I love Patronato

There's this section of Santiago where you can buy really cheap clothing because it's fabricated there. And now today I stumbled across the main Santiago market (or so I think). It's called a vega. Ever since we arrived to Santiago, I've been shopping at a market in the metro station Puente Cal y Canto across from the Central Market (the Central Market mostly is full of seafood restaurants). The produce is generally fresher and cheaper there that in the supermarkets. It did kind of surprise me how small the market is being about the same size as Valparaíso's market. Valpo's population is about 260,000 while Santiago's is around 6.5 million. But I just figured there must be lots of ferias in Santiago, where venders set up in the street to sell produce on Wednesdays and Saturdays. But today, I took the wrong street to Patronato and found myself in front of this huge city-block-sized mass of produce stands with a sizeable parking lot. I saw a couple guys with dolleys stacked three meters high with cochayuyo. I LOVE food, especially fresh produce, so this was a felt like a huge personal jackpot to come across the vega. So I made my way in, figuring the exit on the other side would be pretty close to the clothing stores and when I came out on the other side, I was right by the Patronato metro station, across the street from the stores. Cheap clothing and cheap fresh food. What could be better?

I bought a couple pairs of pants and then headed back to the vega and bought a Chilean mango, which was tiny, but tasty, and a mankaqui, so good, and other fresh produce.