Valparaiso, Chile

Day 4

Valparaiso here we come, wooooooo!! We got up early, had a quick breaky, packed up our things and left to catch the bus en route to Valparaiso. We again took the fantastic Santiago subway system to the bus station. Ellen managed to talk Spanglish to buy the bus tickets and we were off on our 1.5hr journey.

We arrived around midday, and it seemed we were in the middle of nowhere. We were wandering around the streets trying to find the train station with our massive backpacks on (I have named Ellen’s backpack monster). The streets were packed with food stalls! Who needs a road to drive on, more than half the roadway was covered with fruit & vege stalls, with loads of cars trying to get through. It was very intense! There is a video I took in the link at the bottom.

We found our way through to the train for a short 10 minute ride into the main centre of Valparaiso. The walk from the train to our hostel was only 400m, but little did we know it had 50m of vertical gain. With our backpacks, it felt like summiting Everest! We got there drenched in sweat & looking the goods! The town in this area looks like a completely different city to where we got off the bus. Lots of artwork painted on walls, stairs windows and small cute streets.

After checking into our hostel and having a quick rest at 3 pm we headed off to the free walking tour of the city. The tour took us through the small streets the Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepcion areas (Cerro means hill). It gave us an insight into the paintings and graffiti art on every surface of the city. Apparently, it is illegal to do it, but because so many people come from all over the world to see them the police turn a blind eye. Most of the artwork has a meaning, which are often used to express political messages. We are starting to realise Chile is very very political due to the large amount of natural resources the land offers. We learned the city of Valparaiso was never meant to be a large city and was originally proposed to be a port town to provide for Santiago. However, more and more immigrants moved there looking for work and the town expanded into the mountains without much planning, hence now the streets up in the hills are windy and small.

On the free tour, we caught a funicular which was built in 1902. There are several of these in Valparaiso and are used by lazy people to catch a lift up a steep hill rather than walk. Of course we caught it! This funicular was named after Queen Victoria because she apparently visited and caught a ride in it, a little bit weird that Queen Victoria died in 1901… lol, surely our guide was pulling our leg.

We also went and got an Empanada from the self proclaimed best Empanada shop in Valparaiso. Rightfully so, they have over 80 different kinds of Empanadas! We need to make these things back at home, they are delicious.

There are thousands of stray dogs in Valparaiso which are cared for by the locals. We were told that people bought them as puppies and then disowned them once they grew up which is sad. Because of this there is a lot of poop we have to dodge walking around the city and many areas of the city had a pee smell about it.

One thing we noticed straight away was how close the large ships are to the land. This is because a the portion of the city along the port is all reclaimed land that was infilled in the early 1900s. Eye-balling it, it looks like around 300m has been infilled across a 1km length of coast.

For dinner we had some yummy Mexican and a happy hour Mango Sour. We got home around 10pm with a $4 AUD yummy red wine & game of cards. First impression of Valparaiso is beautiful but rough around the edges!

Day 5

I got up around 7am and went for a much-needed run to maintain a bit of fitness, and to also see more or Valparaiso in half the time! I tell you what, if you want to get good at hill running, you should train in Valparaiso. The hills are relentless. I ran around the windy, hilly roads passing a lot of drunk Chileans finishing off their Friday night – boy were they rowdy. I copped a few heckles in Spanish, I wish I knew what they were saying so I could give some lip back and run for it. After getting lost a thousand times and getting barked at by stray dogs I made it back to the hostel. Thank god for maps.me, what a fantastic application. And would you believe it – I ran into Ellen going for a run too! #couplegoals lol

Ellen & I had a quick breakfast and then headed off to the Bellavista area (same name as a suburb in Santiago – I am not sure of its meaning) to look at some more street art. Every corner & crevice of Valparaiso has a surprise waiting! Some more photos of street art we found are below, we can’t get enough of it!

When we got tired of walking up stairs and hills we decided to head to the Vina Del Mar area, which is a town just north of Valparaiso. And again, we caught the fantastic metro train there. We headed towards the beach, not really sure what was around and to our pleasant surprise we found a nice castle and also a beach which was paaaaacked full of people. It was only 21 degrees on this day. We went for a long walk along the beach and looped back to find an Empanada. I could live on these. Except this time, I accidently ordered a mushroom & chicken one. I hate mushrooms, I now have mushrooms (champinon) in my Spanish dictionary so I don’t do it again. On the way back to the train station we found a flower clock! Turns out this is a huge tourist attraction for the area. See photos of Ellen & the flower clock below. Kind of random, but kind of cool.

