During our second full day in Santiago, Chile, we did another walking tour to “La Chimba” – “the other side” of the river. As we previously mentioned, the Mapocho River divides the residents of Santiago. The La Chimba side houses the more down-trodden residents who are the humble, proud and the “beautiful” people of the city as our guide explained. We walked through four very impressive open air markets. El Mercado Central is the main market in Santiago. It once was the old train station before it was converted into the main market. We couldn’t believe the low prices in this bustling and very chaotic market. We visited the markets on a Sunday. Perhaps, that is why the markets were so crowded. The fish stalls displayed gorgeous bounties of seafood. At $.35 a piece for oysters as big as a hand, who could resist that temptation? These markets mostly sell in bulk by the kilo here. There were many stray cats in this market. (Apparently, they reside at the market to chase the mice away.)
We then toured several other markets (flea, fruits & vegetables, meat & chicken). All were amazing and the food was quite inexpensive.
The last part of today’s walking tour was a subway ride and visit to the General cemetery which is Chile’s oldest, largest and most important cemetery. Surprisingly, the visit was quite interesting. All Chile’s presidents are buried here with the exception of the military dictator, Augusta Pinochet. The Catholic Church allowed Protestants to be buried here only if they were behind 7 meter high walls. We were in awe over the very ornate mausoleums throughout the cemetery. Many of them had Greek and French façades. One interesting mausoleum recently constructed looked like an apple store; as it had massive glass walls and was recently built by a Pakastani family!
Tomorrow, we will be flying to Easter Island which is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world. It should be interesting.
