Valparaiso

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Hola amigos,

Our next stop was the capitol city of Chile, Santiago. After a 12 hour bus ride from Pucon, we checked in to our hostel and then scoped out the neighbourhood we stayed in called Barrio Bellavista. This neighbourhood is jam packed with great restaurants, bars, and shopping. After laying low for our first day in the city, we picked up Allison at the airport the following day. We were able to stay at one of Santiago’s most popular hostels so it made for a great first hostel experience for Allison. The 3 of us spent the night out in an area of Barrio Bellavista called Patio Bellavista which was basically a square full of bars and places to eat. The area was well supervised and therefore popular with tourists especially. We had a great meal and drinks at a few places there before calling it a night. The following morning we met my Mom and Dad at the airport and then all headed straight for the bus station in Santiago to catch a bus to our home for the next 2 weeks, the port city of Valparaiso. The 2 hour bus journey from Santiago to Valparaiso gave my family their first good views of the Andes, as well as the Casablanca Valley vineyards where we would eventually tour later in the week! Our home for the 2 weeks was a beautiful condo on the 15th floor, right on the Pacific coast. We had an amazing view as you’ll see from the pictures. We did quite a lot in the 2 weeks so I’m just going to summarize the highlights and break it up into the 1st week (with Allison), and the 2nd week (just with my parents).

Week 1:

Bus tour- on our second full day in Valparaiso we took a bus through Vina del Mar (only 10mins or so from Valparaiso- the more ritzy, upper class of the 2 towns), Rennaca (another beach oriented town north of Vina del Mar), and finally Valparaiso. Overall it was a great tour which lasted most of the day. The bus tours are great because they allow you to see a really big area in one day, and then you know what you want to go back to later and explore in more depth. The one negative of the tour occurred with only about 15mins remaining. We were stopped at a traffic light and one of the other people on the tour was taking a picture out the window of our bus and unfortunately as he had his arm hanging out the window, a very opportunistic pickpocket sprinted by, snatched the camera, and took off running. Because we happened to be near other popular tourist areas, many police where around and our bus driver quickly told them what happened. It was not long before multiple police cars were searching for the thief but we never heard if they found him or not. Unfortunately Valparaiso struggles with petty crime like that.

Wine tour- for our third day, we headed to the Casablanca Valley (about 1 hour from Valparaiso) for a day of wine tours and tastings with Michael from Wine Tours Valparaiso (winetoursvalparaiso.cl). We toured/tasted at 4 vineyards: William Cole, Emiliana, Indomita, and finally Vina Mar. All 4 provided incredible scenery and amazing wine! We tasted predominately Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Carmenere, and Cabernet Savourgon as well as a Syrah or two. At Indomita we had an incredible lunch (5 courses, each with their own wine!), and at Vina Mar we had the chance to taste one of their sparkling wines (this is the only vineyard in the Casablanca Valley that makes a sparkling). The day ended with a visit to a great wine store in Vina del Mar to stock up on our favourites from the day. As you can imagine, this was an amazing day!

Vina del Mar- we went back to Vina for the day to tour around the city center and then spent the afternoon at the beach. Unfortunately the water was pretty much freezing cold, but we still managed to spend a short time playing in the massive waves (waves so big that Laura got rocked by them a few times resulting in more sand in her bathing suit than you can ever imagine and a beautiful battle scar on her leg). We were very lucky with the weather, sunny and warm most days, allowing for lots of sun soaking!

Parque Nacional La Campana- we decided to get out of the city for the day and did some hiking in this park which was an hour or so East of Valparaiso. The hike itself ended up being actually pretty tiring not only because of the steep path, but also because it was very hot out. The view were quite nice when the trail came out of the forest and it made for a great taste of South American hiking for my parents and sister.
Food- we had some incredible meals during both our weeks in Valparaiso. The food scene in Valpo is now considered ahead of Vina’s even with the more upper class feel to Vina. Without going into details about each and every restaurant, they were all great and we definitely did not go hungry for the 2 weeks!

Week 2:

After catching the bus back to Santiago with Allison so she could catch her plane home after a great week, I returned back to the condo for another week with Laura, my parents, and myself. This week proved to be more interesting than planned as you’ll see.

