It felt odd to leave Santiago. I'd got used to pottering about the city but it was time to move on. I've only got just over a month left and still have lots to do.
Next up: Valparaiso. Officially the Cultural Capital of Chile and a place described as 'Bohemian' by almost every guidebook, website and person I'd come across.
The word Bohemian makes me think of Eastern European dreadlocked students smoking weed, listening to the latest unsigned band you've never heard of and sitting around in nicotine-stained bars discussing Jean-Paul Sartre.
Unfortunately I didn't find much of that, except for the nicotine-stained bars, but I did find a city teeming with quirks.
Valpo, as the locals call it, sits on a hill banking the Pacific ocean - just down the coast from Viña del Mar and only an hour and a half from Santiago.
My taxi driver from the bus terminal was struggling to find my hostel in the Cerro Allegre, which I thought was odd seeing as it was located on the main road in the district, and the neighbourhood is the biggest tourist attraction in Valpo. Maybe it was his first day.
We got there eventually though, and right across the street was my first taste of what has helped make Valpo famous - street art:
The hostel was another gem, as in the rest of Chile. Either my recommendations and research have thrown up some unusually good hostels, or Chile is blessed with great places to stay.
The friendly American on reception spent a while explaining all the highlights and lowlights of Valpo to me. Highlights? Bars, restaurants, street art, etc. Lowlights? Pointing to a place on the map next to the Cerro Allegre: 'Don't walk in this area, day or night'. Ok!
A few people, plus my Footprint guidebook, had said that the city could be sketchy at times. But again, like in all my time on this continent so far, I had no bother and never once felt unsafe.
The sun was out, so I quickly dropped my bag in the dorm and headed out. The weather out here at this time of year can be notoriously cloudy so I knew this might be my only opportunity to take a wander in the sun.
I quickly saw why Valpo was described as a 'must do' in my book. Up in the hills, in the Cerros Allegre and Concepcion, are cobbled streets lined with multicoloured clapperboard houses:
There's a law in the city that forbids you painting your house the same colour as your neighbour, which gives an end result similar to a pack of Refreshers.
Btw, why are Refreshers called Refreshers? My memory of them is getting a sickly sweet, dry mouth that only a big glug of water could cure. Refreshing? Hmm.
Aaaanyway. Where was I?
The style of some of Valpo's houses reminded me of America's deep south. I've never been to America's deep south, but television is a wonderful thing.
And it isn't just the houses that give Valpo its unique character. I loved spending time in the cosy cafes, independent boutiques selling homemade T-shirts and welcoming restaurants.
In the hostel I met a girl called Sofia*, plus a couple from Oz called Matt and Allie. We'd all arrived that day and fancied a night out - despite the hostel being a good place to chill out, and cook, in.
We wandered down through the Cerro Allegre hill and its maze of streets before coming across an Italian restaurant that looked like a good'un.
An hour later we'd had a great meal of seafood risotto and yet more smooth Chilean wine. Most things in this country are very expensive, but you always feel like you're getting a good deal with the wine.
At the restaurant we bumped into two friends that Sofia had met in southern Chile - one was from France, one from Germany.
We agreed to meet them later at a club we'd been told about and headed off down the hill. At the bottom, the commercial district, we had a quick drink in an underground bar (with a strange but good choice of tunes. Remember Sugar Ray?!)
After that it was getting late so we headed to the club Mascara. Again, the DJs seemed to be off in their own little world (obscure Pulp singles followed by Cyndi Lauper followed by Disintegration-era Cure...) but it all seemed to work, and the goth/indie/student crowd were having a ball.
It was a long night, and probably too long to go into detail here, but I somehow found myself in Viña del Mar the following morning before heading back to Valpo.
That day, Sofia had arranged a rendezvous with some travelling buddies at our hotel. She'd met them in Santiago and they were coming to Valpo for the day.
When they arrived we set off for what would be a great day of walking through the hills of Valparaiso.
Back home, the 'street art' near me is a mix of love poetry (Kev 4 Soph 4ever) and football slogans (Millwall: No1 Likes Us).
Happily in Valpo the artists were more inspired:
We wandered along the Carre Allemana and saw loads of amazing art. The Bohemian crowd (that word again) have taken great pains to make this hilly city an eye-grabbing place to live. Here's some more:
We stopped for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant (soup, soya burgers and cactus juice: yum) and then did a slow walk through a neighbourhood housing 20 street art murals.
