"Bio-Bio"

So, "Bio-Bio" is Santiago's massively, monstrously, gigantically huge ....um what might we call it?....flea market...? Of sorts? Anyhow, it goes for so many blocks we never found the end of it. And, I think you can buy just about anything there....legal or illegal. So, our friend Rodrigo took us there last weekend to help us with an "illegal" purchase. It was quite a hoot. Basically, Rich was upgrading our laptop and was trying to figure out how to do it and it became quite a complicated process, including a completely erased hard drive (intentionally). We kept trying to get something we needed from the Mac stores here but they didn't have it because some new version is coming out so they no longer had the item we needed. But, Rodrigo was quite sure we could get a ripped version of what we needed at "Bio-Bio" and he was right! It took a little looking around for the secret person that was selling it (because it was illegal), but we finally left with a ripped off version of a Mac disk that we needed. It still took a little more fenangelling (if that is really a word), but Rich in all his computer wisdom successfully got our computer upgraded and running even better than before. I am so impressed. Here are some photos from Bio Bio. It's just crazy there!! But really fun.

 

Rodrigo is the guy in the lower right corner. This is the aisle we found the disk in.

One of the hundreds of aisles.

Yes, you are correct, that is a gun for sale (to the left is a hand gun)...or a few of them, amidst the other variety of items.

Walking around...

We had lunch at one of the mom and pop vendors. We're getting used to this Chilean food....see below some very typical food.

Instead of chips and salsa, or bread with butter or vinegar and oil, this is what you get in Chile as the free-bee on  your table. You get it at EVERY restaruant...I think only once we got nothing. It is simple slices of white bread, with a bowl of salsa (called "pebre"). You dip the bread in the salsa and eat it! It's a little wierd at first, but we're really into the pebre. It's spicy and good.

I can't remember what they call this, but in English terms this is pot roast with mashed potatoes and rice. Also, there is a tomato and onion "Chilean" salad (it's just tomatoes and onion but they call it "Enselada Chilena"....it grows on you).

This is called "Consuelo" but is basically just a brothy soup with large chunks of meat, potato, corn, sweet potato, and rice in it. It's really good!