Follow the green line
Trip Start
Aug 03, 2006
1
46
75
Trip End
Dec 13, 2006
Valparaíso,
Chile
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Tourists come to Valparaíso to see the colourful houses built up steep hills. There are also trolly cars and funiculars, funky bars and crazy graffiti! We couldn't get a feel as to whether we loved or hated the place because scattered amongst all the great bits are pretty run down shanty towns and obvious poverty.
01 - One of the ascensores in Valparaiso
After a bit of hostel-hunting (this was one of the rare times we decided to just turn up without pre-booking a hostel and hope for the best. Needless to say, in one of the hilliest towns we have ever been to, we ended up trapesing around 5 places with full backpacks and daypacks strapped to us until we found somewhere with space) we dropped our bags off and headed into town.
We got a map from Tourist Info that had a few recommended walking routes indicated by a green dotted line. We thought it was best to follow the line and see the what the city had to offer. That first afternoon was spent walking around the harbour with Laura. It was a nice day of good views and interesting conversation. We were a little disapointed because we had yet to see the bright sights shown on the postcards that drew us here in the first place. After a good amount of walking, we decided to take the easy route back and hailed a taxi. Just our luck however, the taxi driver had only been living in the city for two weeks and didn't have a clue where he was going. It was only thanks to Steve doing the map reading for him that we got back.
The next day we did the walk around the other side of the city (following the green line) and were greeted with the sights we had been expecting
03 - Artistic grafitti abounds
. There were a lot of little alleys to walk through and the city is all in a jumble which is different than the gridded streets we have spent time in lately. We walked up and down for hours enjoying the artsy feel and bright colours. Getting lost is all part of the experience - good job as we got lost quite a few times. After walking for 6 hours (and we didn't even complete the whole of the path indicated by the green line!) we called it a day.We found a huge supermarket so went and bought some food for our upcoming trip to Easter Island (that we still couldn't believe we had booked yesterday on a whim) and went into a shop to buy a pen. Now that sounds like a pretty simple task doesn't it? Buying a pen.... didn't turn out that way. We first approached one of the many girls standing idly at the counter and said we would like to buy some pens. She had to bring them out for us to see. Once we chose one we took out the money and thought that we would pay and be on our way. The girl directed us to a line up of 10 people at a cashier. We thought that this wasn't the best set up but queued up and paid. We were then given an invoice and instructed to join jet another long line (meanwhile 5 girls stand at the first counter chatting) in order to pick up the pens that we had in our hands just a few minutes before. So after dealing with 3 people, 2 sheets of paper and waiting in lines we had our pens and Steve's head was about to explode. Surely the first girl could have taken our money and given us the pens???
DAILY FACTS
- Stayed at: Hostal Pilcomayo. Had a nice homely feel and had feee internet. Showers were rubbish and kitchen a bit scummy, but still a good option. Recommended.
- Wikitravel: Valparaíso
