Valle de elqui & the kiss hello

While in La Serena (google map it - ill put a map in later), Lori and I went on a day tour to "Valle de Elqui", the region where chile produces most of their national drink, pisco. Picso is made out of grapes and, from what the tour guide told us, is the equivalent of a grape scotch.
The tour started off with a stop at a dam - a dam that holds barely any water. The valley is part of the atacama desert (driest place on earth) and it has been in a drought for over 5 years. The government had experimented with artificially generating rain (seeding clouds, I believe) but has been unsuccessful in five tries. It's seems like a pretty serious problem for a region that is dependent on agriculture. The valley is quite beautiful, though one can clearly see what the valley would look like once the water runs out.

The next stop of note was for lunch where we had meals made in solar ovens. It took over 4 hours to cook the meal and it was quite delicious. We also stopped at a pisco distillery where we saw the entire pisco making process. Quite interesting, and the pisco was good too! We had some other stops along the way and on the way back and it was quite a good time.

The real thing that I noticed however was the tour guide. He spoke english, and for Lori's sake, he would do the tour in both Spanish and English. It took twice the time for him to go through the tour but he was one of those guys that clearly liked to hear himself talk and so I think he enjoyed doing it. In fact, there were times when he was doing the English version where Lori wasn't even present to listen.
There was about 6 women on the tour and the manner in which he spoke to them was .... interesting. I will list off some of the phrases he used when addressing the ladies along with the (literal) translation.
1. Mi amor - my love
2. Mamita rica - sweet mommy
3. Corazon - heart
4. Mamita linda - pretty mommy
5. Tesoro - treasure
So it would be something like
"any questions? Yes, sweet mommy?"
"mind your step, heart"
"my pleasure, treasure"
My biased view was that it was more concentrated on the better looking girls on the trip to the point where the not so attractive girls weren't even offered a hand getting off the mini-bus. This sort of behavior would certainly not be seen in north America. Maybe it's something I should try to bring back to Canada? That along with the kiss hello. The extent of the kiss hello is amazing too! There is never an inappropriate time for the kiss hello. Bank teller busy with a client? Excuse me for a second for the kiss hello a colleague. Immigration officer dealing with a difficult passport? It's only polite to allow a co-worker kiss. Perhaps you are meeting someone for the first time? Nothing says "nice to meet you" like a kiss hello.

Potential kiss hello scenarios that would become common place in Canada after I import it:
1. Kiss hello your personal trainer
2. Kiss hello your admin assistant
3. Kiss hello security in your work building
4. Kiss hello your dry cleaner
5. Kiss hello your boss

I guess I should point out that there is no man-man kiss hello, and its only on one cheek. Might not seem too bad I guess, but I should mention the large proportion of Chilean men with mustaches. I imagine the hello process would become quite an ordeal after a while.

PS. One more tour guide story - As good as his English was, if he didn't know a word, he would simply English-ify the Spanish version of the word. My favorite was transforming the orca whales into "Orc" whales.