Historic Central Markets
We awoke (this may be an overstatement – jetlag is still rife) to a blue sky day. Porridge for breakfast. Supermarkets here seem to have no breakfast cereal that isn’t 95% sugar, or, perhaps worse, low sugar but packed with artificial sweeteners. Oats are one of the few safe options. Other odd things: like in Spain, fresh milk is hard to come by. Milk is generally only available as long-life UHT sterilised cartons; brown sugar is rare too.
After breakfast we headed down the road to the Santiago Markets (Mercado Centrale). These are one of the standard tourist destinations in Santiago. The current market was opened in 1872 in a large building featuring an impressive cast iron roof.
Santiago Markets
Santiago Markets
Then we headed over the river to the main market area that sprawls over several blocks. The fishmarket was amazing. Meat market … vegie market … flea market… looked like just about anything you would like was there.
Gran Torre Santiago – the Great Santiago Tower – the tallest in South America
We lunched on empanadas, local equivalents of cornish pasties from a stall in the market. Very tasty. By early afternoon we were starting to wane (wee hours of the morning AEST) so Trish drove us home via various scenic/character-rich suburbs, and past a local landmark the Grand Torre Santiago. This 64 story tower is the tallest building in South America, and not far short of the tallest in Melbourne (Eureka tower -has slightly higher habited floor) and Sydney (Q1 has slightly higher architectural features).
View to South from Lo Barnachea, over newly developed suburbs. Snowcapped mountains just visible above the ever-present smog layer.
After a reviving cup of coffee Steven and I went for a stroll into the local hills. The map suggested there were some tracks into “green” areas. We wandered the streets for 40 minutes to get to the start of the marked tracks, past new housing development after new housing development. These are gated communities surrounded by walls bearing razor wire and/or electric wires, houses of 250 m2 or more … clearly for the growing middle class. I dread to think what the roads will be like here in a few years. Already Santiago’s smog notorious, especially in winter when people are using wood fires for heating. Occasionally rain clears the air for a few hours to a day. They have a range of gradings for smog ranging up to emergencias, when they close schools and restrict car use based on even/odd number plates etc.. There is a lot of traffic contributing to the smog and congestion is horrible. Yet there seems to be little sign of public transport infrastructure in these newly developing areas. No bus stops. No local shopping areas. I must find out more about what is in the pipeline. Oh and did I say … when we got to where the map showed tracks into the green area, we found a fence and gate, with bulldozers active and clearly a new suburb in the initial stages. Soon all the hills in the area will be sprawling with housing.
Just for interest I looked up the current air quality index (lower is better) for Melbourne (~10-15) and santiago (~75-85 — today was relatively good; I noticed for Valdiva down the coast from here the AQI was 275!).
More photos at https://goo.gl/photos/BbxFT8vo1DwFNanH7.