Day 180 - Valparaiso

  Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile
Friday, February 29, 2008

It wasn't a very early start today, but as it was totally cloudy and almost cold this morning, that was no great loss.

Katie had some breakfast in the hostel and then we walked down the hundreds of steps to the 'low town', determined to explore some of the other local hill ('cerra') areas.

First we headed up the Ascensor Concepcion (also known as the 'Turri') to the best-known of Valparaiso's most picturesque hills.



Once up there we strolled around the steep streets, admiring some of the lovely buildings.

We saw a couple of nice churches...



...plenty of pretty pastel-painted houses...
 


...and some really cool colourful murals.



The views from the edge of the cliff looking over the city and the bay were fantastic, so we were in no hurry to move on.





We looked in our guidebook and found a cute little cafe for a nice light lunch and then kept moving.

Next we walked down the steps and back up another steep flight of steps to a neighbouring hill to find the Palacio Baburizza, which was very impressive.



From there we wandered around more charming back streets lined with flowers, huge houses and with some lovely views out to sea.







After that we walked down and across to the main square, called Plaza Sotomayor, which had some very impressive government buildings lining it.
 


From there we walked down to the main quay on the harbour, which was full of tourists in life jackets preparing to take a boat ride.

I think this big white boat is where they fire the big fireworks from on New Year's Eve, when Valparaiso is one of the best places in the world to celebrate.



I was glad that we hadn't booked a boat trip, the vessels all looked rather dodgy to say the least!

We then walked down to the bottom of the Ascensor Artilleria, which had a scenic location at the very end of town.
 
This photo is a bit like a microcosm of Valparaiso, with an elevator, some hills and lots of brightly coloured houses...



We decided to take a train to Vina del Mar, a smaller coastal town about 10 kms away which is well known for its beaches and laid-back 'resort' vibe.

We walked to the main train station, but buying a ticket proved to be a lot more difficult than it should have been, with the woman in the booth confusing the hell out of us when it would have been much easier to just sell us a couple of tickets! She was probably trying to be helpful but our Spanish isn't good enough for a high speed technical conversation, we only know the basics.

The train ride was really cool, taking us right along the coast.



It reminded me of the time I accidentally got on a train which took me along the beaches of Barcelona when I was actually supposed to be heading to the airport in the opposite direction! (Fortunately my SleazyJet flight was delayed by 3 hours so I still checked-in on time!) 

The journey to Vino del Mar took about 15 minutes; we looked around the centre of town for a short while and then headed towards the sea.



We crossed some pretty rivers on foot and were glad that we had such a nice day for it.



The main beach was a bit dirty but seemed very popular, especially considering it was a Friday afternoon? I guess it's that 'siesta' thing again. Tough life! 





After walking up and down the beach and getting my feet wet in the Pacific Ocean (it's been a while, since the Galapagos islands I think!), we found another train station and headed back to Valparaiso.



Once back in the centre of town we walked back to our local escalator...



...which we took up to the hostel were we chilled for an hour or so, Katie talking to the rather odd American girl that works here who seems to exist in a sort of parallel dimension, while I gorged on the free internet to reshuffle my Fantasty Football team.

The front desk weirdo did manage to recommend a great place for dinner though, where we had some really good food with a couple of beers and enjoyed a fantastic view looking down the hill and over the water, so maybe I should give her a break ;)

This gave us a great view over the harbour, including the navy vessels from where the New Year's Eve fireworks are released. We originally tried to get up here to celebrate New Year here ourselves, but everything was booked up and the prices were as steep as the elevators here so we stayed in the capital Santiago!

After that we got a taxi down to the bus station, driven by a charming chap who wanted to practice his English on us! It was no worse than our Spanish, so it was arguably the most Spanglish conversation we've had with anyone yet!

The bus looked nice and our cama section at the back of the bottom of the bus was fantastic, really comfy and with a good view of the telly.

As we looked back on our time here, we agreed that both Valparaiso and Vina del Mar are well worth a visit if you ever get to this part of the world, particularly Valparaiso which is a unique place, with half the town at sea level and the rest up in the hills above.

There's something special about looking out over the sea from the hills of Valparaiso and although Vina del Mar certainly isn't stunning, it seems like a nice enough place with a great location by the sea.

Within a few days we'll have gone from a wine area, to the coast and now down to the Lake District, so after a fairly relaxing few weeks we're back to a more regular schedule of moving on every day and covering a lot of ground when we do!

It's pretty tiring but absolutely fantastic, we're loving every second of it ;)


Lots of love to you all,


Al & Katie xx