Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
10th January
Mercado Central
We left the flat at about 11 today and walked to the University of Chile metro station where there is a ticket office for the bus to Valparaiso. On the way we picked up a small glass of 'Mote con Huesillo' which we shared between us for breakfast. The queue at the ticket office was huge and we spent about 30 minutes waiting to be served, however when our turn eventually came the lady behind the desk was extremely helpful and efficient which made such a nice change from our time in Cuba!! With our tickets booked we walked off in the direction of the 'Mercado Central' which we had been meaning to go look at since we arrived, as we were walking along we passed several very impressive building located just the other side of Plaza de Armas before walking through a somewhat more run down area where it turns out there is a whole road of second hand clothes shops.. Obviously it was absolutely necessary that Mae look in these so by the time we actually got to the central market it was about 2.30. In Santiago the 'Mercado Central' is in fact just the fish market, it is located in a very impressive building which was design by the same Mr. Eifel who designed the tower in Paris and once you go inside this become very obvious as the structure of the building is very similar, we spent some time looking around the place which due to tourism has now mainly become the home of restaurants rather than actual fish stands. On top of this we were once again greeted by the menu waving staff who attack you from all angles and make a very big deal about not charging you 'tourist prices' (this of course doesn't mean they charge low prices just that they are equally willing to rip of locals!!) We eventually decided that we woudn't eat there and instead would walk across the river and look at the other market where everything else is sold. The building for this market is no less impressive and both Mae and myself actually preferred it as it is much more light and airy. After looking around the lower level we bought some bread, cheese and a bottle of Inca Cola (the local competition for Coke) for lunch. Once we had finished we had a look round the upper level where there are stalls selling clothes, shoes and other assorted item as well as a few restaurants. We picked up a new toothbrush for myself and the went back downstairs to get half a kilo of strawberries for $1 and 250g of spicy salted peanuts for about $0.60. By the time we had finished devouring these it was almost 6 and we walked back to Roberto's flat. When he got back around 9 there ensued a rather brief discussion about what to do that evening and since he wanted to learn to dance, we obviously decided to walk into Bellavista and try to find some salsa! We first tried club 4-40 again but once again found it to be closed so we sat down at a student bar with 2 litres of beer for $7 and had a drink and chat while we waited for Maestra Vida to open. Once in the club we proceeded to give Roberto a crash course on basic salsa before having having a few dances, the club wasn't as busy today but we still had some fun dance with each other before the band came on. Annoyingly it turned out that the band was a Reggae group and we listened to ¾ of their set before deciding that since we woudn't be able to dance and Roberto had work the next day we should call it a night.
- comments