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Chilling out on the Chilean coast
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We both woke up feeling a little bit worse for wear, what with drinking three quarters of a bottle of wine each with dinner after spending a day touring the vineyards and then only getting four and a half hours sleep we felt rough. We packed as quickly and quietly as we could and then got in the taxi to the station.
The man in the ticketing office was good to his word and after 20 minutes of phonecalls re-issued the tickets to us free of charge (for once we were both thankful there´s so much bureaucracy here - our full names and passport numbers were on the tickets, although, much to Jim´s amusement, I was temporarily called "Stan"!).
The scenery on the bus journey from Mendoza across the Andes into Chile is stunning. I actually decided I wanted to travel this route as while ago after reading how amazing it was on someone else's Travelpod blog. They weren´t exaggerating - despite some low lying cloud the views were still gorgeous. We both just about managed to stay awake for the best bits I think, although we did inevitably doze off at times.
Dawn and Steve, who´d come to Mendoza via Chile, had warned us that although the immigration checks on both sides were quite quick the customs control was nightmarishly long. They weren´t exaggerating either. We were in a queue for over 2 hours before we even got to the front and then had to wait an hour and a half while they checked all our bags and scanned the bus. We were all having a bit of a sense of humour failure by this time, especially as the whole thing seemed like a bit of a job creation exercise anyway. The other two borders we´ve crossed between Chile and Argentina we were waved right through.
Once back on the coach it took another few hours to get to Valparaiso. When we arrived it was dark and so we booked our onward transport to Santiago and then got a taxi to our hostel. This turned out to be a lovely place, in a hundred year old house with an en suite and no other smelly backpackers in our room!
We dragged ourselves off our comfy beds to go and find some food. This wasn´t as easy as it sounds as without a good map of the city, we were a bit lost. You see Valparaiso is an unusual city - arranged over 47 hills, there are lots of rickety old ascensores or funicular lifts to get you from one area to another. Fodor´s was proving quite useless, despite recommending a couple of high-end restaurants they didn´t bother marking them on the map, or even printing the names of the streets they were on!
We were quickly realising it wasn´t the guidebook for us - it says things like "We assume if you plan to use public transport you will research the options on the internet yourself"! Jim also claims the language section contains such useful phrases as "Waiter, bring me some more champagne!", although I´ve yet to check that out.
Even though we got quite lost wandering around we did find our way to Cerro Concepcion, a residential area with great views and a couple of nice restaurants we chose one that didn´t look too pricey and enjoyed a lovely bottle of Chilean white wine and some fish. After dinner we walked home and got to bed just after midnight. We´d chickened out of accompanying our hosts out for a night of dancing as we were both still knackered.
The next morning our hostel, which appeared to be run by a group of university friends, was deathly quiet. We found our breakfast was all laid out for us in the kitchen, I think they must have only got in before we got up. After coffee, cereal and lovely fresh bread we packed up our bags, left them in the hallway, and set off to explore the city.
Valparaiso has been Santiago´s port of hundreds of years and in 1990 the seat of government was moved here from the capital (it´s housed in a building erected on the spot of one of former dictator Augusto Pinochet´s childhood homes...). The city has been destroyed several times by fires, earthquakes and marauding pirates (including Sir Francis Drake) in the past, but now parts of the city are protected by Unesco which recognises the city´s colourful, characterful buildings dotted on the hills as a site worth preserving.
We walked down to the wharf and then took a couple of the old lifts up to different viewing points around the city. We went back to Cerro Concepcion and decided to try the Cafe Turri for lunch - it was highly recommended by Fodor´s, although it did sound quite expensive. Were really glad we did go in though, the food was amazing. We had some special Chilean clams baked with a parmesan crust for starters and then Jim had a traditional seafood gratin and I had black squid ink lasagne with prawn, scallops and squid. Divine! The views over the bay from the restaurant window were amazing too.
We spent the rest of the day leisurely strolling around the charmingly dilapidated city. The colourful buildings and murals around the Bellavista area where we were staying were particularly picturesque and so it was with a slight sense of regret that we got back to our hostel to collect our bags and move on.
This didn´t last too long though as we realised we´d been quite lucky to see the city without too many tourists around. But, as it was Easter weekend that was about to change. Eight Californians descended on our place looking for rooms just as we were leaving and so it felt quite nice to be travelling in the opposite direction, towards Santiago and away from all the crowds.
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