Next stop...Valparaiso

It was very hard, but I finally managed to drag myself away from the comforts of the hostel in Santiago, and went to Valparaiso. One of the guys from the hostel, Olivier, was planning to go to Valparaiso as well, so we ended up going together. That was really good as not only was he good company, but he also spoke a lot better Spanish than me, as he´s half Spanish. (As an aside, it´s not that I´m not trying to speak Spanish, but I just don´t understand a word anyone is saying to me. I´m convinced they don´t actually speak Spanish here in Chile, just some strange language with the odd Spanish word thrown in to make you think you should understand what they´re saying. I spend most of my time looking blank, saying ¿Cómo? a lot)

Anyway, getting back to what I was saying. Valparaíso is about an hour and a half away from Santiago by bus, but they may as well be worlds apart. Santiago is a not especially attractive modern city, whereas Valparaíso is a beautiful, crumbling old-ish port town. It´s built on 42 hills, or cerros as they´re called in Spanish, and the streets have been laid out are in such a random, haphazard fashion that it creates this wonderful jumble of houses that look like they´re balanced precariously on top of each other. There´s an interesting mixture of houses, some very dilapidated (that look as if they could fall down any second) right next door to some that are obviously very expensive. Many of the houses are painted different colours, so it´s all very vibrant and colourful. Add to that the amazing grafitti on many of the walls, and it all makes for a very interesting area to just wander around in.

Which is what Olivier and I did. For about two and a half days. I did ask someone at my hostel what there was to do in Valparaíso, and she said she´d just been walking around the whole time she´d been there. There are also a few museums, all of which are closed on Mondays (the one full day I had there). I did manage to get to Casa Sebastiana, the former home of poet Pablo Neruda which has been turned into a museum. That was pretty good...nothing spectacular, but interesting nonetheless.

After three nights in Valparaíso, I have to admit the thrill of wandering the streets was being to fade (not to mention the effect it was having on my legs...there are 42 hills, after all) so I got the bus back to Santiago, from where I was heading down to Pucón, in the Chilean Lake District.

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