As anyone who’s read this website for any length of time should know, I love the country of Chile. In fact, of all the Third World countries I’ve ever been to or even lived in, Chile ranks #1, by miles. I love its people, its scenery, its way of life, the women are among the sexiest I’ve ever seen and the climate is wonderful; so despite the language difficulty, if someone were to say: “You have to go and live in Chile”, my response would be: “Gimme the ticket.” I’d learn Spanish just to go and live there.
I can’t remember if I’ve told this story here before, but in case I haven’t, here goes.
You will recall that at one point, our family traveled extensively around the world (either on vacation or on business), and over three years we visited nearly two dozen countries, several repeatedly. We knew that the travels were going to end at some point (for all sorts of reasons) so at the end of what turned out to be our final trip, we polled our three kids with the following question:
“Assuming that you could afford to live there (had a job, etc.), which are the top three countries you’d choose to live in?”
The answers were as follows:
Daughter: 1. Tokyo, 2. Paris
Son&Heir: 1. London 2. Heidelberg (Germany)
#2 Son: 1. Tokyo 2. London
All three picked Chile — specifically, Viña Del Mar — as their third choice.
My only reservation about Chile — it was one of my top choices, too — was that I got the feeling that it was just one revolution from becoming Communist. And incidentally, that fear was also prevalent among many of the native Chileans I met on our trip there.
Which makes the most recent political news from Chile all the more exciting:
In December, former congressman José Antonio Kast found himself in a runoff against the Communist Party’s Jeannette Jara. Thankfully, Kast won in a decisive victory with nearly 60% of the vote.
But the people of Chile are ecstatic. The country has more or less been taken over by socialists and leftists for decades, and its most recent president, 40-year-old Gabriel Boric, may have been the most hardcore — and least popular — of all.
So, let me warn you that as you peruse the fake news media today that you’ll probably see a lot of headlines about how Kast is “far-right” or “ultra-conservative” or a big fan of the country’s former dictator, Augusto Pinochet. First of all, Kast has praised Pinochet’s economic reforms — he was a big capitalist, free market kind of guy who saved the country from full-on Communism — but Kast has also condemned him for his human rights abuses and all the bad stuff he did. It’s not like he has posters of him hanging on his office walls. Sheesh.
Second, Kast has been called “Chile’s Trump,” and that right there is enough to make the MSM lose its collective mind.
Kast campaigned on being tough on crime and restoring law and order to the South American nation. That includes deploying the military to cities with high crimes, strengthening the country’s borders, mass deportations of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, putting the interests of native Chileans first, and getting tough with cartels and terrorist organizations like Tren de Aragua.
Sounds like Chile, at last, is in the right [sic] hands, even though it seems unlikely that ChilePres Kast isn’t going to revive Air Pinochet, which is rather sad.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see what it costs to fly to Chile… wait, less than $900 return? Whoa.
Oh, and one last story.
When we arrived in Santiago and checked into our hotel (Four Points Sheraton), we got a call from the kids’ room: “We’re hungry; can we get room service?”
Well, a week prior to that we’d been in Zurich, where room service required a credit check. So with great trepidation I scanned the Four Points’ room service menu, converted the CLP$ (peso) into USD$, and said:
“You can order everything off the menu.”
“You mean anything?”
“No, I mean everything.”
I don’t remember what anything cost, but it was about 20% of what the same thing would have cost in a U.S. hotel, and about 1% of what it cost us in Zurich. (I’m not exaggerating.)
So yeah; add “affordable” to your travel plans.
I am seriously considering this idea, funds permitting.
Note: It appears that Chile no longer charges U.S. citizens an entry fee of $160 per person, nor does the U.S. do likewise for Chileans entering the U.S. This was the only fly in the ointment on our trip there, and thankfully it is no more.