D27 –- Sport of the Devil!

We went to a 19^th century home, Palacio Cousiño, which belonged to an extremely wealth family and is now a museum. The staircase was made of something like 20 different kinds of marble, the floors were either ornately patterned wood or Italian Majolica, the drapes were hand embroidered by French nuns of silk and velvet, etc., etc., etc. Next up was Chile’s version of Sacre Coeur – Iglesia de los Sacrementinos. You can't tell from the picture, but the building was in pretty bad shape.

In the afternoon we visited the (smelly) Mercado Central, where they sell all kinds of fish and shellfish, the Cathedral, San Francisco church (built in 1618), and the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolumbino. They had an impressive collection: lots of ceramics, some wood and stone carvings, and even some textiles dating back to BC times in some cases. During our sight-seeing we happened across a book fair going on at the beautiful, neo-classical Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. I spotted a churros vendor and alerted Thomas, who’s always on the lookout for a good churro. He was in 7^th heaven, as they used real powdered sugar (instead of granulated like in Mexico.)

Early in the evening we headed to the airport to try to fly standby. It was mayhem - we waited for about four hours to learn we weren’t getting on the plane. We used a shared minibus taxi to get back to a hotel. On our minibus were a nice woman named Lulu and a man from Texas. Lulu is Chilean but lives in Whistler, Canada, where she’s a ski instructor. The man was quiet for the first 20 minutes while we chatted with Lulu about skiing. Then all of a sudden he starts ranting about how environmentally destructive skiing is because of the development and the corresponding damage to the environment. He struck us right away as a wacko – one of those people who perhaps has persuasive information to share, but is so volatile you can’t take him seriously. When he started to cuss and tell us we (anyone who has been or goes skiing) should all burn in hell, Thomas got worried and immediately started to engage him in conversation so as to shield Lulu and I from his ranting. We felt pretty bad when we got dropped off at our hotel because we knew she’d be left alone with him and his incredible hostility toward the skiing industry. Poor Lulu!

- Elva