Arrived at the hostel( which was very cold) winter apparently doesn't stop when you enter a house or room because most places have moveable heaters, like 1 per house, but the hostel did not even have that so it was a cold morning finding more socks and and scarves to wear for the day. A few of the other students and I heard about a free tour at 10 so we left at 9:30( of course immediately got lost) and ended up having to speed walk for 35 minutes to catch the tour, which I think was probably close to 2 miles walk.
We got to the tour just in time but I was already wishing I had worn more comfortable shoes instead of my boots even though they were warm. We met at El Museo Bellas Artes in pretty much the center of the city which had a park that was called Parque Forestal because it has trees from all over the world in one place. Our guide told us why a lot of the buildings look different because, some have been destroyed by los terremotos( earthquakes) and they rebuild with modern architecture so there are buildings of all types. We walked all over the city, getting to see El Mercado Central which had a lot of seafood for sale and a lot of restaurants for seafood, El Mercado Vega Chica which had all sorts of meats and produce everywhere and many things are very cheap!
After this we left to Cementerio General de Santiago which is the size of 117 fútbol fields! I always think its kind of creepy to have cemeteries as tourist locations but it was interesting because we learned a lot about the culture and different concepts around death that many have like la animita, el animismo, and the mausoleums which if you want I can explain but I will spare the details because there is so much to write about. I was so exhausted at this point that Iswear to you I fell asleep walking, which I did not even think was possible. But I got my second wind when sitting and food were mentioned for after.
Afterwards it is tradition to go to el Quita Penas, basically to drink away the pain of losing a loved one and eventually celebrate I guess where I tried my first terremoto( the drink not the natural disaster) which was very good, very sweet. After this I really needed food because that was pretty much all I had eaten that day besides a few strawberries from the market so we returned to the fish market and ate at Tio Willy where I had scallops with parmesan which was sooo good. Also I tried pisco sour which is a common type of drink and after my meal I had una mente which is like a drink for after meals to kind of cleanse the palette I guess.
At about 5:30 we returned to our hostel( a long day for jet lag and only 1.5 hours of sleep on the plane) My roommate for the night Rachel returned and we walked to get some dinner and went to bed at about 8:30 because we were both so tired. And that was one day down!!
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| wheres wally |
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| Lucho!!! |
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| El Terremoto! |
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| First Sunrise in Santiago |
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