Cerro Blanco, Mountain summit in Recoleta, Santiago, Chile.
Cerro Blanco is an isolated hill in Santiago's Recoleta district, rising 625 metres above sea level with a prominence of 64 metres. It covers 28 hectares and is bordered by Recoleta Avenue to the east, Santos Dumont Avenue to the south and La Unión Street to the north, which separates it from the Cementerio General. Its summit holds radio transmission antennas.
Cerro Blanco is an island hill in Recoleta, Santiago, separated from Cerro San Cristóbal when sediments filled the Mapocho basin and covered the ravine now crossed by Recoleta Avenue. Spanish chronicles state that Pedro de Valdivia pitched his first camp at its foot and observed the Mapocho basin from its summit. Picunches used it as a ceremonial centre, leaving cup-shaped grinding hollows in the rocks.
The hill's sacred name was Apu Wechuraba, combining Quechua apu ('sacred mountain') with the name of the Picunche curaca Wechuraba. Picunche groups ground peumo seeds in cup-shaped hollows cut into large rocks, the piedras tacitas, still visible on the hill. Since 2001 the Centro de Cultura Indígena de Santiago has held zones of the hill for Aymara and Mapuche ceremonial use, including the Adkintun ethnic kindergarten.
Cerro Blanco is an urban hill in Recoleta, bordered by Recoleta Avenue to the east, Santos Dumont Avenue to the south and La Unión Street to the north, the latter separating it from the Cementerio General. It is reached on foot from the surrounding streets and the Cerro Blanco metro station, and the summit holds radio transmission antennas.
Cerro Blanco is an island hill, cut off from Cerro San Cristóbal when sediments filled the Santiago basin and buried the ravine now crossed by Recoleta Avenue. Its summit holds radio transmission antennas, and since 1999 the Parque Metropolitano de Santiago has managed the hill.
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