Nate Buchanan and Kara explore Santiago, Chile, hitting markets and trying local food. Nate injures his toe on a broken sidewalk, and Kara patches him up. The video captures their street-level tour and run-in with the city's rough pavement.
Chapters
What's the plan?
I'm washing your foot with soap first. And all the towels here are white, and we feel bad using them. So I'm gonna use my hand to get the blood off of your foot.
True love.
It is another hot, smoky day in Santiago today.
We're doing something we're really excited about. We're going to Mercado Central. National Geographic ranked as the fifth best market in the world. So we're gonna head over and see what all the hype's about.
Today's main event is eating. We're supposed to get really good seafood there. But before we go, we're going to look for the humida street lady that we couldn't find yesterday. We found her. Looks like a lot of other people did too. She must be good. We don't know what's happening or why there's so many people. Maybe there's not any humida today. I've seen a lot of salad and, like, a lem.
Gonna go look on the other side. How do you think that is?
Oh, it's so hot. There's a big cooler next to it. I thought maybe it had something hot. We got the unito. Ah, it is, like, so hot. How do you think you eat it? I feel like there has to be a strategy to this that I do not know. Oh, it is burning my hand.
I don't know what to do. We should have watched a YouTube video on how to eat these. I feel like I'm gonna make a very unnecessary mess. Ouch.
Oh, my gosh. I think I'm there. I think I need a fork. Should I go get. Should we go up and get a fork?
Do you know how to say pork in Spanish?
No.
People are staring at me. I don't think I'm supposed to eat it like this. Uh. Oh, no.
What do I. This is proven to be very difficult. Am I about to eat any corn? Okay, I'm gonna eat it. Ready?
Ready.
Mmm.
Definitely corn based. It kind of tastes like the pastel de choclo we got last night, but without the meat. Just the corn part, which was the great part. I'm so happy we finally found her.
Yay. Good start to the day.
Here's some seafood.
Oh, there's a pretty crab in there that has stuff going on.
Definitely smells like a fish market.
What's a jib?
This is really reminding me of the pork market in Montevideo, except for it's all fish instead of pork and beef. There are so many restaurants to choose from. Luckily, we've gotten some recommendations from some locals, so it won't be too hard to choose. But they all look really good.
Oh, it smells awesome. So we've walked. We walked around this huge market and see tons of good food. So it's finally time to sit down and eat. A local has recommended this place to us. We ordered the two things that she told us to get, and they just brought us sopa de larisco, which is seafood soup. Looks kind of weird.
Oh, that is so good. If it was like a winter day, it would be even better. It's quite hot, so the first thing we ordered is pastel de haiba. I'm probably butchering that pronunciation. From what I understand, it's like a crab cake, but it doesn't look like a crab cake, so I guess it's like a crab cake in soup form.
I think that's cheese in there. I really like crab cake, so I have high expectations.
It has cheese in it, and it's so good. It really does taste like crab cake in liquid form. It's like crab cake before you fry it. Does that make sense?
Whoa, that is hot. Oh, my gosh. That's way hotter than any of the other ones. The other ones we've had, it tasted like salsa. This is like Texas Pete hot sauce with salsa.
This a napkin. Looks like a napkin. Nose is sweaty. There is no AC in here, so it's already hot to begin with.
Whoa, baby.
So I heard that you were supposed to order locos when you came here, which, from what I understand, is a type of sea snail. So it is a giant sea snail with mayonnaise on top of it. We asked for foco mayonnaise, which is like a little mayonnaise that think still has quite a bit, but here we go.
Oh, it's incredibly firm.
Burnt firm.
Having some trouble.
It's so firm I can't even cut through it. Obviously, I have no clue how to eat this.
It's cold, which I didn't expect.
It's not fishy at all, though. I expected it to taste really fishy.
And it doesn't. It's almost like a seafood steak with, like, very little fishy flavor. It's pretty good.
When I first bite into it, it just seems so wrong. Like, the texture, I'm just like, no. And then the more I chew it up, the more enjoyable it is. It kind of reminds me of chicken. You boiled chicken, like, way too long with no spices or anything, where it gets that kind of rubbery flavor or texture. And then you mixed it with canned tuna. The kind that's just in water that doesn't have a ton of flavor. That's what this tastes like.
But in the weirdest way, it's just not that bad, especially with lemon juice and a little bit of mayo and salt on top.
I definitely feel like we got a local experience by eating at that place. I'm really glad we got one thing that was really yummy and one thing that was just really fun to try. I will say that we were surrounded by locals as soon as we sat down. Plus, a guy who works at the meat market was eating at the restaurant. So I think we made a good choice.
Made a good choice. The people who recommended it to us made a good choice.
Yeah.
Definitely see why this place is ranked the top five in National Geographic's markets. It's cool, like, having, like, all the raw fish and then the restaurants right beside it because you feel like it's really fresh. However, I will say it is pretty touristy. Touristy, like, especially when you get into the center of the market. It's just all restaurants with people, like, pulling you in every direction trying to get you to eat at their place. But, yeah, stick to the outside, and the restaurants seem a lot more local and a lot less, like, crazy eager to get you inside.
And if you come here, come before lunch, because as soon as we sat down, all the fish people started packing up.
Yeah, I think if you really want to experience, like, the wholesale part of the market, you need to come early in the morning. We came at lunch because that's when we were hungry.