Le Sebastiana- the famous Chilean poet, and Noble prize winner Pablo Neruda had three beautiful houses in Chile which have been converted into museums. There is a house in Santiago, one off the coast of Vina del Mar, and one in Valparaiso. We spent the afternoon touring through his Valparaiso home which was really fascinating. Neruda had no shortage of money, so his home was filled with odd gifts from friends as well as things he collected during his travels around the world. The house was 5 stories and had an incredible view overlooking Valparaiso. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos in the house, but we could photograph the outside, and the view from the top.

Ascensors- because Valparaiso is essentially built into the side of a mountain, in the late 1890s and early 1900s, 20 or 30 ascensors (basically elevators but in a 20-60 degree incline instead of straight up) were built to allow people an easier time getting up the hills and to their homes and jobs. This might sound kind of lazy.....until you’ve walked these hills. They are very steep. Even the cars have a tough time getting up and down them (let alone parking!). Anyways, during the first half of the 1900s, the ascensors were used by millions of people per year for practical purposes. Currently, only about 10 of them are still functioning, and they are mostly a tourist attraction (although still used by some locals to get to their homes). We tried our best to ride all of the ones that were still functioning (I think we got about 80% there). It’s quite an odd feeling riding something up a nearly 60 degree pitch that was made in 1890. weren’t exactly the smoothest ride, at times feeling pretty sketchy I must say, but a really cool experience and kind of a trip back in time.

Since this is already getting long, the rest of our week consisted of a harbour tour where we saw the shipping yard, navy vessels, and local fishing boats; the naval museum; a day touring around Chile’s largest Botanical Gardens about 1 hour from Valparaiso (this is where my Dad did he zip lining that you’ll see in the pictures); some time spent around the outdoor pool (12th floor of our condo); and of course, eating more great meals and drinking great wine.

The earthquake- Now for the excitement. We had been told by both the condo owner, and our wine tour guide that tremors (very small earthquakes to make things simple, you can almost not feel them) are quite common in Valparaiso, sometimes as often as every week or 2. So when 3:30am came around on the morning my parents were supposed to leave, for the first 5 seconds or so of shaking I thought it was just a normal tremor....then it started to shake a little harder, and for about 10 seconds more. Basically, you could tell this probably wasn't a normal thing. After quickly getting out of the condo we stood around outside with other people for about an hour, and then luckily got invited into a family’s house for about another hour of waiting. During that time there was 2 or 3 weaker aftershocks which made us a bit apprehensive about re-entering the condo. Finally around 6am or so we went back into the condo and tried our best to get some more sleep. We felt a few more small aftershocks during the next few hours (and then about 1 per day for the next 3 days) which kept us on our toes to say the least. It was not until around noon or so when we regained power in the condo and were able to check the internet and realise how serious the earthquake really was. As you’ve probably heard, the main quake hit just outside of the city of Conception which was about 5 hours or so south of us. This set off a number of smaller aftershocks throughout Chile and even Argentina. The main quake was 8.8 on the rictor scale. Our first aftershock (the biggest one) measured 5.5. A 5.5 aftershock will cause varying degrees of damage depending on the strength of the building, etc. Because our condo was very new, it received very little damage, inside and out. Although we all were quite scared from the experience, it put it in perspective, no pictures in our condo fell, the piles of coins on the kitchen table didn’t fall, and there was only minor cracking damage to some of the plaster. We felt some pretty strong shaking, but by no means got the worst of it. Many other cities around us, and obviously closer to the main quake were very severely damaged with many lives lost and so we consider ourselves very lucky to have had the experience we did, totally unharmed. Because the Santiago airport was severely damaged, our time with my parents at the condo got extended by3 days. We didn’t do much during this time except relax at the condo. Finally when Tuesday rolled around we headed to Santiago where through much discussion with airlines, we managed to figure out a way home for my parents which took them by bus from Santiago to Mendoza (Argentina), then flying from Mendoza to Buenos Aires to Washington to Toronto. Needless to say this was a pretty tiring and stressful experience for all of us, but in the end it worked out fine, and allowed my parents to get a great bus ride through the Andes, plus a short visit in Mendoza which is a great place!

Sorry for the novel, we did a lot in these 2 weeks as you can see. All in all it was a great time, and a really nice change of pace for Laura and I!

Until next time,
Greg and Laura

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