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Okay, so we're now settled into a lovely B&B in Cuenca after making a quick exit from Guayaquil- all I can say about that place is yuck- but in the words of the great Hammy Hamster, that's another story…
Valpo, as the locals call it, is a charming city. The whole thing is classed as a UNESCO world heritage site and it's not hard to see why. It's amazing. The city is spread across hill after hill and everywhere you looked, up or down, there were the most brilliant and vibrant colors. Apparently young "artists" who are caught putting graffiti up in nearby places, are sent to Valparaiso to practice their skills. The whole city is filled with the most amazing artworks everywhere you look. It was on the walls, stairs, houses, restaurants- quite literally everywhere!! My personal favorite of all the buildings was a bright orange house/café perched at the top of one of the hills where we had decent coffee with terrible service and brilliant views.
While it had been a little while since we had climbed any mountains, we figured that the amount of uphill walking we did over the two and half days was about equivalent. We did get to ride in the funicular elevator, which was really more of a cable car on a very steep incline, for one of our journeys up, but the rest of the time I was relying on my very weary feet and legs. I was grateful for the all the art work since it provided a very logical reason to stop and rest several times while out wandering.
A few hours were spent on the beach one day, but it wasn't the cleanest place to hang out. We also found that the sand was so scalding from the sun, that trying to walk anywhere without shoes , even to the water, was a feat in itself. Add to that the fantastic views of battleships and giant cargo boats, and we decided that the hill wanderings were definitely preferable to the beach vacation.
We ate out a couple of times, but we also made good use of the tiny kitchen in our hostel. Being that it was the size of an apartment galley style kitchen, with no less than seven people crammed in trying to prepare meals at any given time, it also provided an excellent opportunity to make new friends. Nothing like cooking on top of each other to get friendly quickly.
As you already know, we went back to Santiago to ring in the new year, and made our flight to Ecuador without any problems. But it's late and as always, we have much to do tomorrow, so I bid you all a good night!
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