Marvelous Markets

     Today, Jess and I journeyed long and far to La Vega, the central market of Santiago. We forgot our cameras (darn it!) but I can at least tell you what we did and saw and bought (LOTS). Here's a quick breakdown:
                              32,000 Chilean pesos spent
                              6 hours of standing/walking
                              86.3lbs of baggage to carry home (I weighed it with my hand scale)
                              7.9 miles walked in total (we mapped our route on Google Maps)
                              A sunny day spent drooling in anticipation of delicious meals to be made with your                               best friend @jessica pasik?
                              PRICELESS
     Our list was mostly fruits and vegetables, though we got a little carried away adding meats, grains, and spices on there. We did end up getting a few spices- curry, oregano, and cumin, but held off on the meat thanks to our ridiculous walk home. We bought a little old lady cart for our groceries, but they wouldn't even all fit! It was crazy haha. We ended up using the nylon strap Teaching Chile gave us to prevent thieves from stealing our purses and instead used it to strap more plastic bags of food to the handle of the cart! 
     All of the produce needed to be washed, at least in our paranoid minds. TeachingChile told us anything that grows on or close to the ground needs to be soaked in chlorine (a special bottled chemical rinse here) for 5 minutes before being eaten to kill off bacteria in the irrigation water. In spite of the fact that we were going to cook pretty much all of it, we decided to soak everything; we don't need any parasites getting us sick! Tomorrow we'll start to plan out our menu list. Can't wait!
     We went for the vegetables first in our plan of attack; they would be the heaviest and would need to go on the bottom. I'll ask Jess for the price list later because even that deserves to be shared! Just for comparison, we got 3 kilos of potatoes for I think 2,000 pesos. That's roughly $4. FOUR DOLLARS for 6.6 pounds of potatoes. WHAT?! This market was crazy. The prices were so low, and it was so crowded, so noisy, so smelly. But it was so exciting too, and we can't wait to go again! (Though we should probably eat all we have first...)