Santiago Randoms 2 - green Santiago and duendes

It's been a while since we've posted and we think this is a sure sign that we've settled into Santiago - that and the fact that we've not taken any significant trips recently as we're saving ourselves for summer, when we'll be off travelling for about 10 weeks!

So here's some more comments, photos, observations etc from Santiago - Santiago Randoms.

First a bit on food:

Ready meals mercado stylee

We've mentioned previously that it's great to have the time and the facility to buy food straight from a farmers market.  Feria La Vega is huge with a massive selection of fresh fruit and veg, and other things like herbs, spices, meat, pickles etc. Some stalls sell veg pre-prepared - still completely fresh, as you can see the old ladies sitting behind the stalls, shelling beans, peeling chopping etc - like in the photo above: washed butterbeans and broad beans with chopped onion and a little parsley. You can throw this straight into a pan.

Our stocked up fruit bowl, all familiar but see the stripy custard apples in the bottom

We've also found a little shop that sells amazing fresh pasta, and it comes wrapped in brown paper, everything should come like this, or at least in a nice brown paper bag:

There are various fruits here which aren't really seen in the UK, a couple of examples:

chirimoya

We can't remember what these little orange things are called. They're about the size of small tangerines, but with a smooth skin a bit like a berry's skin, and taste very sweet. There's a shiny black stone in the middle. We'll post again when we find out what they're called.

But it's not all fruit and veg, we previously praised the barros luco, a lovely chilean meat and cheese sandwich, we've recently found a peruvian sandwich bar:

Anna with a chicken sandwich peru style

Up close, and in the top left a corner of the other one a suckling pig filled extravaganza

This is grilled chicken, onions, lettuce, tomato, lovely creamy but slightly spicy sauces typical of peruvian dishes, and... chips. Yum. The other one we had was essentially the same but with suckling pig instead of chicken. Sooo good.

While we're on the subject, here's another awesome regular favourite: baked ricotta cheesecake, with raspberry sauce and a chocolate biscuit base...

Now some pics of the city. Over the last couple of weeks the weather has been fairly stable, reliably reaching or coming close to 30 degrees, bright sunshine, and a breeze - pretty much perfect. In the first half of November it was still very changeable. The sky is almost always fascinating to watch, and although the mountains are generally snow free now, there are still occasional overnight snow dumps. Here's a few pics from the last couple of weeks:

brooding

snowy mountains

cool clouds

Now for something a little different. Chile is a fast developing nation that has gone from being under military dictatorship to the first South American country to elect a female head of state, in a fairly short time. Chile however remains a strongly Catholic and relatively traditional country. There are many ways we could discuss those statements, but one fun way is attitudes to sex. .

One of the things that struck us when we first arrived was the amount of couples snogging ("making out" as our American friends might say, or maybe that's just what they say on Dawson's Creek) in the street, in parks, or in metro stations etc. Then we heard about "motels". These aren't Travelodge style hotels placed on strategic roundabouts for salesmen to sleep in, but are distinct from hotels in that the rooms in motels are available by the hour... There's one near our apartment, pictured here:  

In the photo immediately above you can just see a picture on the wall above the neon light. This shows a bed with the sheets pulled up to reveal what we think is a plastic mattress cover. It's a selling point that all bedding is washed and all extraneous fluids wiped from the mattress...

These places are a bit of an unrecognised Chilean institution, in fact one of the main characters in Isabel Allende's House of Spirits runs one: 


"[Transito Soto] had realised that what was really needed was a hotel for rendezvous, a pleasant place where secret couples could make love and where a man would not be embarrassed to bring a girl for the first time. No women: those were furnished by the customer... [she had created] a different atmosphere in every available corner, the Hotel Christopher Columbus had become the paradise of lost souls and furtive lovers... [she] had made French sitting rooms with quilted furniture, mangers with fresh hay and papier-mache horses... prehistoric caves with real stalactites, and telephones covered with the skins of pumas." 

It's incorrect to see these places as brothels, and they seem to be used as much by legitimate couples as philanderers. The reasoning is simple, for social and religious (and perhaps financial) reasons many Chileans cannot live as couples until they are married. This is true of some of our students who have children together but remain at home with their respective parents. There is also undoubtedly in some sections of Chilean society a conventional "not under my roof" culture. Hence some unintended consequences of relatively strict social conservatism in some parts of society: public snogging and hotel rooms available by the hour.

The motel near our apartment seems to be a bit of a down-market affair, for an example of something more lavish, more like Transito Soto's offering, click here. See the list of rooms (habitaciones link) - Viking, Buddhist, Roman themes all available. Quite why they chose the sort of overall fairy, goblin etc theme we don't know - the name of the place is Hotel El Duende and you can't miss the picture of the garden gnome emerging from the pond on the home page. Duende is spanish for gnome or goblin - which we actually learnt a while ago watching Harry Potter in the cinema here!

Speaking of Goblins, Elves and Gnomes, recently we were down near Estacion Central (the only train station in Santiago that still actually runs trains) and saw our first Christmas Tree of the season.

Gorgeous

Duendes at work, making pressies for you

That's better - the roof of Estacion Central was cast in, and shipped from, France in 1896

The tree wasn't the only spectacle available though, we were also treated to an unexpected bout of wrestling, Chilean style:

Grrr

Hear me ROAR

After all that excitement, some pics of how green Santiago has become now that summer is here. There is an army of city employees whose sole purpose is to water the parks, lawns and trees in the city - combined with the incredible sun that's made Santiago really beautiful. We are loving just being able to wander and relax in the sun. So some pics from the park near our apartment:

an impromptu guitar, singing and bongo drum get together

Incidentally, as it's snowing in the UK, this picture is topical - it's an old photo that's in the Museo Bellas Artes showing Parque Forestal in a very unusual year when Santiago itself was covered in snow:

Snow in Parque Forestal

In this same park, the National Youth Orchestra of Chile staged a free concert one night this week. We're really lucky with where we live, as we just stumbled on this while having a walk one night.

While we're doing green Santiago, here's some pics from a while ago that we've just rediscovered - from Cerro Santa Lucia. This is a hill park near our apartment that we have mentioned previously, but don't think we've posted these photos:

Cerro San Cristobal from Cerro Santa Lucia

Museo Bellas Artes from Cerro Santa Lucia

nice dog on the comfy grass

Here's Museo Bellas Artes from our apartment roof terrace, with the massed trees of Parque Forestal behind:

Another picture from our roof terrace, in the opposite direction.

The low red building with three arches is Estacion Mapocho, another of Santiago's train stations from where the now defunct Santiago-Valparaiso train used to run. Estacion Mapocho is now used as a large cultural space and is apparently a fantastic building up close. We plan to investigate soon. Also check out the fab cloud formations in this pic.

Here's another one to finish with. Same direction but a different day, so you can also see clearly Cerro Blanco (White Hill).

Chao!