March 19th, 2006, Santiago, Chile
We woke up in our bunks (I am starting to realize that by writing this blog 'journal style' almost every day begins the same way, please let me know if you are getting bored by that as well) and packed up for the bus trip to Puerto Montt that wasn't to depart until late in the afternoon, so we checked out and left our bags with the reception at Casa Roja.
On Sundays in Santiago, the museums are free so we decided to get some more culture by experiencing the Museo Chleno de Arte Precolumbino. The Museo Chleno de Arte Precolumbino is an amazing museum, and is small and located near the pedestrian mall and shopping center we visited earlier.. We walked towards downtown again, hoping to find some breakfast. But nothing was open, except for Subway. And we acquiesced, caving to the pressure of our stomachs. The sub was good, and we ate it on a bench on a plaza across from one of the main administrative buildings in Santiago. Once full and satisfied we found the museum and entered the permanent exhibit hall. It was amazing. Artifacts of all shapes and sizes, materials and construction. Some truly amazing pieces and all of them explained an aspect of the culture from which they came. Some of the most interesting pieces were;
A counting rope, that is a series of strings knotted and tied together to represent the populace of a region. Strings of different color and length are thought to signify different events or people of varying stature or families. When a new child is born a string was tied onto the cord representing the parent at a certain point to show when. The rope overall looks a bit like a grass skirt and I believe that is how it was worn by the person conducting the census.
A ceremonial bowl/plate (pictured below) showing a shaman dressed as a bird with a (presumed) dead animal below. This bowl was thought to be used in preparation of the ceremonial psychedelics commonly used in Peru. This sort of Hawk figure appears all over the world in shamanic traditions.
I also really like this hat.
We left the museum and did a little last minute shopping for our sailing trip. I bought a bathing suite/running shorts and Jojo bought some conditioner because even on a boat, it's nice for us to have soft shiny hair, right? We walked back to Plaza Brazil, stopping for cheesecake and chinese food to take on the overnight bus trip we had ahead of us. The restaurant was grand but the food was lousy. We got back to Casa Roja, grabbed our bags, and of course, our ubiquitous plastic bag of food as well, and set off on the underground for our bus.
By this time we were used to busses and bus terminals, but the lady who scornfully sold us our tickets deigned not to tell us our bus departed from the terminal across the street, so we had to do some hot footing with all our gear to make it, which we did, but we were again a bit out of breath when we got there (which reminds me is a trend on this trip, starting waaaaay back in Miami airport where we had to walk well over a mile to get to our plane to La Paz... mmmm). But aboard we were, in the last row (the same ticket lady had deceived us on this topic as well, but we had more room to spread so it was ok) and ready for a bad night's sleep.
On Sundays in Santiago, the museums are free so we decided to get some more culture by experiencing the Museo Chleno de Arte Precolumbino. The Museo Chleno de Arte Precolumbino is an amazing museum, and is small and located near the pedestrian mall and shopping center we visited earlier.. We walked towards downtown again, hoping to find some breakfast. But nothing was open, except for Subway. And we acquiesced, caving to the pressure of our stomachs. The sub was good, and we ate it on a bench on a plaza across from one of the main administrative buildings in Santiago. Once full and satisfied we found the museum and entered the permanent exhibit hall. It was amazing. Artifacts of all shapes and sizes, materials and construction. Some truly amazing pieces and all of them explained an aspect of the culture from which they came. Some of the most interesting pieces were;
A counting rope, that is a series of strings knotted and tied together to represent the populace of a region. Strings of different color and length are thought to signify different events or people of varying stature or families. When a new child is born a string was tied onto the cord representing the parent at a certain point to show when. The rope overall looks a bit like a grass skirt and I believe that is how it was worn by the person conducting the census.
A ceremonial bowl/plate (pictured below) showing a shaman dressed as a bird with a (presumed) dead animal below. This bowl was thought to be used in preparation of the ceremonial psychedelics commonly used in Peru. This sort of Hawk figure appears all over the world in shamanic traditions.
I also really like this hat.
We left the museum and did a little last minute shopping for our sailing trip. I bought a bathing suite/running shorts and Jojo bought some conditioner because even on a boat, it's nice for us to have soft shiny hair, right? We walked back to Plaza Brazil, stopping for cheesecake and chinese food to take on the overnight bus trip we had ahead of us. The restaurant was grand but the food was lousy. We got back to Casa Roja, grabbed our bags, and of course, our ubiquitous plastic bag of food as well, and set off on the underground for our bus.
By this time we were used to busses and bus terminals, but the lady who scornfully sold us our tickets deigned not to tell us our bus departed from the terminal across the street, so we had to do some hot footing with all our gear to make it, which we did, but we were again a bit out of breath when we got there (which reminds me is a trend on this trip, starting waaaaay back in Miami airport where we had to walk well over a mile to get to our plane to La Paz... mmmm). But aboard we were, in the last row (the same ticket lady had deceived us on this topic as well, but we had more room to spread so it was ok) and ready for a bad night's sleep.
posted by Greenstigator at 5:28 PM
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