Chile - Valparaiso

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Suzanne here...

Every Tur bus we've seen has been new and fancy looking, so I was looking forward to our journey. Disappointingly our Tur Bus was old and dirty. Bah. Still not the the worst bus we saw though. About halfway into our journey we passed the blackened shell of an Expresso Norte bus. A fireman was still hosing down the smoldering luggage compartment. Looks like the poor passengers lost everything.

Our only issue was the kid behind us. Bored out of his brain, he would not sit still. He phoned his mum twice just for something to do (I imagine she was thrilled). Towards the end he began to 'sing'. Or more accurately drone on in a toneless monotonous voice. We thought he'd soon lose interest, but no. His dad put in his headphones and let him get on with it while we went slowly insane.

Eventually we arrived at Valparaiso and walked the half hour to our B&B, Puerta Escondida. To be honest it was more expensive than we can really justify. But it was lovely, and in a perfect location in the Concepcion area. In fact we so took to the B&B, and Valparaiso itself, that we quickly decided to add another night.

It was a bit late to explore, so we just went out for dinner. We had burrito's at Lupita & Sancho, tasty and a reasonable price. Then we set off in search of a possible rock bar. We think we found the bar, but it was a bit odd. We didn't recognise the music, there was a cover charge, and nobody seemed to be drinking. We decided not to bother. A few doors down we stumbled upon an absinthe bar of all things. It looked nice so we went inside. We only had three each, but I'd forgotten how strong absinthe is. Not entirely sure how we made it back!

The next day, feeling the after-effects of the absinthe a little, we made it down for breakfast but then had to have another little snooze. It was noon before we got out. It was a gorgeous, sunny afternoon so we just spent it wandering around Valparaiso. It's a lovely place. We had a ride on one of the famous ascendors (lifts and funiculars to cope with the hilly terrain).

By the port we were lucky enough to see a procession of drummers and dancers. They were carrying wooden statues down to the water and putting them on boats. No idea what was going on, but it was great to see! After a few hours of walking we came out of an alleyway and to our suprise found ourselves right in front of our B&B. We looked around our area a little more before heading in for a rest.

Dinner that night was at Cafe del Pintor. It was very nice, and not too expensive considering it's a pricy area. The star was the mushroom risotto, odd as I'm not even that keen on mushrooms. It was rather early so we bought some wine and spent the evening playing cards back in our room. Interestingly it was a Sunday, but buying alcohol was no problem. I just don't get the licensing laws here.

The next day we made a trip to the neighboring town of Vina del Mar, a 30 minute bus ride away. It's primarily a beach resort, but I wanted to go to Museo Fonck to see the Easter Island Moai statue. It was quite impressive. I rather wish we were going to Easter Island now, but it would have been a real blow to the budget. The Moai was outside, and was amazing. We decided we'd pay to get in anyway. It's a small museum but really interesting, with some amazing pottery and a few random exhibits like three shrunken human heads. Well worth a visit.

The rest of the day was spent wandering along the coast, grabbing an empanada in the square, and climbing a large hill in park Quinta Vergara for a view of the town. On our wandering I found a C$5k note (about £6) - bonus! That covered our bus fare both ways and our empanadas.

Foolishly we'd not looked up the bus route back so it took a while to find it. We did eventually, and got back to the hotel in time to get the next stage of the trip booked. We'd planned another stop before Santiago. But there seems a lot to do in Santiago, plus we fancy a few days without having to travel. We found a nice looking apartment (pricy again though) and got that booked for five nights.

For dinner we decided on a craft beer place called Casa Cevecera Altamira. The beer was very good. I had the pale ale and David a stout and a wheat beer. The food was ok. We asked for the burgers to come medium but they were on the rare side. Still, not bad.

The following day was our last in Valpariso. We were very glad we'd extended our stay. First we went to the Museo a Cielo Abierto (open air museum) which is supposed to be a lot of murals. It was a long climb up and although we saw one or two, sadly these days most of them seem to be obscured by graffiti.

Then it was back downhill, just to climb up again, even higher this time, to La Sebastiana Museo de Pablo Neruda. This was the home of poet Pablo Neruda and full of his collections of curios. When we got there it was very busy. Plus the price had increased, and the third floor was shut for repairs. I thought $7k was expensive when a third of the museum was shut. I'd have paid up if they had knocked a third off. We went to Cafe Plaza Moro instead, where we got delicious lemon pie and cappuccinos for two, for less than the museum admission price for one. The guy serving us was very friendly and we got chatting. He said that the curios we'd wanted to see were on the third floor, so I was glad we'd not paid to go in.

We had planned to walk to another viewpoint. But we could see the whole city from where we were, and as we got further up the hill the area began to feel a bit sketchy. A car slowed down and the two lads inside seemed to be checking us out. Then another guy was persistent in asking for cigarettes and trying to engage with us. Perhaps it would have been fine, but nonetheless we decided to head back down. We popped to a mall, looked at the cathedral and a couple of plazas, and before we knew it it was late afternoon and chilling off a little. Time to go back and relax for a bit.

We really wanted fish for dinner, but the recommeded restaurants were expensive and Chile is already stretching the budget. Pizza is always welcome, so we chose a well reviewed pizzeria just around the corner called Malandrino. While not exactly cheap for pizza, it was more budget-friendly. Luckily it turned out to be amazing. One of the top five pizza's of our trip I'd say. We had a white wine from the nearby Casablanca Valley, which was also delicious.

We have loved Valpariso. The fact that the weather has been great has helped (after chasing the sun in the north we got our best weather here). But mainly it's the colorful buildings, the artistic graffiti, the little twisty-turny streets and the cute cafes and resturants. Well, well worth a few days.

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