Valpariso and Viña

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Valparaiso y Viña del Mar

Hola!

Happy and healthy, and Valparaiso continues to treat me well. Befriended a bunch of people in the hostel once i stopped going to sleep while it was still light. There was a Belgian couple, a couple of French girls, a German or two, a Scottish guy, a Swiss guy, a slightly unhinged Northern English guy, and a couple of younger English guys. Pretty solid mix, i thought. I don't remember a single one of their names, either... which is a crap effort on my part. A few americans came in from Santiago this morning, too.
So that night, i a went off to a nightclub called "Mascara" with the Britons and Belgians and it was.... pretty much the same as home. They played the same music as home (except slightly older music, and apparently Jet still get played over here), there were just far more Chilean people there than usual and beer doesn't cost a million dollars like it does in Sydney.







Spent the rest of the following day just trotting around Valpo because i accidentally slept until midday, and then the Scottish guy and crazy Northern English guy and i went to a concert they had on in the plaza (i think it's a long weekend here and there is a festival?). It was a bit rubbish and very cold, so we went for a stroll and ended up in this AMAZING cafe thing in a tiny side street. I´m going to try to find it again tomorrow, but don´t much fancy my chances. It was inexplicably packed with locals, and there were two guys walking around with a guitar and an accordian and the room was plastered with passport photos and about ten salvation army stores worth of random ornaments were filling display cabinets on every wall. There was also what appeared to be a real torpedo hanging from the roof. The Scottish guy happened to have a passport photo on him and stuck it on the wall. They also served local beer and only one dish which was literally just a massive mound of chips with fried onion, scrambled egg, and some kind of meat on top. Anyway, difficult place to describe, but it was quite amazing and i took a couple of photos which are not really blogworthy because i was a bit drunk. We went to another pub that i forget the name of afterwards and accidentally ordered a litre of Heinekin each and there was a live band that started at about 2am. They weren´t very good.







I went to Viña del Mar to day via train (after a long and confusing conversation about how i needed a special card to ride the train), which was quite nice, but nothing too amazing. It´s bascially a beach town a couple of kms north of Valpo, and there a heap of trees and flowers around in all the streets and a lot of really nice plazas with horses pulling carts around in traffic and lots of local holidaymakers. Parts of it looked alot like the Gold Coast. Sort of beachside vibe with almost no houses and lots of 10-15 storey apartment buildings all lined up down the streets. Chilean men walking around and trying to impress ladies. Anyway, there wasn´t a whole lot to do there but it was nice enough.








Bought my ticket to the north today as well. It will be the first of many epic bus journeys (i think 18hrs?) and i´ll end up in Antofagasta at around 6pm, so i´ve booked a room for that nght, and then i´ll go on to San Pedro, which is where all the fun is at. I´m hearing HEAPS of great reviews for the place from the travellors i've met so far, so i'm getting really excited about it. Basically a desert town, but will show pictures when i get there.
















That´s about all there is to report. Watched some confusing performance art today involving a women splashing around in a fountain and throwing rubbish and breaking mirrors and a teenage mutant ninja turtles figurine. It was very confusing, but there was hearty applause at the end. The Northern English guy has also told me i have to visit a place outside Villa de Lleyva in Colombia where they have a "field of cocks" (literally statues of phalluses in a field). He found it hilarious.

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Photos

Abandoned house
Only in Valparaiso does a smashed up abandoned house look this pretty