After the all night bus ride to Santiago we felt surprisingly human, having caught some winks on the comfortable stretch seats. But after 2 months of travel in rural locales, we wanted to ease into the urban portion of Chile. So we hopped onto another bus to the seaport city of Valparaiso. The bus left us off in the bad part of town, but we found a bustling fish and veggie market for lunch.
We stashed our luggage at the bus station and started scoping out the city for a place to setup basecamp. We passed a street rally where college professors were marching in support of public education. Eventually we found the artsy-historic district and moved into a lady’s B&B with all the frills, including a little balcony overlooking the bay.
Painted Garage Door Mural of Valparaiso
This city is steeped in history with its role as a major port for the new country of Chile. It has had a chaotic history, including a huge earthquake 100 years ago. Now it has kind of a grungy feel to it, but the flipside is that this city is an art student’s heaven. Graffiti is more than tolerated – its officially sanctioned.
The colorful twisting streets climb the hills with buildings stacked as if there were no building codes (there weren’t).
We enjoyed our hill as it was full of funky boutiques and good restaurants. We took a walking tour that brought us to one of Pablo Neruda’s houses, full of his eccentric art collection. The city reminded us of San Francisco – instead of cable cars it has a bunch of creaking ‘funiculars’ that help people get up and down the steep hills.
A mere 10 minute bus ride north of ‘Valpo’ is the ritzy town of Vina del Mar. The shoreline is crammed full of high rise condos. It’s quite a contrast!
Since this was likely to be our only stay on the ocean, we took a day to go further north to a sleepy fishing village called Horcon. We relished one last fresh seafood meal – Chile’s coastal cuisine has treated us well! Both fish and ‘mariscos’ (shellfish) are delicious, with many delicacies such as razor clams, king crab and a kind of abaolone to taste.
In the meantime, we made contact with Ricardo Paredes in Santiago. We met Ricardo and his Brazilian girlfriend Silvinha way back in early February. We shared a room with them at a ‘refugio’ in Torres del Paine park. Even though we only met briefly we felt a great connection. So great, in fact, that Ricardo invited us to stay in his apartment in Santiago. Of course we were thrilled to take him up on his offer – what better way to see a major city than to stay with a friend!
Ricardo and Allison: The self-timer surprised us!
Ricardo is an economics professor so he and Hal had plenty to chat about. We enjoyed a couple of evenings together enjoying fine Chilean wine. During the day we checked out the capital city, with its bustling but friendly vibe. The warm climate makes it easy for life to happen out on the streets, in the plazas, parks and taxi stands.
With our trip more than halfway over, we decided to keep moving and left Santiago the way we arrived, on a mega-bus. This one actually had full sleeper seats that allowed you to stretch out. We sure appreciated this on the 24 hour, 1300+ kilometer trip to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.
