Valparaiso

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To fill in time while awaiting my new gadget to arrive we spent 2 nights in Valparaiso, a coastal city,near Santiago. We stayed at a really nice Hostel at the top of a acsensor, a little railcar up a vertical incline, pulled by cables. Steep at hell. It was so nice to only have a small pack and not have to lug the big ones. We left the big packs at the hostel in Santiago. We still had alot of steps to climb to the hostel and it was a bit of a slog. The hostel was in an open air museum, alot of art painted over the walls in the neighbourhood.

We went to the Valparaiso Naval Museum, this was up another acsensor. This was a really good museum and covered all the Naval history of Chile, had some beautiful paintings of naval battles. They had a very good record of the navy in Chile. We were escorted by a guard from room to room and couldn't leave without seeing everything. It was huge, we were there for 4 hours.

We visited a fish market and got approached by about 30 restaurant owners, all at once, to come and have a meal at their place. We settled on one and had a very filling shellfish soup. It was absolutely full of shellfish, mussels, prawns, squid and other things. The mussels here are black.

We were sitting in a plaza listening to music and school girls with a nun in tow, handed everyone a stick with a sweet attached. We were given a little card with a saint on, some of the other people got a booklet with a picture of the Pope on it. That night we went to a restaurant at the top of the ascensor by our hostel, it was beautiful. If overhung the cliff face by about 5 meters and had a great view of the city. We had the meal of the day and this included a bottle of wine and a Pisco Sour and 3 courses for about $22 NZ. This was a really nice meal in a great setting.

The next day we returned to Santiago.

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Photos

WE stayed at the open air art neighbourhood.
Lots of artwork over the homes and buildings.