Las ramadaaaaas!

The fiestas patrias in Chile are a reason to celebrate during all of September apparently. They eat traditional food like empanadas, pastel de choclo, choripan, anticucho, asados, etc, and they drink typical drinks like terremotos, chicha, borgona, punch, etc. They also have things called ramadas which are usually in parks where people go to buy all those tasty things, play games, buy artisan goods, and just hang out. The ramadas last all week long, even after the 18th and it's a fun way to celebrate. I went one ramada in Concepcion where I drank chicha (which is wine made from grapes or apples or corn after the first distillation, so it's still really sweet like grape juice but has a little bit of alcohol) from a bull horn (typical), watched the boys play a shooting game and win me a little stuffed animal, and drank some terremotos. Then when I went back to Santiago before heading back to Iquique, I experienced a different type of ramada that was a lot bigger, dirtier, more expensive, and with a lot more rambunctious people. That one had bands playing in different tents that you could pay a couple bucks to go in and watch, but instead we just walked around with our terremotos and people watched. Definitely an experience.