Santiago de Chile Daily Photo: November 2006

The White Horse

There's a popular chilean child song called "Caballito Blanco" (Little white horse). The white horse in the picture has verses of this song written on its back. It was nice to find this popular song in the middle of the street.
And its hair look quite funny too...

The golden horse

This golden horse has a very nice face and is a good addition for the horse collection I've been showing you. Tomorrow I'll show you the last one of the sculptures I chose.

The horse and the fakir

Do you remember the fakir in Apoquindo Avenue? Well, I found this painted horse making him company. He's part of a charity campaign and if you look carefully you'll see the painting has a very nice theme.

Another lazy sunday

Yesterday I was capturing some painted horses with my camera and I found this statue at the entrance of a restaurant in El Bosque Avenue. It made me remember this other lazy lion and wanted to show it to you, as today was actually, a Lazy Sunday...

Some very colorful horses

Until Christmas, you can see in El Golf area (Las Condes District), many horses painted by different artists. The goal is to collect some money for a charity campaign. The horses are painted using colors that characterize various companies who, in return, donate some money to the campaign. This horse "belongs" to a radio station. Nice, isn't it?

Can you guess?

I really liked this picture. The contrast of yellow, blue and red is quite bright.
Can you guess what's the object shown in the picture?

The cyclist on the hill

This one is an oldie, but I thought it would be a good successor to yesterday's picture. I caught this cyclist fixing his bike on the San Cristobal Hill. Besides the importance of sport, he also reminded me about the role that alternative means of transportation have in the fight against smog...

Santiago under sunday smog

This is definitely not one of Santiago more popular views... Smog is a big problem in our capital. This picture was taken during a hot sunday in a hiking trip to the Manquehue hill. Do you have similar problems with air pollution in your cities?

The letter to the widow

This statue shows Arturo Prat, one of Chile's greatest heroes, who died during the Naval Battle of Iquique, on May 21, 1879 (which is part of the War of the Pacific). The interesting fact about this statue, located near Forestal Park, is that under Prat's image you can read the letter that the Peruvian Admiral Miguel Grau wrote to Arturo Prat's widow after his death, recognizing the bravery of the Chilean hero. The author of the statue is José Carocca Laflor, the same of this one.

An Antique?

I found this car in a public parking. As you can see, it's quite dusty and not too well taken care of.
It even has a chain to keep the door closed! This poor condition led me to wonder what's the difference between an antique and just an old car...

The Caryatids

I've always liked these kind of statues: Caryatids. As wikipedia says, they're "sculpted female figures serving as an architectural support". These ones mark the entrance to the Chilean Supreme Court, in the Court Palace I showed you yesterday.

A legal stained glass

Back in Santiago, I saw this beautiful stained glass window in the Palacio de Tribunales (Court Palace) today. This is a nice XIXth century building of neoclassic style. If you see closely, you can see a condor (Vultur gryphus) in the center of the window. It's one of our two national animals, present in the Chilean coat of arms.

The Tajamar under the Mapocho

This is a part of the Mapocho's Tajamares. It was a huge brick wall built during Chile's colonial period, in 1792, to protect the city against the periodic floods of the Mapocho river.
They were buried by the city's growth and rediscovered almost two centuries later, during the excavations of Santiago's subway construction. The strange part: It was financed using a special tax to sugar and yerba mate...

I'll be absent for the rest of the week. I have to leave Santiago for work reasons. See you on monday.

The ergonomic bench

I found this bench in a park in the Providencia district. Its design is quite odd and looks very comfortable. It would be fun to have a self-molded armchair in your living room!

An Anarchist Graffiti

This Graffiti in the street draw my attention. In the last weeks there have been on the news some groups that call themselves anarchists. Chile is an incredibly quiet country, so these very little groups are still quite rare.

The Chilean stray dog

Today I saw this nice stray dog and immediately took a picture of it (I didn't check if "it" was a male or female...). It was quite active and playful and the two-colored eyes gave it a very odd look.

The cross at dusk

I saw this cross yesterday in Quillota when the sun had almost set and I liked the light contrast, mixed with the old tile roof. It belongs to an old chapel of Spanish colonial style.

Returning to Santiago

As I told you before, I'm working some days each week in Quillota, a city near Santiago. I took this picture at the entrance of La Calavera (The Skull) tunnel on my way back today. I really don't know the origin of the tunnel's name, but it doesn't sound very encouraging when you're going in... It was built in 1950 and is 298 meters long.
I chose this picture because I liked the "speed effect" around the entrance. It kind of gets you dizzy...