Mercado Central, the "Fish Market"

Dave and I ventured out on more than one Metro line today (red, green AND yellow) to go to Mercado Central, a huge fish market located in the downtown Santiago. Now normally the Metro is pretty easy to navigate, but today was "Dia de los Ninos" and families were out in droves. Dave compares the Metro to an ant farm; everyone is moving very quickly around each other and it's just packed.

Back to the Mercado Central. Enormous and fantastic. At least 20+ "pescadarias" (fish shops) selling octopus (pulpo), salmon, erizos (sea urchins - really!), calamar (squid), flounder, lots of camarones (shrimp) and percebes (barnacles.) The barnacles have little animals that live inside and the claws reach out. How you cook all of this I have no idea, but I will buy an "erizo" or two and let you know how it tastes. We ate empanadas and ceviche at one of the many tiny restaurants and walked back to the Metro through Santiago Central, stopping to look inside the enormous and ornate cathedral (a jaw-dropping experience, rivaling the churches in Italy.)

Fishy Details: I only saw two pescadarias that sold crab, but some places sold cuts of octopus meat that were at least two feet wide. The octopus looks like large pieces of shiny white plastic, but apparently it's a very popular dish since nearly all the fish sellers sold it.