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Published: September 14th 2016
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After another unpleasantly long flight across the international dateline we finally landed on our fifth continent in the South American nation of Chile. Exiting the airport we easily found the airport bus which delivered us to the Parajahitas Metro Station where we changed to a coach for the 90 minute trip to World Heritage site and major port Valparaiso.
We arrived late in the day checking into the Ibis hotel down on the waterfront, the hotel is modern and comfortable but choice of food is limited. We crashed out at 5pm not waking again till 3am when we watched a creepy pseudo-documentary about serial killers before going back to sleep till 7am.
On waking we went down to a buffet breakfast before heading out to explore this strange city which is the home of the Chilean Navy. We visited Plaza Sotomayor with its memorial to the heroes of the Pacific War and Naval Command building. Valparaiso has a thin flat area reclaimed over the centuries from the sea, few people live here, the city's 300,000 population live on the hillsides. We joined a city walking tour that took as high up the hillside over looking the port, we visited
a number of historical buildings including the old prison.
We then took an ancient trolly bus back to Plaza Echaurren the original heart of the lower city before purchasing an adaptor and some groceries before returning to our hotel. First impressions of the city are not great but we are taking another walking tour to the Cerro Conception and Cerro Allgre districts later in the afternoon.
At 3pm we made our way to Plaza Anibal Pinto the new city centre, I have never seen such a graffitied place anywhere in the world which makes what could be an attractive city look tacky. Here we met our guide and began the walk up the hillside to the Ascensor Reina Victoria one of the city's 30 funiculars. Each was built by rich families to get to hilltop homes and are a unique way to travel up the hillside. These neighbourhoods (barrios) are beautifully preserved and decorated by hundreds of murals. Restaurants, craft shops and hostel/hotels abound as do classic old buildings in many styles.
The guide was kind enough to identify an excellent empanada restaurant which we visited later in the evening, the pasties were filled with many fresh
ingredients including vegetables and seafood so we ate well before climbing up the hill to a little Welsh pub. We were the only ones there so we sat with the very kind owner Willy Mckay and talked of many things while drinking good Chilean beer and eating great Chilean bread. Eventually they closed up and we stayed on for a time before wandering down the hill to our hotel.
We woke about 730am and went down for breakfast then returned to our room for a "short" nap waking at 330pm then rushed off to Cerro Artilleria to visit the wonderful Naval Museum with its wonderful nautical exhibits then on to Muelle Prat for the harbour tour. The main highlights were the sea lions and the Naval ships in the harbour.
Ruth and I had not eaten for ten hours so we went to a restaurant at Plaza Anibal Pinto and ordered a tasty salad, a homeless drunk was doing disgusting things to one of the city's many street dogs which made me extremely angry. After dinner we returned to our favorite pub where we drank beer with the locals till midnight.
Valparaiso is a really great place
Catraction
Valparaiso to begin our South American odysey but by 945am it was time to go we arrived at our Santiago hotel around 11.30am and spent the remainder of the day relaxing.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Love this one
Priceless