Valparaiso: vibrant, colorful and full of creativity
After a short night because of the dogs and roosters deciding to party all night, we take a bus at 8am from Vicuña to La Serena. Matt even had time to take a selfie of him folding the tent in the dark at 7 am…
From La Serena we had a bus ticket to go to Valparaiso at 10:30 am. We are early so we take our time and grab some breakfast at the bus terminal. After that, we go to the ticket office to know in which lane the bus for Valparaiso is going to arrive. The woman behind the counter looks at us and tells us that we actually have tickets for Santiago, not Valparaiso, and the bus for Valparaiso literally left one minute ago (why we have tickets to Santiago is a mystery we still haven’t solved to this day…). We even saw the bus for Valparaiso leave as we were coming down the stairs from breakfast… So what do we do now? The woman explains that we can still take the bus to Santiago and ask the driver to drop us off at Sopraval (no clue what Sopraval is, we didn’t find it on the map, but the driver seemed to understand us when we asked for that) and from there we can easily take another bus to Valparaiso, which would be only 1 hour away. So there we go, we hop on the bus hoping the driver will remember to stop wherever he has to… After 5 hours, the bus stops right in the middle of the highway and yells that this is Sopraval and we should get off here. So there we go, we hop off, between cars driving 60 miles an hour and guys with coolers selling empanadas. Once off the bus and with our bags, we realize we will never find a bus to Valparaiso from here! Again, we are on a highway in the middle of nowhere. We do see a collectivo on a side street and ask him if he goes to the bus terminal, apparently he does (we say apparently because the driver has absolutely no teeth and we can’t understand what he is saying, so we sit in the collectivo and hope he brings us the right direction). After a few minutes, he stops, and another man we had never seen before tells us to hop off here, and take another bus that will bring us to Valparaiso. Of course we obey and get off the bus to another one, in the rush we forget to pay the collectivo, so he honks madly at us and we have to go back, hand him the money and go in the other bus the stranger pointed at us. And off goes this new bus. You have to realize that all this happened super fast, we never waited at any point, all the buses directly drove off as soon as we were in them, so we had no time to sit and think about what we were doing. At that point, we both start laughing and wondering what we are doing, are we sure this bus isn’t bringing us back to La Serena? This new driver thinks he is on a Formula 1 track, we have no idea how it is possible to drive so fast on these little roads. As we get close to the city center of Valparaiso, Maider asks the driver where we should get off, and he suddenly stops and tells us we should get off here… Of course we listen to him and put on our backpacks and walked to our Airbnb. In the end, after 4 different buses, we finally arrive in our Airbnb, exhausted but happy everything worked out great. Because to be honest, everything just seems out of control and unorganized, but we never had to wait during all these crazy connections and we arrived where we were supposed to! Next time we will double check to make sure we booked the right bus in the first place!
Here we are, in Valparaiso (or Valpo as the cool kids say), located along the Pacific coast, known for its 40-ish hills (people don’t even agree on how many hills there are), colorful houses and graffitis.
We are spending 4 nights in total here, in a room in an Airbnb we found for very cheap. But when the bus drops us off on the flat part of the city (right by the ocean), we don’t know how many stairs we are going to have to climb to get to our Airbnb.
Indeed, in Valparaiso there are a lot of steep hills, and it is in these hills that the Porteños (habitants of Valparaiso) live. The flat part is exclusively dedicated to shops, supermarkets and offices. Of course, our Airbnb is located in one of these hills, and unfortunately some elevators do exist but not to go to our hill… So there we go up all these steps, it wouldn’t be such a big deal usually but today with our huge backpacks, a short night of sleep, taking 4 different buses and a 10 hour journey from Vicuña, we arrive exhausted at the top.
Our last little effort of the day is to find a restaurant not far from our Airbnb before going to bed. And we found a tiny pizzeria just a block from our place where we had the best pizza of our life. We talked with the owner, an Italien guy who came to Valparaiso 10 years ago to open a pizzeria. He even imports all his tomato sauce from Italy! And the pizzas are really delicious and pretty cheap.
After this awesome meal, we spend our first night in Valpo (yeah I am one of the cool kids!). And we felt yet another earthquake! Our 3rd one in less than a week, and because we are cool kids we acted all normal… I mean who hasn’t felt an earthquake before?
Harbor area and Cerro Artilleria
The following morning, we take our time. The sky is gray, like in La Serena. And we start wandering in the streets of Valpo.
We start with the harbor, which used to be the largest in Latin America before the opening of the Panama canal. Indeed, it was a mandatory stop when people from Europe or the East coast of the US wanted to go to the US West coast at the time of the gold rush. The harbor area is the oldest neighborhood of the city.
Nowadays, it is a work-class area and a UNESCO world heritage site.
Right next to it, you can find the cerro (which means hill in Spanish) Artilleria, where we take our first elevator to go up to the Artilleria view point.
Up there, we can enjoy a nice view on the harbor and the city.
We walk back down through a colorful neighborhood,
where we see our first graffitis and colorful houses. A nice little area.
We have lunch next to the harbor, where tons of restaurants offer pretty cheap menus with ceviche as first course, fried hake or seashell paella as main course, without forgetting a little glass of Pisco Sour!
We spend the afternoon with Gauthier and another french couple for a guided tour of the city. Gauthier was our guide for a 4 hour long tour. He is french and has been living in Chili for 9 months and knows already a lot about the country. We learned a ton about the history of the city, but also Chile en general, and also about the Chilean economy, politics and social life. The visit was very interesting, we learned so much in 4 hours, and it was great to talk with Gauthier about life in Chile.
