremely ridiculous. We are grown ups with a car and all (Went through all the tests to get our Chilean Licences too!) and need not be chauffered for a ridiculous amount of money. If you're a tourist, please hire a car! Cuz the best parts were in the trip itself! 

We halted as soon as we spotted cool foxes (Zoro Chillas): Imagine our excitement of being surrounded by 10-15 foxes just strolling about on the road side and rolling down little desert sand dunes in the middle of nowhere! We spotted Guanocos too, or as we like to call them: Llama look alikes, after spotting Llamas on our way from Santiago!

The family that bikes together.. Travels together! (Practical Mondays #8)

The perfect way to spend Sunday mornings in Santiago? Biking on empty roads! 

Santiago has a few streets cordoned off for cyclists & skaters only! Every Sunday till 2pm that is. It is *so* much better to ride without a care in the world! Without watching our son navigate tricky sidewalks next to speeding cars like hawks!

It is healthy and is absolutely *free*.

Envious Travelogues & Trips from previous Practical Mondays:

 Snorkelling in Krabi  |  Holidays, Hellidays And the Journeys in between 

 5 Things Families Forget before their Trip  |  Room Service Required 

Our Summer in Chile

As summer approached I got asked by anyone and every one about my vacation plans (it's a thing). You know, "to spend summer" is actually a verb in the Spanish language (veranear!). As a Latin America virgin (not my husband - who travels a lot for work!) my mind buzzed with around 7 plans simultaneously. None of them materialised. (What. ev. er. Maybe next time I'll "veranearé" in 3 different countries!). But turns out chilling out in & around Santiago's a wonderfully relaxing vacation anyways! 

Santiago, Chile (Show Me Your Neighbourhood Around the World Series)

I'm thrilled to be a part of Annabel's "Show Me Your Neighbourhood Around The Word" Series, where we take a little tour of other people's neighbourhood & town through their cameras. From colourful Pune (India) to splashing in the shade of cherry trees in Tokyo (Japan).From a rural community in Zambia to sun kissed Basiglio (Italy). Hop over to The Piri-Piri Lexicon's page and browse through over 50 neighbourhoods so far!

Practice makes multilingualism perfect! Teaching our preschooler 3 languages, in our lives as expats.

India with her twenty-nine states, each speaking a different language with various dialects, is like a mini Europe with all those countries and all those languages. The common thread is the language Hindi, which is most widely spoken across the country. And owing to two hundred years of colonialism and euro-centric education, most of the people from the middle & upper classes have the privilege of going to English medium schools, hence it is normal to come across Indians speaking fluent English. 

So most of us are fluent in at least 2 or 3 languages. A combination of English, Hindi and a regional language that is spoken at home. If there is similarity of your regional language with another regional one or if you’ve been exposed long enough, its common to understand that language too. We are also taught Sanskrit or Urdu to able to read and understand our religious books and scriptures. Over and above this, there could be an option of a Foreign language (usually French or German, I selected French) in high school. 

Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago

We moved to Santiago, Chile and although we haven’t done *anything* remotely touristy yet (unless you count flapping your hands, pointing, sighing & sheepishly smiling to bridge the language barrier with an exclusive non-english speaking population we’re dealing with here), here are few things that WOW-ed me from a mother of a 3 year old point of view! (i.e. things *other* than the majestic snow capped Andies that you can see every time you look up, from almost anywhere in the city!) 

17 Airplane & Hotel Busy Bags

We moved to Santiago, Chile! 

i.e. travelled a thousand miles all the way from India, 3 flights and over 30 hours! Which also meant barring furniture that we stored, and some useful stuff that we could take with us, we gave away almost everything we owned! including the few toys & art material! (I did carry 25 kilos of children’s books though!!) 

And I finally succumbed to busy bags! They’re basically ‘activity kits' stored in small zipped baggies (or boxes!) that can be pulled out of your handbag (or shelves!) and given to your kid to play with. They are light weighted, and small and the contents can be spread over teeny tiny tray tables. I made 17 of them! But eventually used only a few in the plane (as we slept a lot, and he watched Ice Age while I caught up with Hunger Games's Mocking Jay… which was all about rescuing the most boring character in the history of cinema, peeta). But these bags were useful in the first week in Santiago too! 

The only caveat for using these in airplanes is that small pieces tend to fall off the trays! *Not* fun trying to wriggle your way to retrieve a puzzle piece under someone’s chair! But it is def better than your child screaming with boredom!