Santiago
As we’ve stressed many times before (with such claims as “La Paz Sucks”), we’re not city people, and so weren’t really looking forward to passing through Santiago. In this case, however, we were pleasantly surprised! I’m not saying we loved it, but we did spend a couple enjoyable days walking around the relatively clean and attractive city, wandering the parks and admiring the colourful street murals.
on our way up! For me, the most enjoyable part by far was our afternoon at the huge and attraction-packed Metropolitan Park, located on atop a forested hill overlooking the city. One of the largest urban parks in the world, within its over 700 hectares it contains multiple botanical gardens, a zoo, a religious sanctuary, and by far the best part, a long funicular saving you from the hour or more uphill walk. Just what is a funicular, you ask? Well, it’s something between an elevator and a trolley, using cables to pull cars along tracks up the side of a hill. Why the absurd name, you ask? Well, it’s because FUN + SPECTACULAR = FUNICULAR!! Wouldn’t that make “funacular" or “funtacular”, you ask? Well, why don’t you just shut up!
Santiago's semi-smoggy skyline After our amazing ride up, we decided to make our way over to the botanical gardens in order to appease our nature cravings. From atop the hill were some great views of the city skyline, and because we were lucky enough to be there on a relatively smog-free day we could actually see across the valley to the mountains behind (kind of). Being located in a valley as it is, air pollution is a huge problem in Santiago. We were both pretty disturbed by the brownish hue looming over the city, and to think that this was a good day is pretty disturbing. While admiring the view at a lookout, we ran into Eleanor, a technical writer from Seattle who’s been solo-traveling her way through Chile. We ended up hanging out with her for a few hours, sharing travel-stories and getting some great advice for our upcoming trip to Patagonia. In the late afternoon we parted ways so Chelsea and I could make it to opera. Yeah, we do stuff like go to the opera, because we’re fancy people.
 soooooooo faaaaancy |  indubitably! |
Valparaiso
this pretty much sums up Cerro Alegre, or "Happy Hill"
beautiful murals all over! After a couple days in Santiago, we were ready to move on to the much more highly-anticipated Valparaiso, a port city about an hour bus ride from Santiago. A beautiful and hilly city made up of arsty-fartsy bohemian-types and sketchy port-workers, Valparaiso took all the things we liked about Santiago and somehow made them ten zillion times better; where Santiago has one funicular, for example, Valparaiso has FIFTEEN. Booya! We stayed in the cafe-packed neighbourhood atop Cerro Alegre (happy hill), and from the minute we arrived we were amazed by just how picturesque the city really is. From atop the hill, everywhere we looked was packed full of colourful buildings, elaborate graffiti and murals, and it was almost impossible to walk anywhere without stopping every few steps to take another photo.
funk-tacular funicular action As luck would have it, our new friend Eleanor was staying at an hospedaje just down the street from us, so we met up with her the next day to explore. In search of fun-icular times, we decided to try and tackle as many of the badboys as we could, an interesting goal that promised some scenic views of the city. We reviewed our maps, put together a rough route and hit the road with a skip in our steps. Things quickly ground to a halt, however, when we reached the top of our first funicular, ascensor San Augustín, and were warned by the operator that it wasn't safe to leave the tiny building. Apparently we were about to stroll into the sketchy neighbourhood atop Cerro Cordillera, where walking around as tourists with our day packs and cameras would surely get us mugged. We asked if it was safe to at least pop our heads out for a look, but were warned that someone may catch a glimpse of us and end up following us down! WTF?! This caught us completely off guard, since we'd already walked around Cerro Alegre and the downtown core the previous night and felt completely comfortable. To be safe, though, we resignedly rode back down and modified our plans.
must have taken a while! Valparaiso is an awesome city to explore by foot (avoiding the sketchy parts...), guaranteed to bring out the photographer in anyone. We wandered the streets taking in the breathtaking coastal views and admiring the variety of colourful graffiti, ranging from small but detailed characters to multi-storey murals on the sides of apartment buildings. We wandered all over town, checked out the large cemetery overlooking the city (Eleanor seems to be fascinated by monuments to dead people), stopped for a delicious fish almuerzo (an affordable two or three-course lunch typical in Chile), and managed to ride four of the fun-tacular elevators (last time, I promise). We wrapped up the day at our hostel, sharing some of Chelsea’s home-cooked Thai curry, a couple bottles of delicious Chilean wine, and an action-packed Jenga tournament. Thanks, Eleanor, for the awesome day!
Eleanor in deep concentration After stumbling on countless teenagers rolling and smoking doobies in the many secluded stairways and alleys on the previous day’s wanderings, temptation kicked in and we managed to score some of the good stuff from one of the guys working reception at our hostel. Needless to say, our second day in Valparaiso consisted of much more bein’ chili, relaxing, listening to music, watching movies... when in Rome!
Our next stop is Puerto Montt, where we hope to rent a car and spend a couple weeks exploring Patagonia!
Until then, keep eating your beans!
~Mandrew
Our next stop is Puerto Montt, where we hope to rent a car and spend a couple weeks exploring Patagonia!
Until then, keep eating your beans!
~Mandrew
Photos
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