Valparaiso

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Today I got to have a look around Valparaiso, Chile with my group! It is a city of 300,000 or so and it is characterized by a crazy mess of unmarked cobble-stone streets, houses haphazardly smooshed into the hills that leave you in bewilderment as to how they are structurally supported, and colonial European influences mixed with authentic sassy Latin American style. It is actually a World Heritage site of UNESCO due to it's amazing culture.

When I see Valparaiso, I wonder how it has endured so well, what with earthquakes being a common occurence here. Infrastructure is a very interesting thing; because the hills are so steep, people take trolleys (ascensores) to get to the top of any of Valpo's 45 main hills. They are rickety and jankity but so cool! They certainly add to the charm of the city.

The houses here are all painted different colors and incorporate every architectural style imaginable. One of the more notable houses we got to see was Pablo Neruda's house (one of them). He is a respected Chilean poet who is very famous by world-wide standards for his love poems, odes, and political activism. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature and was an avid supporter of communism (particularly Stalin) during his life. He died shortly after the military coup of Pinochet overtook Salvador Allende's presidency. But anyways, we got to walk around his house; it was so awesome! Here's a link to one of his poems that I like...
http://www.redpoppy.net/poem37.php

After this, we got to take a boat tour along the coast of Valparaiso. The city hosts a port that is vital to the economy; here Chile exports it's commodity products such as copper, wine, and fruit. So there are a lot of sailors and people training for the marines around here. We also saw sea lions! crazy, right?

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