Winter in Chile - or should that be Chilly?

Welcome to my blog. I am currently living in Santiago, Chile, and will be sharing some of my thoughts and experiences with you through this blog.

People in the past have mistakenly claimed that Chile is called Chile due to a deformation of the English word "Chilly" (I can't quote my source for this, other than saying that I saw it written about one of the exhibits in the museum in Pablo Neruda's old house in Valparaiso). I say mistakenly, but the word "chilly" is perfectly apt for Sanitago in winter. One of my friends once said to me, "there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes". This is often true. During my time here I have learned that hot or cold is all relative to the type of clothes you are wearing and / or the type of building you are in. In Santiago, most of the year it is at least warm, often hot, and there is a lot of sun, so most of the houses and flats are not built to resist the cold of winter. So, here I am, in my little room, fidgeting to try to keep warm while I type.

Another feature of the winter in Santiago is smog, or "esmog" as the Chileans pronounce the word. Santiago is located on a plain between two groups of mountains, and there is not much wind. When it is cold, the atmospheric conditions are right for smog, and there is lots of it. From a tall building the smog can be seen in the distance, a dirty cloud that envelops everything in the city from the ground up. The conditions in the centre of the city are worse than on the eastern side, where the ground rises towards the Andes, but nowhere in the city escapes the smog completely. It always appears as if it is in the distance, but this is just an optical illusion. It is actually all around you, covering you. When walking around and in particular when doing exercise, breathing feels tangibly less productive, and less refreshing. In the days of smog, people are generally thankful for rain, because it cleans the air. My experience of the smog here has made me appreciate in a new way the wind and the rain that are so abundant in the UK.

Efforts by the government to control the smog include restrictions on the vehicles that can circulate depending on the forecast atmospheric conditions, restrictions on industrial processes that contribute to the atmospheric pollution, and a process is underway to phase out the old yellow buses, "las micros", which are blamed by many for their contribution to the smog in Santiago. I will no doubt comment further on the buses here on another occasion, they are an endangered species that few people will miss, and they really deserve an entry all to themselves.

Greetings from The Big Smoke of Chile.