The murals, like this...
...had been commissioned by the local council a few years ago. The most famous artists in Chile had been given a wall to do their thang - and our general consensus was that some hit the spot, and some missed. The independent graffiti art was better.
At one point we passed one of Pablo Neruda's three houses, which unfortunately was swarming with tourists so we didn't go in.
Honestly, these tourists... (I would do one of those winky smiles right here, but hey - I'm 34 now and should probably be beyond that sort of thing.)
Despite not visiting the casa Neruda it was a great afternoon: strolling around in the sun with Valpo's docks below and the blue sea beyond, loving the colours and the chilled pace of life up in the hills.
We took a winding path back down to sea level, passing some more paintings on the way:
At the bottom I bade farewell to Sofia's friends and went to look for a barber. My last haircut was in Piura, in northern Peru, and I was beginning to resemble '90s British TV prime-time hero Lovejoy:
I walked all the way through town and couldn't find a single barber. Eventually I got back to the small square just north of my hostel and saw 'Gloria's Unisex Hairdresser'.
Gloria turned me away and told me to come back in half an hour. I did as told (never mess with a middle-aged woman with a pair of scissors in her hand) and 30 minutes later was sitting down for my second South American haircut.
Luckily Gloria's daughter was there and could speak a tiny bit of English. I said 'short on the top, even shorter on the sides, no clippers'. Unluckily, something seemed to be lost in translation.
Ten minutes later I walked out with a patchy thatch of hair, almost bald in places, hairy in others.
Thanks for nothing Gloria. May I suggest changing your sign from 'Unisex' to 'Women, but I'll have a random stab at Men'.
Anyway, hair schmair. The main thing was I could see my ears again and no longer resembled an ageing fictional antiques dealer.
That night Sofia and I welcomed Matt and Annie back into our hostel (they had to check out that morning due to lack of availability) and were accompanied by a couple of randoms: Australian and German.
The reason I can't remember the names of the randoms is because our rendezvous was oh-so brief. We got one of Valpo's famous ascensors...
...down to (yet another South American) Avenida Cumming and exited.
The previous day, on my way back to the hostel in mid-afternoon, I had suddenly got a stinging pain in my eyes and started choking. Some locals had been protesting about something or other (I think it's a South American national sport) and the police had fired a massive load of tear gas at them, which drifted its way up the hill.
Back at the bottom of the ascensor then, and we walked into another protest. This time it was night and various balaclava clad teenagers wielding clubs were scarpering up the road outside the ascensor. It's a grainy picture but I wasn't about to get my tripod out and adjust the multitude of settings on my Lumix:
See that building directly opposite in the picture? That's a bar, and that's where we ran. While people scattered left, right and centre we dashed towards the entrance as the owner rapidly pulled the shutters down.
Myself, Sofia, Matt and Allie got in. Australian and German didn't, and I never saw them again.
Inside the bar it was like nothing was happening outside: people sitting around drinking, a guy on stage warbling like a crap James Blunt (which is saying something) and us trying to regain a sense of normality.
An hour later, after a beer and a pic...
...we headed down to the harbour front and to a club that had been recommended by several people.
It had three rooms playing a variety of music: house, hip-hop and drum 'n bass. We had a great night flitting between the three and eventually sloped out in the small hours.
At that point only Sofia and I were left and we went and sated our hunger with some grande completos:
I've got a new slogan for the biggest completo maker in Chile. 'Complete your night with a completo'.
Admittedly it's not going to win any awards, and they may want to use a different picture than the one above, but the messy completo completed a great last night in Valpo for us.
We eventually got home - following a completo spillage from Sofia:
In the morning it was time to leave Valpo, as I had a football match to go to. I got up, said my goodbyes and strolled down to the harbour to get a metro.
The Valpo metro is a wonderful thing, I'm told. Unfortunately I never got to go on it as they wanted me to buy a Metro Card-type thingy for several quid, just to travel 10 minutes up the coast to Vina Del Mar. Thanks for thinking of the tourists folks!
So I walked back outside the metro and got a collectivo along the coast to Vina Del Mar. It had been almost six months since I'd watched an Everton game, and I was missing my fix...
