Welcome to Santiago, land of the more expensive

With our hostel booked and ready to go this time, we went straight from the bus station at 6:30am on Saturday morning to our place of residence while in Santiago. Traveling farther south means moving south on the thermometer as well for this time of year. It was quite cold when we arrived, but it didn't exactly phase us much considering we were quite content being off that bus.

After a little bit of searching with our taxi driver we made our way into our hostel and into a warm house. The guy at the front desk seemed about half awake when we checked in, nonetheless we were able to lock our bags up while we went out for breakfast until check-in. Notice I said the guy at the front desk was half awake. Particularly, he really wasn't paying attention when we asked him where a good place for breakfast was. By this point it was about 8:30 so surely something was open. That's funny, because NOTHING was open. After walking around the area aimlessly for about 30 minutes we realized that the typical dinner time of 9pm for Chileans must also mean they don't eat breakfast until about 11am. So back to the hostel it was for us! The guy there let us eat the complimentary breakfast even though we technically hadn't checked in yet so that we could head out to explore.

We started out by walking across a not so pretty river to some rather European looking parks. Chile is much more developed than Peru and Ecuador and resembles parts of Europe in many ways.

 

It was great being in a new place and getting to experience an entirely different culture and schedule for that matter than in the United States. Although everything is a little bit more expensive here, it's still cheaper on the average than back home.

We even had the opportunity to enjoy our Sunday afternoon going to the Bella's Artes museum for free before going to Mercado Central. It was a combination modern and classical art museum with some really interesting displays and showcases. Even though everything was in Spanish, it was fun to walk around and see something we're not necessarily used to seeing.

The Mercado Central is this gigantic fresh fish market that everyone loves to buy from and eat at. It will be hard for me to explain the craziness that was going on inside this market on Sunday, but I will do my best. Aside from the overwhelming smell of fish in one poorly ventilated area, there were an overwhelming amount of people buying fish and viewing the spectacle. No pun intended, but I felt like a sardine in the middle of everyone.

We were told we had to eat there for lunch and enjoy the freshly cooked fish that they serve. This area of the market was also extremely hectic and the picture above does not do the smell, noise, or craziness of this scene any justice whatsoever. It was like lunch and show while we watch hundreds of people filter through and dozens of waiters run around the masses trying to please the locals and tourists.

Once again we seemed to find our niche of acting like kids in another one of the popular parks in Santiago. If I would have had these jungle gyms as a kid I would have been in recess heaven! The play area was unreal and we decided to jump in on the action a little bit just to make sure we weren't getting too old.

Monday we will be taking a day trip to a town called Valparaiso (a colorful, graffiti town) to see another side of the country.