on snails and avocados

Good lecture this morning from a woman from the federal trade office on Chile´s trade policies since 1990 (the end of the dictorship). Apparently free trade works for a ¨an open market of 15 million people at the end of the world¨. (her words)

Then we headed north about 90 minutes to an agricultural area.

{it´s really winter now. very chilly and raining all day. so it would have been nice to have some sun and a little warmth, but that´s the southern cone in June. }

We visited two farms. The first raised snails primarily for export to France. Over a million of these things on a very small plot of land. Very interesting process. Apparently they´re expecting great things, like snail consumption to rise since it´s high in protein and low in fat. So get ready to start eating more snails.

The second farm produces flowers and avocados. Also an interesting set of processes. I have now seen where guacamole really comes from.

Long bus ride back to the city. Terrible traffic. Also the truckers here are on strike, more on that later.

adios for now.