On the mercado side of Santiago

Everything went smoothly for the first flight. D dropped me off outside the terminal. I had checked in the day before while at work, so I headed directly for security even before checking for my gate. My printer had been low on ink so my printed boarding passes were too light for the scanner to read in the security line. “I think I can get it on my phone…” I tentatively suggested. “Yes, that would be better,” said the TSA woman. “Just place your phone face down right there,” she instructed, once I had the electronic boarding pass displayed. I was through the line in 3 minutes. I pulled out my phone and looked at my United app to see if it had updated for the gate. It had, and 45 seconds later, there I was at my gate. From curbside drop off to standing at the gate in six minutes. I love PDX! And how about technology making life easier?

I had a 3-hour layover in Houston, and I took that time to find Margaret’s incoming plane from San Francisco. I sat at a bar next to her gate and had a couple glasses of wine and waited for her. I met several really nice people and had an enjoyable stop there. In no time, Ms. Margaret was entering the terminal and we had some catching up to do! We easily got the counter attendant at our gate to seat us together.

We both popped sleeping pills and both barely slept. I’m not sure I slept at all. Margaret thinks she must have slept because her tray table was cleared at one point and she didn’t remember anyone doing it.

We disembarked in Santiago earlier than scheduled and were through customs in a snap. We were feeling adventurous despite having no sleep, and by 10am we were outside the airport asking for the city bus. All thanks to Margaret’s sleuthing, we took the bus to the Metro, then the Metro to downtown, then we walked to the address. It cost about $2 and we got to be with the regular people.

With really very little trouble at all, considering, we were knocking on Angelo’s door. He’s our host for the Air BnB room. We are just renting a room in his apartment with his roommate. He showed us around, explained everything he could think of, then went to sleep. Both Angelo and his roommate are Emergency Room nurses and he’s on the night shift.

The place is great. We can see Hidalgo Castle and the Catholic University on one side, and the Cerro San Cristóbal on the other. M and I took showers and hit the town, sleep deprived and everything.

Our first stop was to the supermarket right at the base of the apartment tower. We toured the whole place, noticed an entire aisle of just cooking oil, and finally spotted the empanadas and bought a few. Out on the street, we soon came upon the Catholic University of Chile. We admired the architecture from outside, and loved the courtyards inside for students. We walked through an art gallery, then went back out onto the street.

Next we walked through the first of many open-air markets and got a taste of the kinds of things we could find here. I bought a gift right away because today is a friend’s birthday, and she asked me to find her a gift today. “And it can’t say ‘Made in China’ on it,” she insisted. I found something lovely, but I won’t say in case she’s reading.

Next we hiked up the hill to the Castle Hidalgo, which we can easily see from our apartment. It is a beautiful beautiful park with a castle on top. The hill has been the center of the city for over 450 years, and is the site where the city of Santiago was founded. Construction began on the current castle-like appearance in 1982, and the hill itself is now an impressive park and garden.

We found more mercados (markets) at street level again, and began wandering. Margaret spotted the Correo Central, which is a splendid old post office building that we went in and explored. Right next to it is the Catedral Metropolitana de Santiago. At street level and next to all the other large buildings, I didn’t even realize it was a cathedral from the outside. Thus I was truly blown away when I saw the inside.

From there we continued north to the Mercado Central and found many many more streetside shops and kiosks to browse, but a whole entire fish market! We wandered deep inside the fishy place because it was compelling, and found a huge room in the center, occupied by a seafood restaurant. We spent so much time asking questions and lingering there, that they finally talked us into eating a meal. We asked so many questions about the menu that the waiter Nicholas brought the owner who could speak English, to help us with questions. But mostly, everyone wanted us to eat the Centolla, or Chilean King Crab, in season right now. It was an expensive meal, but they had all earned it, and we paid our pesos without hesitation.

Interesting things I noted while eating. There were many many waiters, who were all very friendly and withhout customers appeared to be invested in getting people to come sit down. Passersby could not escape their attentive calls. While we sat, street vendors walked through (because, though under a roof, the fish market was still open-air) and approached the tables and tried to sell us things including a fire starter, a small electric fan, copper jewelry and photographs of ourselves. There was a black and white stray cat that wandered through on a circuit, waiting for crab scraps to fall.

When we were full, we also found that we were tired. It was nearly 4pm and we were proud of ourselves for doing so much stuff despite our low batteries. However, it was time to head back to the apartment. We had walked a couple miles and it took several consults of the map to get us back. More people were out, and more buskers were out. Today we passed a particularly talented Stevie Ray Vaughn style electric guitarist, a man tossing discs and telling jokes to a large crowd, a person dressed as a transformer entertaining onlookers as it danced to electronic music, and a man painted all in gold who sat still as a statue in the blazing sun, but would perform a slow, tai chi- type dance for money.

We gratefully returned to the apartment and turned in early with hopes of restored energy mañana.