Carrete
A party, a night out — and carretear, the verb for doing it properly.
Related lesson: Chilean Spanish: A Survival Guide.
Hear it in context
¿Hay carrete el sábado?
Is there a party on Saturday?
Carreteamos hasta las seis de la mañana.
We partied until six in the morning.
Estoy con caña, carreteé demasiado anoche.
I’m hungover, I partied way too hard last night.
What It Actually Means
El carrete is the party, the night out, the whole enterprise of going out drinking with friends. Carretear is the verb, a carretero is someone who does far too much of it, and el after is what happens when the carrete refuses to end.
Where It Comes From
From carrete, a reel or spool — the thread that keeps unwinding, the night that keeps going. The word displaced older terms in the 1980s and is now so central that Chilean nightlife has no other name.
How Natives Use It
For everything from a flat party to a full night out; a bar or club night is also a carrete. Vocabulary that travels with it: la previa (pre-drinks), el copete (booze), curado (drunk), la caña (the hangover) and el after (the last stop, at dawn).
Common Pitfall
Don’t reach for the words you learned elsewhere: Spain’s botellón and Colombia’s rumba are the local equivalents, and neither is used in Santiago. And beware “la caña”: ordering one in a Chilean bar the way you would in Madrid is a small comedy — see going for drinks for the full bar map.