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Published: February 23rd 2007
The Penguins Made Me Do It
Jude ensures these young penguins are safely off to school.When we originally planned this trip, we didn't plan on staying in Chile for more than a couple of days. Now I remember why - there's really not an awful lot to do here! After spending an unstrenuous week in Santiago, we decided to venture up the road a bit and take in the sights of Valparaiso, a UNESCO world heritage site. It's another big city and there are people milling about absolutely everywhere making walking down any of the main streets a bit of a headache. The Chilean people have this habit of walking in a row regardless of how many people may be in their group or whether they are taking up the entire pavement. It's not uncommon to find a line of 5 or 6 family members coming towards you all holding hands and leaving you nowhere to get past them. Crazy.
That aside, Valparaiso is a quirky kind of place. The city spreads far and wide over the hillsides in every direction from the busy sea-front and up into the mountains. The thing that makes it different to any other city though is how colourful it looks from afar with brightly houses perched precariously on a
Valparaiso
Valparaiso as seen on a wall in Vaparaiso.... myriad of extremely steep slopes. In fact the way up is often so steep that rather than build a road, they built a funicular railway. These rickety old carts heave passengers up and down the hillside for only a few pesos a time - a leisurely ride to avoid doing all that strenuous walking. We've spotted a few nice buildings here and there plus some more colourful murals dotted about. We did try to go for a boat trip around the harbour on our first day but on seeing everyone wearing life jackets in the overcrowded and not so sea-worthy looking boats, we were reluctant to go anywhere near the water.
Aside from that, I'm afraid I have very little to report about our stay here. Yesterday we caught the new metro train along the coast to Vina Del Mar (1,000 pesos return) to check out the seaside town that is supposed to be THE place to visit in the area. Well, we walked around the whole city for a good few hours but failed to see what all the fuss was about. The beach was as crowded as any Med resort in peak season so we gave it
Over the Hill
Believe it or not, this is view of Valparaiso looks nicer than it really is! a wide berth. Vina was so dull in fact that we didn't take a single photo all day long.
Today is our last day here in Valparaiso but we've definitely been here too long. If we hadn't already purchased a return ticket, we would certainly have left today as we tried to go for a walk earlier on but could find absolutely nothing of interest to see or do and gave up after just an hour and a half on our feet. With the benefit of hindsight, we would have been better of coming here as a day trip from Santiago. Right now, we're both craving adventure - it's rotten to be wasting money on being in places that just aren't worth seeing.
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kath
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jish
JISH ROCKS!!!!!! HES THE COOLEST TEDDY EVER, WHOS KITTY??????