Cerro Alegre
Second hill that we visit today. Gauthier made us take another elevator to get to it. These elevators are really fun to take. There are only 7 out of the 20 or so that are still working today. But the city is working on renovating more. These elevators are used as a real mode of transportation for the Porteños. Remember they all live in the hills, but work on the flat part, so during rush hours, these are full with people commuting.
We start with the Yugoslavo mirador, that offers another view on the city.
Up here, there are plenty of narrow streets with beautiful graffitis.
There is one little street that we really love.
All the graffitis there are really pretty. Here are some of them.
We also run into houses that are nicknamed “lying houses” because they have entrances on different streets, and depending on which street you are, they have a different number of floors. All this creates a huge mess in terms of mailing address… As you can see bellow:
Cerro Concepcion
We continue this time in the Cerro Concepcion. This is definitely the most touristic hill of Valparaiso and we understand why when we see how beautiful it is.
Here we see even more graffitis and the ones from the most famous artists (famous in the graffiti world, we didn’t know any of these guys before coming here).
These graffitis really make this city unique. They are everywhere, on every wall, sidewalk, stair case, lamp post and even on the garbage trucks!
From a simple tag to huge mural paintings, you can find anything.
Quick side note, the graffitis in Valparaiso started as political ads during a presidential campaign. But with time it simply became a form of artistic expression. That explains why a lot of Chilean artists mix politics with art, something you rarely see in France for example.
Below some of the graffitis we saw in the streets of Cerro Concepcion.
The neighborhood also offers pretty views on the city. The sun even decides to make a quick appearance, which really brings out the colors of the houses.
We leave Gauthier late afternoon, and go grab a drink in a local craft brewery. You are going to think we do nothing but drink beer, Matt hopes it would be true! But really there weren’t any craft beers in Peru and Bolivia so we are happy to drink some good beer again. And really the beers they make here are really tasty and we spend a nice evening.
Cerro Bellavista
For our second day in Valparaiso, we are treated to a beautiful blue sky. We start by visiting the neighborhood our Airbnb is located in, the Cerro Bellavista. This hill is known for its open air museum. It is here that some of the very first graffitis were done, indeed, an arts professor put together this project to show his students that art didn’t always have to be indoors or in fancy museums.
Some paintings have faded a little bit but it is a nice little walk.
Wandering around these colorful houses is relaxing and peaceful. We feel great in this city.
We climb a little more to get to the only road that is more or less flat, the avenida Alemania. It crosses through different hills and it was funny to see that this is the only street where we saw people jogging! Nobody seems to be jogging in the steep streets bellow… The avenida Alemania offers nice views on the city and the different hills. A very nice walk.
Cerro Carcel
Our walk continues as we go down a little to the Cerro Carcel. Carcel means prison in Spanish, and here you can find the first prison of the city. It is no longer in use today, instead they transformed it into an information center and different galleries. We can also find one of the rare parks of the city, where kids play soccer, people lie down and read or drink some mate.
Cerro Panteon
A little bit bellow, we can find the Cerro Panteon. This hill is home to 3 different cemeteries, 2 for the Catholics, and 1 for the “dissidents”.
We then arrive at the Cerro Concepcion, which is definitely our favorite. We walk around and discover other little streets and mural paintings that we love.
For lunch we stop in a cute little cafe that makes absolutely delicious sandwiches and ice cream!
In the afternoon, we continue to get lost in the narrow streets of Cerro Concepcion and Cerro Alegre where we discover new graffitis each time we turn a corner. Maider becomes crazy and takes pictures of everything!
We walk passed a couple miradors where we can take even prettier pictures of the city thanks to the blue sky today.
We are absolutely fan of all these colorful houses and quiet narrow streets with the lovely graffitis.
Gauthier talked about a nice rooftop where we could enjoy a cold beer with a view on the city. We follow his recommendation and spend a nice part of the afternoon there.
In order to keep our budget in check, we decide to have dinner at our Airbnb with a little glass of wine on our balcony that offers a great view on the ocean on one side, and on the hills on the other side. Awesome!
Caleta Portales
For our last day in Valpo, we are treated once again to an amazing blue sky. We go walk along the coast to Caleta Portales, a fishing harbor, a few miles away from the city center.
A nice stroll along the ocean gets us there. On the way, we see a few sea lions and some pelicans.
We also have a nice view on the city.
Here we see a lot more people running, or riding their bikes, we wonder if being on the flat area has anything to do with it….
We walk all the way to the fish market of Caleta Portales.
Where the fishermen sell whatever they caught that morning.
A nice experience. People are yelling from everywhere, we can find huge fishes.
But also enormous mussels! (Yes that is a grown man’s hand)
The fishermen are super nice and invite us to take pictures of their products and explain to us where everything was caught.
But the most fun part are all the seagulls and pelicans hanging around to get all the leftovers.
Even the sea lions are here and waiting for their piece of the pie. All of them are waiting by the harbor for the fishermen to throw them all the leftovers. Incredible!
We won’t leave empty handed, indeed, we bought some ceviche and mussels to eat by the beach. The prices directly at the market are super low, we end up with a great lunch for less than $3!
In the afternoon, we hang out on a patio, in the sun, having yet another drink, and watching the people walk by. Life is tough!
We really enjoyed the city of Valparaiso. Its rich history interested us, its hills charmed us, its graffitis touched us and its colorful houses seduced us. It is true that the city is also pretty loud, and stinks because of all the dog poop, but we easily get over it. Its relaxed atmosphere really pleased us, and we thought this could definitely be a city we see ourselves living in…