A day of cool and overcast. Apparently not a bad smog day – we could see the CBD from 5 km away. Santiago, about the midpoint both North-South and East-West, is the only significant city in Chile and it is huge – population over 6 million sprawling over a basin surrounded by mountains. It hosts the tallest building in the southern hemisphere.
Trish took us in to the city centre for a wander round the Museum of Precolumbian Art. Humans moved into the region from the north around 11-15,000 BCE. Through time and geography there were hundreds of groups. I confess I got lost in the timelines and instead just enjoyed the displays for the art and craft. Lovely pottery, carvings, and those amazing knotted string recording systems called quipu.
Quipu – knotted string collections used for record keeping and communication
After enjoying the museum, Trish took us on a wander through the streets, through the main square, and past innumerable buildings that she named for us. Overall my impression is of rather ‘functional’ architecture. I’m told that it is a consequence of the geography. Rather a late Spanish colonisation from the east, meant that all the opulent extravagance of the early expansion is in the East in Argentina and Brazil.
I’ve put a few more photos in a gallery at https://goo.gl/photos/83heRVaMcb4saG9D6