Here are some more pics from Valpo - colour central:
*A pseudonym, for reasons I won't go into now
Next up: Valparaiso. Officially the Cultural Capital of Chile and a place described as 'Bohemian' by almost every guidebook, website and person I'd come across.
The word Bohemian makes me think of Eastern European dreadlocked students smoking weed, listening to the latest unsigned band you've never heard of and sitting around in nicotine-stained bars discussing Jean-Paul Sartre.
Unfortunately I didn't find much of that, except for the nicotine-stained bars, but I did find a city teeming with quirks.
Valpo, as the locals call it, sits on a hill banking the Pacific ocean - just down the coast from Viña del Mar and only an hour and a half from Santiago.
My taxi driver from the bus terminal was struggling to find my hostel in the Cerro Allegre, which I thought was odd seeing as it was located on the main road in the district, and the neighbourhood is the biggest tourist attraction in Valpo. Maybe it was his first day.
We got there eventually though, and right across the street was my first taste of what has helped make Valpo famous - street art:
The hostel was another gem, as in the rest of Chile. Either my recommendations and research have thrown up some unusually good hostels, or Chile is blessed with great places to stay.
The friendly American on reception spent a while explaining all the highlights and lowlights of Valpo to me. Highlights? Bars, restaurants, street art, etc. Lowlights? Pointing to a place on the map next to the Cerro Allegre: 'Don't walk in this area, day or night'. Ok!
A few people, plus my Footprint guidebook, had said that the city could be sketchy at times. But again, like in all my time on this continent so far, I had no bother and never once felt unsafe.
The sun was out, so I quickly dropped my bag in the dorm and headed out. The weather out here at this time of year can be notoriously cloudy so I knew this might be my only opportunity to take a wander in the sun.
I quickly saw why Valpo was described as a 'must do' in my book. Up in the hills, in the Cerros Allegre and Concepcion, are cobbled streets lined with multicoloured clapperboard houses:
There's a law in the city that forbids you painting your house the same colour as your neighbour, which gives an end result similar to a pack of Refreshers.
Btw, why are Refreshers called Refreshers? My memory of them is getting a sickly sweet, dry mouth that only a big glug of water could cure. Refreshing? Hmm.
Aaaanyway. Where was I?
The style of some of Valpo's houses reminded me of America's deep south. I've never been to America's deep south, but television is a wonderful thing.
And it isn't just the houses that give Valpo its unique character. I loved spending time in the cosy cafes, independent boutiques selling homemade T-shirts and welcoming restaurants.
In the hostel I met a girl called Sofia*, plus a couple from Oz called Matt and Allie. We'd all arrived that day and fancied a night out - despite the hostel being a good place to chill out, and cook, in.
We wandered down through the Cerro Allegre hill and its maze of streets before coming across an Italian restaurant that looked like a good'un.
An hour later we'd had a great meal of seafood risotto and yet more smooth Chilean wine. Most things in this country are very expensive, but you always feel like you're getting a good deal with the wine.
At the restaurant we bumped into two friends that Sofia had met in southern Chile - one was from France, one from Germany.
We agreed to meet them later at a club we'd been told about and headed off down the hill. At the bottom, the commercial district, we had a quick drink in an underground bar (with a strange but good choice of tunes. Remember Sugar Ray?!)
After that it was getting late so we headed to the club Mascara. Again, the DJs seemed to be off in their own little world (obscure Pulp singles followed by Cyndi Lauper followed by Disintegration-era Cure...) but it all seemed to work, and the goth/indie/student crowd were having a ball.
It was a long night, and probably too long to go into detail here, but I somehow found myself in Viña del Mar the following morning before heading back to Valpo.
That day, Sofia had arranged a rendezvous with some travelling buddies at our hotel. She'd met them in Santiago and they were coming to Valpo for the day.
When they arrived we set off for what would be a great day of walking through the hills of Valparaiso.
Back home, the 'street art' near me is a mix of love poetry (Kev 4 Soph 4ever) and football slogans (Millwall: No1 Likes Us).
Happily in Valpo the artists were more inspired:
We wandered along the Carre Allemana and saw loads of amazing art. The Bohemian crowd (that word again) have taken great pains to make this hilly city an eye-grabbing place to live. Here's some more:
We stopped for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant (soup, soya burgers and cactus juice: yum) and then did a slow walk through a neighbourhood housing 20 street art murals.
