Valapariso

We arrived in Valparaiso in the late morning and were able to catch a local bus close to the hostel we were staying at, Hostel Ventura.  It took us a while to find it amongst the windy, hilly streets, but once we did, we were very happy with our choice as we had a massive room with a free breakfast!  (the little things)  Once settled, we got a map and headed out.  Valparaiso is known as a port town on the coast which is very hilly and has extremely colorful houses, and also functionars (sp?) which were basically gondolas attached to the ground that took you up and down the hills.  We first went down to the Plaza which ended up having a four-way street in the middle (but there was no indication of sidewalk vs. street so we were constantly dodging cars), the Chilean Armada building, and some massive statues.  There was also an ice cream shop so we indulged a little.  Afterwards we decided to go on a walking tour I had planned our in my travel book which took us to some of the most colorful streets, narrow alleyways with amazing graffiti, and beautiful viewpoints overlooking the bay.

We took quite a few functionars which were still in use from the late 1800’s!  We wandered further down out of the city trying to get onto the shoreline, but it’s really just for ships and workers so you’d have to walk about 2 hours to get to an opening (basically in the next city).  As we were wandering back we found some Mexican food Vince was craving and we had a sizzling pile of fajitas, a beer, and a margarita, ole!

Danger?

The next day we woke and packed, stored our bags and headed for a long walk to the second of Pablo Neruda’s homes.  This one was open and it came with a listen to a recording on a walkie talking-type device tour.  The house was gorgeous, with glass windows all around overlooking the bay, tons of collectables form around the world (my favorite was a carousel horse from Paris he put in a round room so it was as if it was still spinning).  The house was 5 stories high but each floor was quite small, very charming.  After Neruda we grabbed our belongings and headed back to Santiago through the California-like geography.

Part of Neruda's house.