Feb. 11/13 – Chile
Tuesday, February 14th, 2006Day 194/196 – To explore more of Chile while we waited for our car, we took a bus from Santiago to Valparaiso. It was a nice change of pace from the city. Valparaiso is not a small town, but it can feel like a small town due to the landscape; there are forty-two different hills (cerros in Spanish). They surround the bay and look over ‘El Plan’, the flat part of the city, located right by the port, which is also the business district. The hills break the city up into different neighborhoods which are scattered with numerous shops, crooked streets, stairs, random art, and a diversity of housing, which ranges from mansions to shacks. All throughout the hills are sleeping dogs, and wandering cats, who really give just the right personality to the city. One morning as we wandered the streets, one of the dogs was our companion, announcing our arrival at every corner. We were told his name was Julio, and he likes to guide the tourists.
Julio our guide dog 😉 waiting for us as we look at the views
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Views of streets and beyond
If you don’t want to climb the steps up the hill you can take this lift up.
The main focus of tourism here are Cerros Concepcion and Alegre, which are two hills that are world heritage sites. These hills are full of restaurants, cafes, bed & breakfasts, hostels, and art shops. It has a very bohemian feel, as does most of the city, due to the laid back character and empty streets. We stayed at Luna Sonrisa Hostal (www.lunasonrisa.cl – tel. 032734117 – Templeman 833, Cerro Alegre) which is a nice, clean, small hostel located off of a cobblestone road, facing the bay. Breakfast is included, and is made up of homemade jams, bread, cheese, and fruit – very delicious. I would recommend for anyone to stay there while visiting Valparaiso.
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Luna Sonrisa Hostel and the view down the street from the hostel
Most of our time has been spent wandering the streets and enjoying colorful homes, murals, and art galleries. We did our one tourist responsibility and stopped at Casa La Sebastiana to tour the former house of Pablo Neruda, a 1971 Noble Prize winner and poet. It was an interesting house with a lot of old artifacts, but I thought the admission was a little steep ($2500 pesos – $5 usd). After that, we walked through the ‘open sky museum’, which is a neighborhood down the hill from Casa La Sebastiana that has a lot of different murals painted on the buildings. They are randomly placed so you have to explore the neighborhood to see them all.
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Us at Casa La Sebastiana – if it wasn’t cloudy the view would be great!
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Murals at the Sky Musuem
Since we have arrived in Chile we have enjoyed cooking all of our own meals at the hostels, adding avocado and tomatoes to everything. Our favorite meal so far is the lunch that we’ve had the last two days; a sandwich made of fresh bread with avocado, tomatoes, and cheese. It is soooo delicious with all the fresh ingredients bought from the local farmers and bakeries!
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newspaper stand
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cloudy views of the city
Lastly, a warning to anyone needing to do laundry while staying on Cerros Concepcion or Alegre ~ the laundry service has a monopoly and charges $4500 pesos (about $9 usd) to wash and dry a load of laundry! It is a nice shop, but pricey, and they mixed up our some of our clothes with someone else’s – so check your laundry before you leave.
A building in El Plan that was modernized but kept historic
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