Aneya: Need a Drink?

Because if you do, I know someone who's selling them! They're called vendedores and they are scattered throughout the streets of Santiago, selling drinks to desperate, thirsty pedestrians. They also like to stand in the middle of on going traffic. They usually wait until the light is red, then they peruse through the cars, offering ice cold water, Coke, or, the national soda (pictured above) Bilz y Pap. They're not just men. Women and children also work the streets, selling everything from candy to chips, from fruit to ice cream and more.

You'll see them hop on the city buses, yelling in their now familiar sing song voice "BEBIDAS!" dancing through the aisles with their bags full of water and ice cream. One time, on a charter bus to Valparaiso, the driver stopped in the middle of nowhere to pick up some guy selling beef jerky. He got on the bus, sold his stuff and then we dropped him off a few minutes later. In the middle of the desert. Lauren and I both found this very odd. What's the guy supposed to do now, with his basket of jerky, all alone in the desert? It was all very bizarre.

In this aspect, Chile does remind me of Mexico, what with people pushing you to buy things around every corner, it can get to be a bit much. But the vendedores usually aren't too aggressive, they just hold their merchandise on top of their head and yell the price at the top of their lungs, to anyone who'll listen. I mean, they definitely make money off of it, I see people buying stuff from them all the time.

Heck, even Lauren succumbed one day on the bus and bought a bottle of water from a creepy looking man. Big mistake. He scammed her on the price, got way too close (he "couldn't hear") and then made us miss our stop! Lauren does have a tendency to talk to just about anybody, and I keep telling her not to engage with all the weird looking people that come up to us, but she's just too damn friendly. I, on the other hand, ignore and walk away. This may seem rude, but I'm not taking any chances! The weird ones just love my hair. Anyway, lesson learned.