Another weekend trip with Susi!
Oct 27:
Woke up early on a Saturday to get on a bus to ValparaÃso - a city on the coast about an hour from Santiago.
Upon arriving in Valpo, we made our way to Plaza Sotomayor for a walking tour of the city. Tours4Tips is a really cool business that offers two walking tours a day (10 am, 3 pm) of the city and at the end, you pay what you'd like! They offer tours in Spanish and English, but we took the Spanish tour every time because the English one was packed.
We learned a lot about the city's history, layout, culture, and stray dogs (they are very loyal - as we learned, if you give them even a little bit of affection, they will follow you everywhere). ValparaÃso is fascinating because it has such a distinctive look and culture. Colorful houses are stacked upon houses in the hills lining the coast. There is street art everywhere. The variety of architecture is stunning. I loved it.
Upon finishing our tour, we had lunch and then decided to head to nearby Viña del Mar. Viña was described to me as the "nice city on the beach where all the old people from Santiago go to retire" - kinda like Florida. And it was relatively accurate.
Viña sits only 10 minutes up the coast from Valpo. It's beaches aren't large, but they are nice enough - there are no beaches in Valpo - however, the water is freezing.
We took the afternoon tour of Viña, again with Tours4Tips. We then spent the evening relaxing on the beach, eating York popsicles.
That night we headed to our hostel. It was a struggle to find and wasn't in what one would consider the safest part of Valpo, however, we got a warm welcome. We met some really cool people from all over. Hunter from Colorado, a couple from Oregon, Vipin from India, and people from Australia and the Netherlands. The only person we didn't meet, however, was a guy from Cleveland, who had just left. Whenever we said that we were from Ohio, everyone would start telling us about this guy from Cleveland (this comes back later). I really enjoyed talking with all of these new people over dinner - hostels are growing on me.
Oct 28:
We awoke to a breakfast of fruit and homemade bread at the hostel. (Hunter was listening to Tyler the Creator's Tiny Desk Concert and I've been hooked ever since) We checked out, left our stuff and wandered around Valpo.
We ascended a hill in a funicular (outdoor street elevator) and checked out one of Pablo Neruda's houses, which was perched on a hill with a great view. (It was under construction so we didn't go in) From there, we made a slow descent, walking through the cerros. We saw an old Cemetery (cleverly named Cemetery 2, after the first, Cemetery 1), got more York popsicles and went to an empanada place that Hunter had recommended. They had over 80 types of fried empanadas made to order!!! We tried their chicken, cheese, spinach, walnut one as well as their mango pineapple. Best empanadas I've had in Chile thus far (although, I haven't had many good ones... so that doesn't say much). People kept asking us where we got out empanadas, I felt so popular (jk).
We made our way down to Plaza Sotomayor again to take the afternoon tour of Valpo. In this tour, we went back to some of the places that we had stumbled across before, but, we got some historical context for them, which was cool. We also encountered the stray that had followed us the day before, in a different part of the city, and it started following us again!
Post-tour, we walked back to the hostel, then the bus station, and got back to Santiago that night.
All in all, loved ValparaÃso! It was captivating.
