Blogs from Valparaíso, Valparaíso Region, Chile, South America - page 37

After many recommendations we headed to Valparaiso just north of Santiago...and were rather shocked when we arrived to find what seemed like another has been city, more like the port of Middlesbrough that an exclusive Chilean holiday destination!! Granted there was some cool Bohemian grafitti around town and some cool old buildings but not so much that I would shout about! So getting there on a Saturday, we thought it would be heaving but the centre of town seemed to be dead, only full of dogs, not a lot else, I seriously think it must be dog capital here / they even chill out on the benches on the streets!! Since there wasnt toio much else to do we decided to have a relaxing afternoon beer, which turned into lots and ended in an all day ... read more

Friday 25/05 we had first night out on the town. We hit the bars with our Spanish School classmates and scored $5 cocktails (the traditional Pisco Sour), giant beers and hmmm, interesting tapas enjoyed with classic eighties tunes. The following day, sore heads in tow, we found something worth crossing the Pacific for! We spent two days with our German housemate Julia exploring the maze-like hills of Valparaiso and it´s beachside cousin, Viña del Mar. Valpo is a gorgeous port city perched on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Many of the houses date back hundreds of years and most are painted in bright colours, the streets wind up the hill forever so our walks around town were a great preparation for the long walks to come! So after two weeks in Chile we passed our ... read more

Having been in Santiago over a week we decide to go off on a little adventure and get a rather nice 3 hour Tur bus to the coastal town of Valparaiso. We have a mini mission from the bus station and still can´t find our hostel - so where do we go for directions, the local gun shop of course!!! Eventually find our hostel up one of the many steep hill roads and are greeted by Tim - a cool guy from America who works there! He points us in the direction of food and off we go! After a rather confusing discussion with the lady who owns the bottleshop we return to the hostel with 2 rather large, rather cheap bottles of beer!!! Then we sit in and watch a film before the whole hostel ... read more

Hello all! I didn’t write about last weekend and I wanted to do that before this upcoming weekend. Last Saturday my program went to Horcòn and Zapallar. They are both really cute beach towns but sadly it was a rather cold and gloomy day. But Horcòn is famous for their empanadas, so we obviously had to test them out. I had a shrimp empanada and then later a crab empanada, and I must say that they can keep their reputation. When we arrived in Zapallar I fell in love. It is definitely an upper class town but it was gorgeous! It had a pretty small beach and then just trees and hills surrounding it, making it seem very secluded. While we were there, we walked along a rode and saw a little artesian stand so we ... read more

Almost finished with Chile after three and a half weeks here...which seems like only a few days (well apart from THAT boat trip). Since the last entry we have been engaging in very un-budget-backpacker activities including a wine tour and trip to the casino. Yes, we´ve been livin´the high life. This will be a short one as the space bar must have had a run in with a can of Fanta and isstickingsoallthewordsaretogether. Anyway, we leave for Bolivia tomorrow - flying from about 200m above sea level to 3,600 metres. So we expect some ill effects from the altitude for a day or two. Valparaiso grew on us...especially once the weather improved and the sun came out. The city is a bit like Brighton,and infact one of the B&Bs is called BrightonB&B. The first day ... read more