Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Valperaiso is only a stones throw from Santiago, so Lee and myself hung around for the morning in Santiago with Anna and Alex, they were off to a different hostel the other side of the city for one more night and we were off to get the bus for Valperaiso. We agreed to meet up the next day and parted ways for 24 hours. Like most of the bus journeys in South America this one was comfortable and more importantly it was our first one in nearly 3 months that would take less than 2 hours. I don't mind saying I wasn't liking the idea of staying there for to long, especially driving into Valperaiso going through the outter city and the more rougher parts. The outer city areas look very rundown compared to other areas we had seen in South America. However, it turns out that the main part of the city is a maze of graffiti wonder. Every where you turn street art pops out from some unasuming terrace, or sprawls along the walls of the street. For all of its grit and grime Valperaiso had an odd charm. It wasn't the safest of places and we were told as soon as we booked into the hostel where to and not to go, so the two of us took heed of the warning and steered clear of the "mucho scketchy" area of downtown!
The hostel we were stying was pretty cool and had a 'cirque du soleil' style set up in the common area, so thinking I was spiderman I tried my hardest to scale the dangling ropes and swinging bar but I have come to realise I am not the monkey man I thought I was. After one quick attempt at an obscure trapieze manouver I gave up and the two of us headed out to explore a little of the city and its art before it got to dark. That was when we started to see Valpos true features, certain streets are like an architectural walk through history, from victorian houses, to cowboy style western houses to french features - it was an eclectic mix. Nearly every house for as far as the eye can see is painted in a bright eyecatching colour, blues, pinks, yellows, definately not like you'd see at home.
We were joined by Anna and Alex the next day and the safety in numbers thing really does put your mind at rest. The city has alot to offer tourists and Lee and myself took advantage of most on offer. My favourite was a house owned by a Chilian poet Pablo Naruda. It's a quirky little house that has a flock of tourist on a daily basis. We also walked the open air museum in Valperaiso wich is a collection of street murals painted by local artists. Its a good walk and spoting the murals from the graffiti (some of the graffiti is far better) is fun, but part of the walk does take you through little Beirut where you dont mind hurrying a little to finish the walk in one peice! We also did a tour for tips that took us round the city, taught us some of the history (Valperaiso was the first to have catholic, presbyterian, anglican, lutheran churches, a treasury, library, post office, fire brigade in the whole of South America). The tour was great and took us to parts of the city we would never have visited otherwise.
Our evenings in the hostel flew by with Anna, Alex and Annie and the other travellers -we spent our nights swopping stories and laughing at Alex mostly with his drunken Spanglish. I dont think the hostel will ever see the likes again, the lads had gone to a cookery class and came back three sheets to the wind but lads it was funny and I think the whole hostel enjoyed the drunken antics (and spanglish - yep thats you Alex!) and attempted acrobatics on the circus equipment.
About 15 minutes from Valperaiso is the small resort town of Vina del Mar. Its a polished upscale alternative to 'Valpo' but it lacked any character - give us the grime any day! Vina del Mar is where the tourists with money go to spend their free time, but as a backpackers place it didn't really interst any of us. We had found a really cheap hostel so the four of us had book in for 5 Euro a night (a mistake on behalf of the owner who should have charged 20 Euros per person per night (thats a big difference) - you snooze you lose!). Even though the four of us didn't like our first impressions of the city we knew we were on a good deal so stuck out the 3 nights and decided to treat it as a time to chill out and not do to much (not that Vina has much to offer anyway!) As preperation for our impending visit to Easter Island we did go and vist an original Moai statue at a local museum which was pretty cool, Leah and myself got pretty excited about Easter Island after this little visit. We saw out our last few days chilling out, watching the Olympics and visiting the sea front. In Vina there are alot of people offering may things for sale at cheap prices and of course this is seen most in tourist areas, but the strangest offer we had was "a dolla for you'r baby mister" which confused both me and Alex as we weren't quite sure what was being sold - apparently you can get a baby for a dollar!
Our two weeks traveling with Anna and Alex had come to an end. It was quite a sad moment to leave the two of them, Lee and myself had had a great time travelling with them and the four of us got along really well. We look forward to planning our next little adventure together. - I'll have to go to Manchester now anyway to get my hair cut, I don't think I could trust just anyone to replicate it now
We were heading back to Santiago to go to Easter Island, a long awaited part of travels, and the two of us were really excited.
Food sensations: Our first cheese on toast in three months. And Mystery fruit.This was about as adventrouse as we got in Valperaiso or Vina.
Music: Nero promisses
Next stop Easter Island - "No, you Dum Dum!"
- comments