The vertical city: Valparaiso

We passed through the Andes, and it was spectacular.  We rode along the banks of a brick red river, and I was reminded of being in Arizona when I was 12.  The mountains were capped with snow and small houses and remote communities dotted the valley.  We crossed the border and descended rapidly along unnerving switchbacks.  From there it wasn’t far to Valparaiso.

Valparaiso is an original city.  Its houses rise over the port on 42 hillsides which are all connected and named.  It’s only 3km away but very different from the neighboring city of Vina del Mar which has a similar population (think Pittsburgh or Mokpo) to Valpo.  Our hostel (Hostal NuevaMente) was located near the bus station so we walked there through a street market.  It was a great hostel, it felt like home for 3 days.  The proprietors had hired a Swiss couple to mind the desk for 6 months and we arrived after they had only been in Valpo for a week.  Both they and the owner, Pilar, were very welcoming.  Our room was huge and we had the whole place practically to ourselves; it’s a small hostel.

I must admit, when we got there I was a bit sketched out.  The city has a gritty, run down appearance.  In the flat part, El Plan, where we were staying, there were signs of economic hardship, burnt out buildings, businesses with steel rusted steel curtains, graffiti, trash blowing everywhere, cheap goods being sold on the street, unkempt grass growing out of busted sidewalk cement, and the famous packs of roving street dogs.  We arrived on Saturday afternoon and needed Chilean money.  The banks were closed and the first ATM I tried refused to do the transaction as if it were a discerning diner.  We couldn’t find another bank so we found another hostel and asked if they knew where we could get money, they told us to go to the pharmacy.  ATMs at the pharmacy, imagine that.

When we retrieved the money we sat down and ate one of the more expensive meals we’ve had on our trip: a mountain of Chinese food and beer.  We’d been craving that since Montevideo, the South American diet of bread, meat and cheese had been making me feel like there was molasses in my veins and this got things moving again.  Satisfied we turned in at the hostel before dark.

The next day we walked over to where all the fuss is about.   Cerros (hills) Concepcion and Alegre.  We climbed them without the famous elevators because they’re not all that tall.  The scenery was beautiful.

After that we took a walk around the street that bends with the hills and snapped a couple photos overlooking the city sprawling up it’s slopes.

Pablo's house.

We took that street over to Pablo Neruda’s house.  A poet and a senator, Neruda is a national icon almost 40 years after his death.  He received the Nobel Prize for Literature and from his house in Valparaiso it’s easy to see why.  His thin house named La Sebastiana rises five stories overlooking the whole city of Valparaiso.  The house is decorated with taste and eccentricity and all of the walls that could afford a vista are outfitted with floor to ceiling windows. 

Nothing much happened that night, we ate in.  The next day we rode up an acensor and rode a bus around the hills for a more thorough tour of the area.  The bus wasn’t as large as the buses we think of, it couldn’t be it would be too unwieldy for the tiny, curvaceous streets.  It was however old and on the cobblestones it felt like it would simply fall apart by the screws at any moment.  We saw the inequality of the city.  On one hill adobe or wood homes with gates and fresh paint, on the next one shanties with corrugated tin roofs supported on the side of the hill with two by fours that look precarious but must be able to handle the strain.  We got off the bus at a university out by the far cape of the city.  It was a grand vista.

That night we went out for Chinese food again.  Chilean food is ho hum with the bright spot being their excessive use of avocado and tomato in things.  Other than that it’s mainly cheese and bread, burgers and meat, and french fries.

The next day we left in the afternoon for Santiago.  But before we did we walked along the oceanfront and I bought a watch.  I haven’t worn a watch for quite some time but I really needed something to show me the time now that I don’t have a cell phone.  It’s such a novelty I can’t stop looking at my wrist.

There you have it.  Valparaiso is an inspiring city, as I’m sure you can tell from the photos.  It’s edge takes a couple days to dull, but a visit is indispensible to any South American backpacking adventure.