My Spanish class took a trip to La Vega which is an old market in the center of Santiago. There they sell anything that you could possibly imagine. Fruits, vegetables, clothes, perfume, ice cream machines, toys, and pottery. I loved seeing all of the different colors and weird things that they have here.
I could have done without seeing this, though.
We spoke with a man who had worked there for many years so that he could send his children to school. He had started out being a cargador which is someone who brings all of the goods to each stand on their back. After years of hard work as a cargador, he moved up to vendedor with his own stand selling fruits. He was super cute.
One of the other things that I did recently in Santiago was to go up the Cerro San Cristobal. There are a number of large hills all throughout Santiago and this one has a large statue of the Virgin Mary on the top. It is kind of weird that it is so normal to everyone here, but you can see her from almost anywhere in Santiago and it is no wonder because she is huge!!
We rode a taxi up most of the hill to watch a concert and then walked the rest of the way up to La Virgen. At the cumbre (top) there is also an area to light candles for loved ones. The view from the top is not much, just the city, but we were up there, so i took some pics.
On the way down the hill, we decided not to take the easy way out and ride the trolleys.
Instead, we took a trekking path that went almost directly down the hill. It was so much more fun than we would have had on the trolleys, i'm sure. At one point on our way down, we ran into a part of the path that was for some reason being watered with a sprinkler. This caused a bit of a problem because we hadn't come prepared to do any hiking and most of us were wearing flip flops. We slipped our way down that part of the path which was slightly scary because falling off of the path meant falling down the entire hill, but it was lots of fun despite that fact.
Saw some llamas at the bottom. No big deal. This man was charging $2 for a picture of them, though. Hah...I think not. So I snuck one.
Once we reached the bottom, we were all hungry for some empanadas so we went to Bellavista to eat and try a local favorite...fanschop. Fanschop = Beer + Fanta. It is actually really good. While hanging out there we saw this sign which I think is hilarious.
Ai Spikin Inglish = I speak in English.Also, it's time for another warning from the surgeon general herself..."Tobacco KILLS. If you want to live, stop smoking."
Hah. I still can't get over the honesty on these boxes. Though...they are definitely not working. Smoking is the thing to do here in Chile.One more cultural thing for the day. Here are some foods that you can expect to eat, or at least see, when out in Santiago.
Completos are a really big deal here for some reason. They are hot dogs with tons of stuff on top like palta (avocado), mayo, tomato, and salsa verde. Something else that is very common is to see something 'a lo pobre.' That is any meat with a huge pile of french fries on top of fried onions, with fried eggs on top. It's healthy, i promise.
Whew. Okay. That's all I've got for now.
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