Greetings From The Coast

This past weekend we traveled to Valparaíso and Viña Del Mar on the Pacific Coast as it was time to get out of Santiago, as well as visit another Fulbrighter in Viña (thank you for your hospitality!!).  Much of this post will be pictures as that is probably the best way to convey the difference between Santiago, Valparaíso, and VDM.  VDM is very much like a typical city in the US.  Streets are on a grid on flat ground and it has an organized feel to it.  Valparaíso is just the opposite.  There is little rhyme or reason to the streets in part because much of the city is built into the hills.  It also has a very strong art culture as well as sea lions, so it is closest to San Francisco in terms of US cities.

We took the subway in Santiago to the Pajaritos stop and bought a ticket for the 90 minute ride.  It cost about $8 USD total for two of us ($5 USD total for the return).  The buses are very nice - ours had reclining seats with leg rests not unlike business class seats on an airplane.

The landscape to the coast has plains and mountains the whole way.  A few huge wineries as well that took about 5 minutes to drive past.

We were met at the bus stop by our Fulbright friend and his son.  The text we sent had the time wrong by 50 minutes (oops!).  The view from his apartment was a bit better than ours...

Viña Del Mar has a neat part downtown and there is a famous reloj de flores (clock of flowers) that is a working clock.

We went to Valpo and had some lunch.  I even bought a painting that hopefully makes it back to the States intact.  They take them off the stretcher and frame and roll them up.  Kind of like the criminals that steal the paintings in the movies I guess. To get to Valpo we rode a micro bus (pronounce meekro bus).  This is an experience as the road is quite curvy in the few miles between the two cities and the goal is to beat all the other bus drivers.  The bus had a stereo speaker blasting out tunes somewhat distorted and a kid sitting up front in the window riding shot gun talking to the bus driver - who seemed to drive using only peripheral vision as he barely looked at the road.

This is a general map of what the streets of Valpo look like.

Apparently Valpo was quite the port prior to the Panama Canal, and it is still the main port for Chile.  There were a few ships in port as well as the Chilean Navy and some sea lions.

I went diving with Sea Lions once back in my crazier days.  Erin couldn't believe it (no creo que) because they were so big.  I placed it as a bigger rush than swimming with sharks as they come out of nowhere and turn in an agile fashion just before bumping into you.

Many of the houses are built with this corrugated siding that we were told is from the shipping containers from things arriving in Chile.

The streets have an interesting pattern of switchbacks and curves, and the city is very colorful.

The yellow building below is the  central market.  The neighborhood didn't feel particularly safe and we had the feeling we were being marked.  It is a little bit of being in a new place, but I felt safer in Santiago than Valpo, and VDM feels very safe.

Art in Valparaíso often has a particular feel, and much of it uses colors similar to the paintings below.

 This is the view from one of the many cerros (hills). There are a number of funiculars to ride up the hills similar to the one at Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago.

Stairs are also a common thing in Valpo.

And this set of stairs also had a ramp that kids were using as a slide.  Not sure there is anything called liability in Chile.

Back in VDM Erin and I went for a walk on the boardwalk.  There are nice beaches, but there is quite a drop off creating various hazards such as rip currents.  The coastal areas we saw in Valpo were rock and industrial.  The three or four mile space between the cities could be 300 or 400 miles for the distinct differences that you encounter.

A few other things we saw in VDM included this restaurant shaped like a boat.   We also saw a group of eight old men at a table outside a restaurant.  I could have sworn that one of the guys gave the Hitler salute when he joined the group (they were old enough).  One did a hand gesture where fingers two and three were extended and pretty much together and the other fingers fingers were bent at the first knuckle.  There are a lot of Germans in Chile - and German restaurants in VDM.  Maybe I was mistaken, but you never know.

This dog we named Cracker.  For all of the dogs we've seen in Chile, this is the first one that followed us (for a couple miles maybe).  We finally came upon a stand selling food.  I was hoping for a completo (hot dog), but the best I could find were crackers to feed him.

You know, we all often have our own personal struggles and challenges, and at times wonder why someone else tends to be getting a bit more sunshine than us.  What we fail to realize is how much more sunshine we are getting than the vast majority of people.  This last picture is something we need to always remember.

¡Te Amo Mi Vida!

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