Valpo - the Town of Colour

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Day 574 (23.10.08)

Today was a day to explore the arty port town of Valparaiso (or Valpo for short) but before we could get going with yet another day of pounding the streets, we had to finalise travel plans going North. Unfortunately we couldnt go directly from Valpo so a trip back through to Santiago was needed before picking up our 24 hour long bus ride. We hit yet another hurdle when we found the bus leaving that evening was full so opted for an early one the following day. The spanish seemed to be holding up - or at least we think so we may still end up going the wrong way at the wrong time, we´ll let you know!

Travel plans in hand we grabbed our things and decided upon the 3km (ish) walk from our hotel through to the centre of town and the main areas of interest.

Valpo is a prety major port with container, military, tourist and fishing boats littering the docks. It is situated on quite a steep open slope which rises from the port with steps (and if you're feeling lazy as we did on occasions)´ascensores´or lifts that can also take you up them. The hill sides are also covered in brightly coloured houses and apartments seeming to cling to the hillside precariously making for a spectacular view.

We then roughly followed a walking tour set out in our book which took us around the harbour and then up into some of the more interesting areas. Our favourite being a small area called Cerro Concepcion where there were stunning buildings, amazing street art adorning the walls of buildings and in general a really good feel.

We also visited another area known as Bella Vista which is famed for its murals decorating buildings. They were OK but given the choice we thought the ones we had already seen in Cerro Concepcion were better.

Having smashed the walking tour by 2:30 and with our legs and feet feeling the pace of the towns steep slopes we made our way back across town for a relaxing evening with dinner and a bottle (well box) of wine - classy!

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