Sunday, November 16, 2008
Welcome to South America, and welcome to Chile! One of our city guides, Patricio, exemplified the care our tour company, Grand Circle Travel, took to meet our needs. Barb left her cane at home in Vestal, and Patricio took the time...........and his personal car..........to drive us to a hospital supply store for a replacement!
The sewage-laden Mapocho river runs through Santiago, but in an effort to clean it, several filtering stations are being constructed along its route as it passes along. Much of the rapid moving water is from glacial melt. The girl? The drawing just happened to be there as I was taking a photo of the river........hmmmm.......
Santiago's main square, the Plaza de Armas, is a mix of old and new..........museums, government buildings, a cathedral, the post office and other important structures surround a large open plaza, where one finds mimes, artists, jugglers, roving musicians and folk who are on their way to one of the nearby markets.
In Chile the gaucho became the huaso; the skilled horseman who worked the vast herds on the cattle on the Chilean plains. They became experts at rounding up and corralling stray animals; this expertise is reflected in their rodeos which are held in media lunas (half circle arenas) resembling corrals.
Our whole tour group was divided; our subgroup was to locate smoked salmon in the Puerto Montt fish market. But we had no idea what we were looking for because the "shopping list" was totally in Spanish! By happy chance, we stumble on our assigned product, and when we all gathered together that evening, we enjoyed the fish, some cheeses, some crackers and a neat liquer as snacks before one of GCT's discovery lectures.
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