There are so many great things about Santiago - starting with the street art, politics, poetry and delicious food and wine. It's a great city for walking and you'll find everything from graffiti to artistic murals in many quarters. I was amused to see one of the artists had added Salvador Allende's glasses, and his nickname, "Chicho", to the Communist party HQ in the centre of the City! The "tags", like BRP, tell you who painted each mural ....
I loved this one, which was to draw attention to the upholstery shop inside the building!
One of the finer art murals showed a table with pumpkin sections - which I saw in the market in real life ...
Whatever you fancied in the market, it was fresher - and much bigger - than in the UK. Look at the size of their garlic cloves, alongside the usual ones on the left! Or the cabbages bigger than footballs and broccoli bigger than a man's head ...
The iron-work in the fish market comes from Glasgow! And salmon or black conger will only cost £4-5 for a kilo ....
All of this translates into great, great food and wine. We ate in some beautiful little bistros, serving things I've never eaten before in exquisitely presented dishes. Whether it was artichokes and capers or their own take on patatas bravas and seafood linguine ...
The wine is incredible too and at the Colchagua vineyards we found out about a grape thought to be extinct but identified by the French and now a mainstay of Chilean production. Carmenere is my new favourite red wine and, whenever I drink it, I will think of the two rivers framing the vineyard and the Andes on one side and the Coastal Range of mountains on the other.
It is autumn here in Santiago! Sheila was so happy to find oak trees to hug!
It turns out that some of the best museums in Santiago are owned by very rich individuals (in the case of Santa Cruz, Carlos Cardoen is an arms dealer wanted by Interpol) but they have set up foundations to protect the collections and promote free or low cost access for schools and on some days of the week. You can see the original, hand-written constitution for Chile and an incredible range of personal treasures - from across South America. There was a megatherium - a giant sloth - like the skeletons which Darwin sent home from the Beagle - along with beautiful statues, pots and fabrics.
This one is slightly spooky because they would bind the skulls of young people to create a distinguished, elongated look as they grew up
This last "necklace" is actually a long and complex letter, or account, told in the way the knots are knotted and the length of the threads.
Mummies are very often older than those in Egypt and I love that they are all left with a "stairway to heaven".
I also loved these chemamulles, Mapuche statues carved and erected to protect the grave of someone special.
History is all around you in Santiago - and it's a great city for walking and reflecting. More tomorrow in my last blog of this trip 😊
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