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Friday, August 21, 2015

Graffiti Laden Streets and Bike Repair Shops barrio San Diego in Santiago de Chile.


Hello Folks, 
I took the time to final get my camera out of the house on my bicycle and explored the barrio San Diego where they have three blocks of bike sales and repair shops. Needless to say, I am finding everything I need for my bikes in that neighborhood and have whittled the list of 'cool' family owned shops down to two that I will go to from now on for my bike needs. I also visited the large imposing Catholic church called Basilica de los Sacramentinos in the same barrio. Here is a link to the old building.  

https://translate.google.cl/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://sacramentinos.barriodieciochopatrimonial.cl/&prev=search

On the same day, I shot video of my travels via bici(bike) and some of the nice pleasant areas in the downtown area including the new bike lanes the city government has installed. I also had quite a surprise for me this day. I was photographing an old fellow selling fruit and vegetables in front of some graffiti and took his picture. While I was framing the image, I could here the song 'Slow Ride' by Foghat playing off in the distance and coming closer and closer. Soon, this sort of grubby looking guy in a black trench jacket comes by and is pulling a large boombox on wheels like a suitcase and blasting that song. As he passed me, I smiled and said, "It's you" and he repeated back the same to me in bad English.  As he walked away, I thought it would make a good video shot and started to coast towards him on my bike attempting to non chalantly capture him and he began shouting, "sacalo" at me over and over. This means take the picture in Spanish. So I thought nothing of it,  as I got closer and closer to him now standing on a corner surrounded by dozens of people. Then, he opened up his jacket and reveled a 38 cal. hand gun. Then he brought it out and waved it around and kept saying "Sacalo, sacalo". I guess he was daring me to take a picture. I did not push the button to snap a picture but another one that would start the video capture. Alas, I was out of memory and the day's. highlight was lost. He was probably some crazy homeless guy that uses the weapon for protection as he draws people towards his craziness blaring the boom box. 

Enjoy the bike tour below and the pictures of Santiago.
Richard


This building is just down the street from where I am living and thought the color was cool enough to photograph.



Notice the bike lane to the left of the road. This is typical with most bike lanes even have bigger blocks of concrete dividing the street for the bikes and cars.

On the same street near my apartment.


This is some a cool wall with graffiti running for like 50 yards and I also captured it with the video capture and you will notice this on the video above.

la Basilica de Sacramentino 


Chilean's love their little shops of books which are to be found all over the city.

la Basilica de Sacramentino 


la Basilica de Sacramentino 

Typical apartment building in Santiago.

New apartments are going up all over the place.

calle San Diego

calle Santiago

The giant flag off in the distance stands in front of La Moneda Palace which is the
Presidential palace where President Bachelet works.

This is where the gun totting gun came by. 

Some cool graffiti near my apartment.

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