Valparaiso and Santiago

Bird Grafitti

By this point in our trip, 24 hours on a bus is not as bad as it might sound to you. Still, regardless of how long the ride, I am always ready to get off the bus when it pulls into the destination. In this case the destination was Valparaiso, the main port city of Chile, also known as Chile's cultural capital. We arrived in the afternoon and caught a taxi to the Millenium House hostel which we had booked ahead on Hostelworld. We thought the taxi had pulled a fast one on us when he said the address we were looking for was just up a back alley staircase and to the left. As it turned out, not only was he telling the truth but most things in Valparaiso are reached this way; by strange alleyways, steep staircases and century-old acensors, nearly vertical cable cars. These were a few of the many charms that made us fall in a big way for Valparaiso.

Street artist rendering of an Acensor


For fellow travellers we should point out that our stay at Millenium House was excellent. It is run by such a nice family and the location is great, right next to Plaza Sotomayor and on Cerro Alegre. Our first outing took us to the top of Cerro Alegre where we got one of the many amazing views to be had in Valpo. The whole city is built on a series of hills (cerros) which come straight up from the bay. Covering the hills are the myriad structures, one on top of the other, painted in every color imaginable and held together by unknown forces. Valparaiso has been destroyed several times by earthquakes and it appears as if each time it was built right on top of the previous attempt leaving the culture and the history in tact. Between and below the awesome balancing act of buildings run jagged streets and alleyways in any and all directions and nearly every inch of these alleys is covered in amazing street art. The result is one of the coolest outdoor museums imaginable.

Chaos

As we wandered through the hills and alleys of the city feeding ourselves on seafood and hotdogs (Chile loves hotdogs) we ended up on our first day at one of the two homes that Pablo Neruda had in the area. La Sebastian (he named his houses) has an excellent location with a veiw of the whole bay from all 4 stories. The museum inside the house gives a good history of the life of Neruda as a poet, an ambassador and as an socialite, all of which give the impression that probably would have been nice to have been in his company. Later that day we went out on the harbor for a quick boat tour of the floating ship maintenance, the shipwreck from the previous winter and the impressive Naval Fleet that is parked right in front of the city. At night we stopped into a few of the many salty pubs around the harbor area as well as the more refined nightlife just up the block.

Battleships!

Us

On our second day we took a bus over to Viña del Mar, the neighbor city to Valparaiso. There is a nice beach there but otherwise it is highrises and malls with the feel of a Florida resort destination. Likewise, Viña gets a ton of tourists but it is a harsh contrast to it's soulful and enchanting neighbor. So after a stroll on the beach, a movie and a very disappointing mall food-court experience we headed back to Valparaiso.

Beach

After a few days in Valparaiso we were torn as to whether or not we could actually leave but ultimately decided that we would just have to resolve to come back. And so it was we took the two hour bus ride to Santiago and arrived at La Casa Roja on a Wednesday evening. This hostel is pretty sweet, the owners renovated a huge ancient mansion and restored everything down to the ornate moulding, chandeliers etc. Our room was HUGE and made me feel like I should have been wearing a top hat and Emily a corset. The next day the hostel took us on a free tour of the city where we got to know the markets, coffee with legs (sort of a mix between a cafe and a strip club) and a hot local dive called the Piojera where they serve up a delicious train wreck of a drink called a Terremoto (earthquake). Ingredients are as follows: One pint of white wine, one scoop of pineaple ice cream, a shot of fernet. Delicious! Dangerous.

It's like a rootbeer float, with wine!

The next morning Emily and I got up early and headed up to the slopes of Valle Nevado about an hour and a half from Santiago. For me this meant fulfilling a life long dream of skiing south of the Equator and sampling some of the lightest snow in the world which I had seen only in Ski magazines growing up. We were in luck because the night before our trip it snowed hard. When we got to the mountain we were happy to find low crowds, a perfectly clear sky and not a breath of wind. Our wildest dreams came true when we realized that the snow was as light and as dry as one could imagine which made everything easy to enjoy; from groomed runs, to chopped up crud, to waist deep fields of light, un-touched powder. Ahhh.

Kurtis Celebrates

Emily Celebrates

Joint Celebration