The murals, like this...
...had been commissioned by the local council a few years ago. The most famous artists in Chile had been given a wall to do their thang - and our general consensus was that some hit the spot, and some missed. The independent graffiti art was better.
At one point we passed one of Pablo Neruda's three houses, which unfortunately was swarming with tourists so we didn't go in.
Honestly, these tourists... (I would do one of those winky smiles right here, but hey - I'm 34 now and should probably be beyond that sort of thing.)
Despite not visiting the casa Neruda it was a great afternoon: strolling around in the sun with Valpo's docks below and the blue sea beyond, loving the colours and the chilled pace of life up in the hills.
We took a winding path back down to sea level, passing some more paintings on the way:
 |
| The female Jarvis Cocker? |
At the bottom I bade farewell to Sofia's friends and went to look for a barber. My last haircut was in Piura, in northern Peru, and I was beginning to resemble '90s British TV prime-time hero Lovejoy:
I walked all the way through town and couldn't find a single barber. Eventually I got back to the small square just north of my hostel and saw 'Gloria's Unisex Hairdresser'.
Gloria turned me away and told me to come back in half an hour. I did as told (never mess with a middle-aged woman with a pair of scissors in her hand) and 30 minutes later was sitting down for my second South American haircut.
Luckily Gloria's daughter was there and could speak a tiny bit of English. I said 'short on the top, even shorter on the sides, no clippers'. Unluckily, something seemed to be lost in translation.
Ten minutes later I walked out with a patchy thatch of hair, almost bald in places, hairy in others.
Thanks for nothing Gloria. May I suggest changing your sign from 'Unisex' to 'Women, but I'll have a random stab at Men'.
Anyway, hair schmair. The main thing was I could see my ears again and no longer resembled an ageing fictional antiques dealer.
That night Sofia and I welcomed Matt and Annie back into our hostel (they had to check out that morning due to lack of availability) and were accompanied by a couple of randoms: Australian and German.
The reason I can't remember the names of the randoms is because our rendezvous was oh-so brief. We got one of Valpo's famous ascensors...
...down to (yet another South American) Avenida Cumming and exited.
The previous day, on my way back to the hostel in mid-afternoon, I had suddenly got a stinging pain in my eyes and started choking. Some locals had been protesting about something or other (I think it's a South American national sport) and the police had fired a massive load of tear gas at them, which drifted its way up the hill.
Back at the bottom of the ascensor then, and we walked into another protest. This time it was night and various balaclava clad teenagers wielding clubs were scarpering up the road outside the ascensor. It's a grainy picture but I wasn't about to get my tripod out and adjust the multitude of settings on my Lumix:
See that building directly opposite in the picture? That's a bar, and that's where we ran. While people scattered left, right and centre we dashed towards the entrance as the owner rapidly pulled the shutters down.
Myself, Sofia, Matt and Allie got in. Australian and German didn't, and I never saw them again.
Inside the bar it was like nothing was happening outside: people sitting around drinking, a guy on stage warbling like a crap James Blunt (which is saying something) and us trying to regain a sense of normality.
An hour later, after a beer and a pic...
...we headed down to the harbour front and to a club that had been recommended by several people.
It had three rooms playing a variety of music: house, hip-hop and drum 'n bass. We had a great night flitting between the three and eventually sloped out in the small hours.
At that point only Sofia and I were left and we went and sated our hunger with some grande completos:
I've got a new slogan for the biggest completo maker in Chile. 'Complete your night with a completo'.
Admittedly it's not going to win any awards, and they may want to use a different picture than the one above, but the messy completo completed a great last night in Valpo for us.
We eventually got home - following a completo spillage from Sofia:
In the morning it was time to leave Valpo, as I had a football match to go to. I got up, said my goodbyes and strolled down to the harbour to get a metro.
The Valpo metro is a wonderful thing, I'm told. Unfortunately I never got to go on it as they wanted me to buy a Metro Card-type thingy for several quid, just to travel 10 minutes up the coast to Vina Del Mar. Thanks for thinking of the tourists folks!
So I walked back outside the metro and got a collectivo along the coast to Vina Del Mar. It had been almost six months since I'd watched an Everton game, and I was missing my fix...
Here are some more pics from Valpo - colour central:
*A pseudonym, for reasons I won't go into now