Week 2: Sick but Still Smiling

30 Sec. Update: My second week in Santiago went well despite getting a fever and bad cough. I think it was the change in weather (going from the middle of the summer to the middle of the winter). A lot of volunteers have been getting sick. I'm feeling much better now though. Orientation runs until Friday after which we depart for our host cities. I got some time off this weekend and had a chance to do some sightseeing in Santiago. My favorite was the Museum of Pre-Colombian art which featured ancient artwork from all over the Americas.


Cerro San Cristobal: On Saturday afternoon a group of us took a hike up to the top of Cerro San Cristobal, a huge hill located in the center of Santiago. On the top of the hill you have some incredible views of the city and "el smog" At the top there is also a massive white marble statue of the Virgin Mary which overlooks the city. I had seen the statue from the city streets throughout the week and it was gratifying to finally climb up to it.



Santiago, City of Dogs: One of my favorite peculiarities about Santiago are the stray street dogs. On a given day walking around Santiago you will pass a dozen stray dogs walking on the side of the street. At first I was concerned about all of the dogs, but after being here for two weeks I have become very fond of them. The other night a group of volunteers and I were going out for ice cream and a pair of dogs followed us all night. It was like the dogs were escorting us from place to place, protecting us from pickpockets. The city has a population of over 200,000 street dogs and the people of Santiago treat them as communal pets. The city has tried to control the dog population by capturing them and making it illegal to feed the street dogs but the citizens of Santiago continue to put out water for the dogs and build them shelters.

Hot dogs, the national food of Chile: The food in Chile has been alright so far. It's a lot of meat & potatoes and it's a little bland. There have been a few notable exceptions though. The first of which is hot dogs. Chileans love hot dogs! I don't really understand it, but they serve hot dogs everywhere (even in the nice restaurants). The hot dogs, called completos, usually come in a slightly nicer package: covered with guacamole, tomatoes, and mayonnaise but at the end of the day you are still eating a hot dog. One of my professors jokingly called completos “the national food of Chile.”

El Mercado Central: One delicious culinary experience was at the El Mercado Central, the outdoor seafood market in Santiago. The market featured all sorts of bizarre and interesting seafoods that I had never seen before. One of which is the Conger Eel, a Chilean specialty which is an eel-like fish. There are small seafood restaurants located throughout El Mercado and we stopped at one of the restaurants. I didn't try eating the Conger Eel, but I had a delicious seafood stew that had a variety of shellfish and chunks of fish in it. I'm hoping that there will be more seafood in the south.