Company Visits and Cueca

We started off the day with a visit to Hela, a company that sells paintbrushes and other work tools. This was the first time that Plus 3 has visited Hela, and their website wasn't very informative for the group that researched them, so we didn't really know much about the company beforehand. When we got there, it was basically a huge warehouse full of machines and tools. We got a tour of the factory but it was pretty hard to hear because all of the machinery was so loud. It was still interesting to see all that goes into making the different products, though!

After we finished our visit to Hela, we hopped on the bus and went straight to another company, Centauro. Centauro is a prepared foods and canned foods company. Their most popular product is tomatoes and tomato paste, but they also sell things like soup and canned peaches. We got to try a few samples of food, and it was pretty tasty! Our group was lucky because Centauro had just started producing a batch of pumpkin paste yesterday, for the first time ever, and we got to taste it! I like pumpkin flavored things, so I especially liked that taste test.

We were very hungry after leaving Centauro, so we decided to go to a place that the Chilean students told us has the best empanadas. I got an empanada with chicken, cheese, and corn, and I liked it! Everyone finished eating and we went to the University to learn how to dance cueca, which is Chile's national dance.

Cueca is a traditional dance where the men wear spurs on their boots and both the man and woman twirl scarves while dancing in a circular motion. It was interesting to learn, but I think I prefer salsa and reggaeton over cueca. I'm glad we got to experience a more traditional Chilean dance, though!