Communication: cross your fingers and hope for the best

Ok, let me just begin by saying that our Spanish is progressing. Through a combination of under and over pronounced syllables that resemble Spanish words and descriptive body language we have been able to achieve most things. We have heard that Chile is the worst place to try to understand locals if your new to the language because they speak so fast that even  other native Spanish speakers find it hard to catch their meaning. In the deep end is where you learn to swim though right?

Something I have fallen back on is "If you dont understand just cross your fingers and say si (yes)." It kind of eventuates in a situation like that movie Yes Man though where you never really know what your getting your self into. One example of this is ordering food. In La Serena, after an exhausting drive, all i wanted was a solid, healthy and satisfying meal. After searching for somewhere that was open for a while we came across a buffet style cafe, one where you pick stuff from the warmer and they put it on a plate and charge by size/weight. So I really liked the look of a tomato based pasta sauce to I pointed and said "que uno, por favor." She smiled and served me some of what I wanted... I am awesome I thought. Win. But then she spat out a rapid fire of Spanish that I had no idea about.......... "Ahhhh, Si seniora" I said cautiously, then with more confidence "Si, perfecto" (fingers crossed, whats the worst that could happen). The worst that could happen is that I ended up with about 1kg of mash potato on a second plate. hmmmmmm, fail.

The key is body language, Niki is epic at reading the song and dance people go through trying to communicate with foreigners. Me not so much. We stayed a night at an amazing little hostel in Caldera by the name of Aji Rojo. It was a little house that had been slightly modified for travellers and is by far the best accommodation we have had, It really felt like you were visiting someone in their home. It was warm and comfortable and we had it all to ourselves. The issue was that the amazing lady that run the place didnt speak a word of English. So for two days we survived by making opening gate actions with our hands while repeating the word "Horra" to find out opening times while she just laughed at us at our most animated or shrugged in frustration when the message was lost. She tried to reciprocate the pantomime to facilitate our understanding. Would have looked like threee people having a fit at each other (with the odd stunned blank look thrown in) to anybody watching. But thanks to my basic language skills and Nikis interpretation of the theatrics we got by.
I cant wait to become confident and knowledgeable enough to fully interact with the local people here. It will make the trip allot smoother and allot more interesting.

Niki's Bits: Constant surprise meals ("hmm those words look like they say something yummy..."this please") meals do not always work so well for some allergic to dairy... buuuut The Simpsons is perfectly, equally hilarious in spanish as in english.