Chile Forum

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For lennykingman and other newbies/wannabes/shameless boosters -- one of the most important words related to Chile, whether those writing deliriously about it from afar, or when talking to a certified chileno, is the term chamullo and its variants. It basically means, using the closest North American counterpart, "bullshit." As a verb: chamullar. Conjugated: él chamulla, ella chamulla, todos chamullan todo el tiempo (he bullshits, she bullshits, they all bullshit all the time and without pausing to breathe). Take everything you have heard about Chile, divide by two, subtract the cosigner of your bank account, and square the hippopotamus. The result, to the closest metatarsal, will be more believable.

There is a strong tendency in the local population to give answers and explanations to issues wherein the speaker has not the foggiest idea, but feels the urgency to give you some sort of contrived and largely imaginative answer, so as to justify the speaker's continued presence on the planet. It's contagious. Travel-guide writers contract it very easily, and fill their essays with great dung-heaps of abono orgánico disguised as chamullo. You have been warned.

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el puelche wrote:hey the hippos at my house are kinda round--not square at all---i bet there area a lot of people that didn't know there are hippos in chile.

Chilean hippo (Hippopotamus chilensis chamullus)