Day 9 - Santiago - Blogabond

We got into Santiago in the evening of Day 8 and nothing much to report. We found a cheap place to eat - sort of fast food called SchopDog and then slept.

We got up on Day 9 and headed for the subway. By the way, the Sheraton sucks for free services. No free internet, not free water. They suck. 3500 pesos for water? Are you nuts? We bought the same amount of water at the supermarket for 419 pesos! Food? Want some dinner? Yeah shell out buddy. Anyways, I digress, we caught a subway downtown and walked around. We found a cool colonial home which contains the very first elevator in Santiago. Too bad it was closed for tours.

The architecture in Santiago is quite amazing. Lot's of Spanish/European design and many many many churches. 90% of this country is roman catholic. Oh I should also mention that Chileans love to make out. Like harsh make out. Imagine from here on in that EVERY photo I have probably has couple somewhere near harsh sucking tongue.

We sent out our post cards today as well since the central post office is not only gorgeous but also functional. You buy stamps outside from street vendors (??) and then send out the cards inside. We had some guy come by and ask us if we were Japanese, this has happened a few times now :)

After shipping out the post cards in the Plaza de Armas, we headed through the wonderful shopping areas and decided to try a Rice Mote Con Huessilos Heladito. It's like some kind of barley mixed with a peach juice with chunks of peach. Very refreshing!

We had a lunch/snack/dinner in the Mercado which is a huge fish market full of fresh fish - a la Pike Place Market - but with lots of tables in the middle. There were MANY very pushy people trying to get us to eat at their restaurant. Everywhere we went we were ushered to tables. What was funny after wandering around the entire complex was that ALL the restaurants actually belonged to one of two places. It was either place A or place B but they had "micro restaurants" all over which belonged to team A or B. Messed up. Regardless they had lots of fish including Chilean sea bass, too bad they don't know how to cook it. What a waste of a good fish.

We completed our day hiking up Cerro Santa Lucia which is the "hill" in the middle of central Santiago. There's a church at the top as well as a viewpoint. I'd like to call this hill "make-out hill" but considering people make out EVERYWHERE the name has little meaning. I think I'll conclude today that the Chilean national pastime is to find some shade and stick your tongue down someone's throat. To this, Chileans excel.

Make love not war. :)

written by

yungwesl on January 15, 2009 from Santiago, Chile

from the travel blog: Sandy and Wes in South America

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