We then decided we needed an easy afternoon and headed back to our hostel on the metro (what a fantastic piece of infrastructure).

To keep within our budget we need to cook for ourselves a few nights of the week, which isn’t a bad thing to get our vege intake up after all the Empanadas! We went to the local supermarket and bought a few things including another $4.2 AUD bottle of red wine. Which is nearing top of the range 🙂 On the way back we ran into a random fire fighting race/competition. Each team had to race to complete a series of obstacles (all fire fighting related) and the fastest team wins. We watched two girl fire fighting teams race, the team that lost sucked and couldn’t aim the fire hose & wet half the crowd. I wouldn’t want them saving me from a fire!

We went back to our hostel, had an hour or 2 rest, played cards, drank some wine and cooked dinner! Much needed rest!

Day 6

We had a big sleep in and got into some breaky at 9. We met some nice Canadians who had just come from Pucon & Patagonia. We cannot wait to get down there and get hiking!

Today we went for a bit more of a wander around and went down the south side of Valparaiso. More of the same really, lovely paintings everywhere and a lot of hills/stairs! We were both getting a little bit sore from all the walking so headed back towards home and found a nice coffee shop with a view! We chilled here for an hour or so trying to get a bit better at Spanish so the mushroom incident wouldn’t happen again.

A little bit keen to see something else, and the skies starting to part and show the sun – we set off to Concon and to see the sand dunes. This was just north of Vina Del Mar. To get there we had to catch a bus – sounds simple enough thanks Mr free tour guide man, but my god, these buses fly past and barely stop for you to get on. A couple of the 602 route buses we were trying to catch keep zinging past us because apparently we weren’t fast enough to put our arm out. Eventually we flagged one down and jumped on. These guys drive so freaking crazy, the whole bus tips when they turn corners; and when customers are paying they take the money & give them change while driving and changing gears etc. I was thinking the whole time – OMG please concentrate crazy Chilean man! Anyway, we saw the dunes and hopped off after 45minutes of 160+ heart rate. I wish the metro went all the way to Concon!

At the dunes there are Sand Boards for hire for only $3 AUD an hour, we immediately got one and sent ourselves up to the top. The view was amazing, we were so high above the sea and we could see Vina Del Mar & Valparaiso in the distance. I was first up and sent myself down a few times, few fails but it wasn’t too hard to get the hang of. Ellen was really good too. We tried to do a combo ride, Ellen & I together – that didn’t work out so well. El got her face buried in the sand. Sorrryyyy!

After we got tired of that we had a couple of hours to burn before we could watch the sunset. We went and bought ourselves a few beers (Cervesa’s) from the Supermarket behind the dunes. Sitting up the top of the dunes, with a couple of beers and an amazing view waiting for the sun to set. What more do you need in life, right? Wrong. I was looking at my lovely beer and saw the words “Cervesa Sin Alcohol”. Ellen got google translate out and the word “Sin” stands for “Without”. Us silly Australian tourists went and bought ourselves beers without alcohol! We really need to do some Spanish lessons, this is starting to get embarrassing. First the mushroom incident and now this! I must say they were still delicious beers though.

Once the sun set, we caught the bus home at about 10pm, had a biiiig shower to wash the sand off and had an early night listening to the cheering of all the yanks watching the Superbowl.

 

Day 7

Last day in Valparaiso! Our bus leaves at 9:30pm tonight so we checked out of our hostel at midday. Today we spent some time reading at coffee shops, waling the streets, planning next legs of our trip & trying to learn Spanish!

Valparaiso & Santiago have been great, but we are a bit tired of cities and big towns at the moment. They are so hectic with a thousand small buses flying past at Chilean speed which I believe is derived by this formula: Chilean speed = speed limit + 30km/hr. We finally got on our bus to Pucon! In 12 hours time we will finally be able to breath some fresh air and get into some awesome hikes up active volcano’s!!!

More photos located here: