Reality Shows

The time of reality shows is far from gone in Chile. TV channels fight for audience between them, each one with its own kind of show. One of them started a series of reality shows, where people live in a particular historical time, with the existent conditions and technology and the same outfit of those times. The first one was called 1810 and they are now starting the 1910. The name obviously states the time they live in. Next year, the 2010 will go out, celebrating the bicentenario, Chile's 200 years. These realities involve celebrities invited to participate and they compete among them to win a prize of 50 million pesos, something like 65,000 Euro. But I don't see TV here, so how do I know all this? Things happen...

Just another Tuesday, coming down from Paranal and drinking a beer with the colleagues at the Antofagasta airport. They announce the plane arrival (which is the same that takes us back to Santiago) and we go in the line for boarding. Suddenly, I see a girl coming out of the toilet with a strange outfit. While I was trying to decipher what was that costume about, a colleague stares at her and says "Wow, that's Pamela Diaz!". I see... and who the hell is Pamela Diaz? Apparently, a famous actress in Chile. When I look around, I see many many people wearing the same weird outfits, together with a huge crew and cameras. "They are the ones from the reality!", someone says. "They were shooting here in the North of Chile." All this excitement and I had simply no idea of who they all were. I offered myself to take some pictures to my colleagues with their famous people, but they didn't want. We were flying together with all this television crew of people, which couldn't be for sure more boring than a normal flight. I entered the plane and took my 14A seat, next to the window. Afterwards, a colleague comes and sits by the aisle. We had one seat left in the middle and we joked about Pamela Diaz sitting there. Well, it wasn't her, but suddenly the TV people started coming and this gorgeous girl in a strange costume stops right at our side. "14B, it's here." My colleague immediately stood up for her to pass while I meticulously removed the seatbelt from the seat opening space for her to sit. She kindly thanked and smiled, looked at me and smiled again and then whispered something, which I, for ethical reasons, will not reveal. In a few more seconds, I heard her moaning a few words in Portuguese. She was Brazilian, what are the odds?! "So you speak Portuguese as well!", I said in my native accent. "Yes, I am Brazilian!", she answered in that sexy Brazilian accent. This was definitely my most entertaining flight in Chile, after that detour to Mendoza, last year. I got to know all that about the reality show, that they had been shooting in the North and they would now move to a place, where they would be isolated from the outer world during three months and where the reality would start. There I was, in the middle of famous people that I had never heard about and appearing in some shootings they did inside the plane. I was probably the last person she talked to before entering the show. I kissed her goodbye and wished her the best luck for the show. I promised to cheer for her, maybe this time I start watching some TV...