The Daily Splash

Recent experiences in Chile showed a wildly different aspect to South American culture to that experienced in the UK. Not least the fact that people want to work and will do so for what we probably see as worthless amounts of money. This is probably a legacy of the job creation schemes under governmental economic programmes in the 70s and 80s  where national employment was the goal and jobs were created in newly nationalised companies for as much of the population as possible.

This was well illustrated on a bus journey from Santiago to Valparaiso, with the national bus carrier TurBus. In the UK we would get on a National Express bus, try to sit as far away from the nearest person as possible and try to sleep uncomfortably for the whole journey, while being ignored by the driver who might check tickets on entry. Not in Chile.

The crew of a local bus (2 hours to Valparaiso) consisted of 4. As mentioned previsously there appeared to be a rigid demarcation between the roles of these 4. Firstly the driver, who was ensconsed in a large see-through compartment to keep him separate from the common herd, with a lock like an aeroplane cockpit. He drove, obviously. Defining the roles of the others was harder but here is my interpretation.

As we got on the bus and made our way to the back as one would in England we were offered pillows and blankets, and not your standard airline fare either, plush and comfortable. that appeared to be the sole role of Crew member no. 2, although he did offer assistance with putting coats on the luggage racks and later acted as a “sweeper” at the back of the bus to ensure that no one was moving to a seat that had not been assigned to them.

Crew number 3 had the task of ensuring everyone was sitting in this assigned seat, we were quickly moved from the back to the very front of the bus as soon as our tickets were checked and our transgression was discovered. I suspect the sanction would have been worse in the 1970s but in this case we were politely moved back to our government asssigned seats. His other tasks were to remeber where everyone wanted to get off the bus and warn the driver accordingly, then get off the bus with them, wave and shut the door again, in the company of Manuel.

Manuel (no, really) was in charge, the Conducter, and he was very important, as the screen at the front constantly reminded us that he had been conduting for many years. He was so important in fact that he checked the tickets at least 4 times in a 2 hour journey, despite no one getting on the bus at any point. In between ticket checks he stood at the front in the locked compartment with that slightly bow legged stance that indicates to anyone who wants to think about such things that he has exceptionally large testicles. Although clearly drunk on his own power he still managed to be generally pleasant and, almost, charming.

We though Manuel was all-powerful but as it turned out there was another. He got on the bus at a toll point – and checked everyone’s tickets again. By this point it seemed a bit of a joke as no one could possibley have slipped through the net of the constant ticket checks, but no, he wanted to see all tickets again. All in all, though, a more pleasant experience than National Express, although next time i would want to get my ticket on a string round my neck like a ski pass to save time.

How the country can afford to pay so many people for such pointless tasks is beyond me, although since Chile is in much better economic health than the UK due to prudent investment of the profits from copper, their major natural resource, what do i know?

Puerto del Sol Hotel, Valle Nevado, workforce not pictured

Spending nearly a week in the fabulous surroundings of Valle Nevado in the Chilean Andes it has been interesting (and at times, to be frank, a little annoying) to discover the attitude to service in the hotels and restaurants.

In contrast to Santiago with it’s very international flavour and diverse culture, the people in Valle Nevado hardly speak any English at all and don’t seem to understand much Spanish either. But that’s our problem as tourists really. What is difficult is getting what you want at any speed.

It actually takes 4 people to produce an espresso to my table here in the bar at Hotel Puerto del Sol. One person takes the order, one person rings it up on the til (til woman is now dubbed confused.cl as she and her sibling til woman are in an almost permanent state of struggle with the adding machine and til), one person makes it and another delivers it to the table. If you factor in at least 5 minutes of time-wasting per stage the actual drink arrives a long time after it has been ordered, usually lukewarm and often not what you actually ordered. The lottery of ordering food is even more unpredictable, with many points of possible cock-up between ordering and food delivery. Virtually no food arrives as ordered. It’s usually deleivered with a smile, although i’m not sure that makes up for everything else.

Breakfast is the worst. A chaotic mess of at least 20 waiting staff who seem to have such rigid demarcation between their job roles that the person who takes your empty plate away dissappears for 20 minutes when asked to bring coffee, and still returns without it. Perhaps checking her job contract to see if such outre tasks are allowed. It actually brings guests to the point of feeling disciminated against (maybe they think we’re american) as no matter how unsubtle your hand gestures there is still no one qualified to pour you a cup of coffee. What on earth has created this culture will be explored soon in another post.