Colourful, charming Valparaiso! Clinging to the hills around the port, climbing every cliff, the thousands of small, colourful houses create a rich carpet of city fabric waiting to be explored. This vibrant city incorporates the qualities of a smaller, Italian town with alleys and winding streets. This is a city for made for walking. And if the steep hills have you loosing courage, there are several ascensors to get you up past the worst part.
Coming straight from the tiny town of Pichilemu, a little “city” was what I needed. Or people, was what I needed. I was again lucky enough to have a friend who knew someone in the city who put me up with a bed in his flatshare living room. I think I might have enjoyed that a little too much though, cause I stayed for a week, basically occupying their social house-hub.
The first couple of days, or almost every day, was spent walking around the city, either for the whole day or just a couple of hours. And it seemed like there was always some corner with something new to discover even though you’d been around the neighbourhood five times before. I started with a Tour for Tips on my first day which was well worth it’s money. They talk about history, culture food and drinks while taking you around. During the tour yu aso get to test the ascendadors, the trolleybus, homemade alfahors and some of the local chicha brew.
Valparaiso is a UNESCO heritage city with good reason. But beside the charming, coloured houses, it is the collaborate effort amongst mural artists that makes this city so vibrant and popular. The murals of Valparaiso deserve a book on their own, and they probably have one, but here are some of the many stunning ones I passed by:
It’s also a city for foodies. As a port city the main market is filled with fresh sea food and the restaurants offer mean ceviches and seafood soups.
Valparaiso also has good night life and a lot of the bars are gathered around the same area of Cumming and Equador street. Feeling like seeing Valparaiso from the other side, we booked a party boat that would take us around the bay of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar to enjoy the sun setting behind the city. Well, given that it’s South America after all, the boat didn’t actually work when they were to ship off, so we ended up being two hours late. But we made the sunset! And we got to see, or disturb, a couple of gigantic sea lions dozing on a harbour buoy.
