An afternoon in Valparaiso

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After a full day in Santiago, Alejandro, Linnea and I were ready to head off to our next destination: Valparaiso. Being only an hour and a half away by bus and buses running about every 10 minutes, it was definitely not a problem to find a bus that would take us there. Can't believe I have been in the country for almost two weeks, and know I am finally stepping onto a bus. I am sure there'll be lots more bus ride ahead of me on this journey back to Canada 😊

Arriving in Valparaiso in the early afternoon, we dumped our backpacks at the bus station and bought some tickets for our night bus to La Serena. As Linnea wasn't feeling 100% on this day, we decided to take it relatively slow, which was fine by me because I know that if I want, I can come back to Valparaiso when traveling down the coast of Chile. Looking for a place to eat, we found a restaurant full of locals, so we knew that it must be good for a set lunch. The set lunch only put us back about $4 and filled our stomachs nicely.

After lunch, we took the oldest funicular in the city to the top of Cerro Concepción (Cerro = Hill). Valparaiso is a city of forty some hills and some of them, where I assume the richer people lived, had funicular built in the late 1800s to move this people up and down the hill. As the funicular for Cerro Concepción was the oldest, it was also the most touristic one which meant it was the most expensive one at $CH 200 ($0.40). From the top of the hill, you get an amazing view of the city below and in the distance, you can see the sister city of Viña del Mar, which is more of a beach resort town from what I heard. We wondered around the top of the hill for a while, admiring the colorful buildings and the winding roads before finding a nice café to relax in. We ended up spending a lot of time in this café as it was quite cozy and we were just happy to take a break out of life and enjoy ourselves. By the time we left the café, the sun has set (which is does rather early here since it is winter) and we headed back down another funicular, this one costing half of what the other one did: $CH 100. The funicular dropped us off in Plaza Sotomayor, a huge tiled plaza with roads that blend into the plaza. There are just painted lines that distinguish which part is road and which part is for pedestrians. Making our way back towards the bus station, we stopped to buy some snacks at a grocery store that seems to put our North American grocery stores to shame and then headed to the bus terminal to wait for our bus to La Serena.

So I have already commented on the fact that my flight to Easter Island was the best plane/flight I had ever been on. Our bus to La Serena has to be the nicest bus I have been on so far. Pillows, blankets, an attendant on a brand new, two level bus with a bathroom (Bolivian buses don't have bathrooms so this is rather exciting news), I was quite happy. The comfort of the bus put me right to sleep and soon I would wake up in La Serena.

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