All right, moving on.
So somewhere beside this market, there's supposed to be, like, a huge fruit and veggie market. So that's where we're heading now.
I forgot to tell you the name of the restaurant. It's called Gigi, spelled Y I. Y I, which is confusing because I thought Y was E. So we were calling it ee.
But it's GG.
It smells way better in this fruit section than it did in the fish section. We are on the hun for fruit juice. Fresh fruit juice. We haven't seen it yet, but we know it exists. We found the fruit juice stand. We both got pina.
Which is pineapple.
So we've wandered over to yet another market. These markets over here on the other side of the river feel much more local, a little, like, grungier. Definitely not, like a tourist attraction like the central market is meant to be. And I will say if, like, some of the footage is shaky from these past couple of days in the past 24 hours, we've had three different people see our camera, and in broken English, come up and warn us not to have our camera out because they're scared that it's going to get stolen, which is extremely nice of the people to warn us, but at the same time makes us feel really uncomfortable. So I've been trying to, like, shoot really discreetly, so if the footage is shaky or looks bad or there's not as much as usual, that's wise. We're trying to be a little extra cautious.
I think we're going back to sit out the midday heat.
We escaped the midday heat in our apartment Thursday afternoon, and we may or may not have gone to the pool for an hour. And now we're heading back out to watch the sunset from this huge hill in the middle of the city. What is it called?
San Cristobal.
San Cristobal has a big statue on top. Nate tells me that the little cart that takes you to the top might be closed when we get there. So we might be doing a little hike. I think it'll be a great view for sunset, even though it's still really smoky.
If we hurry.
Gotta hurry.
Ah. It just, like, kicked this curb and split the entire end of my toe open.
Oh, gosh.
And it won't stop bleeding. And I'll do good with blood.
Let me go get you some band aids.
All right. Go see if you can find something for.
Oh, that was so nice of him. Are you okay?
I'm just, like, more trying not to throw up right now.
Okay. Do you still want me to go find your band aids?
No, I think. Golly, look at that.
Look at the bottom of it. Is it bad?
Like, how far down does it go?
I can't tell because of the blood.
I'll just wrap it up like this and we'll call an Uber and we'll get back to our place, and then we'll go to a pharmacy or something and see if we can find some stuff.
Okay. Whoo.
I feel kinda like I'm gonna throw up. I was doing pretty good till I just looked at it.
I'm okay.
No, you're not. Sure.
Truth be told, Kara was not excited about hiking to the top of that mountain.
I'm getting, like, really nauseous.
Oh, my. Going into a cold sweat.
Hector's coming to get us. Hang in there.
He's three minutes away. You okay?
Oh, just scared him to open the Uber.
Thank you for picking us up.
Ran over. Going home.
Feeling better? A little bit. Just bugged. We're supposed to be Hiking in patagonia in like, 10 days, so just hoping it gets better by then.
I would like to add two things. One, I was kind of being a brat, and I feel really guilty for not being very nice. And then Nate got hurt. And two, there were two complete strangers who were very kind local people who stopped to check on Nate. One of them went and got him some water and some napkins. And the other guy went and found a supermarket down the road so I could buy some band aids. Even though we just called an Uber, we're gonna go to the pharmacy by our place. It was very kind of them to do that.
Almost back.
Just dragging my foot along so my toe will stay in my choc.
This is trula.
I am diluting.
The antibiotic. Antibacterial soap water.
This could get really interesting if I pass out.
Please don't do that. Dig it in. Oh, wait, no, hold on. Before we get that all gross, I'm going to get the biggest gross part off. Nate has cut the top of a water jug off.
To have a bowl big enough for this process.
It's not really big enough.
Is there any?
No, it actually doesn't hurt.
Can I look at it?
No, you can look at it. I don't want to look at it.
Hello again. Ow.
Looks like good.
Serious. Just do what you need to. I'd rather just suffer now instead of getting infected.
He survived.
Kara, doctor me up. My toes not gonna fall off. I'm pretty sure the only reason this was a big deal is because I'm really bad with blood.
It'll be fine.
We're a good team because I am excellent with blood.
I appreciate you washing my feet for me. That was very nice. All right, well, hopefully this won't slow us down too much. I guess I'll wear closed toed shoes for the next few days so it doesn't get infected. Also, I know people are going to give me a really hard time about wearing sandals, and I should be wearing shoes, and that's why I got hurt. I've been wearing those for, like, eight years, and this is the first thing that's happened, so I'm gonna continue wearing them.
I would also like to add that the sidewalk thus far in South America are so terrible. There are holes all over the place.
We've each, like, stepped into multiple holes, which probably should have been a warning and this probably shouldn't have happened. But yeah, there was just, like, some random concrete sticking up in the sidewalk, and that's what I.
And we were walking really quickly, and he was dealing with the camera and I was being a brat. Yeah, I'm sorry.
It's not a problem. All right. Sorry you did not get to see the top of San Cristobal Hill.
Maybe next time.
Yeah, maybe we'll go in the funiculars open. Cuz now I have an excuse not to hike.
No, up, down, up. Closer to you.
I still don't understand your question.
You know when you wear that hat hat?
When?
When it's chilly outside.
Ow. Really?
No, that was me. I'm sorry.
