Exploring Valpo

Hello everyone! I was recently made aware that people other than my family have been following my adventures. Welcome! Also, I sincerely apologize that I am a boring and horrible writer. At least the pictures are cool (I think). I recently read the dirty of Anne Frank and the fact that she wrote so eloquently at such a young age is incredible. This will never be like that at all haha. Tonight I decided to change things up and instead of writing before I got to sleep I am writing on the terrace of a cute restaurant where I am eating dinner called Viavia. So here goes yet another description of a day in the life of Missy in South America!

This morning I woke up around 9AM and headed downstairs to breakfast. The owners of the bed and breakfast made eggs, and there was bread, tea and pineapple juice. I then contemplated getting ready for the day, but instead vegged and binged watched Fuller House. I've now seen 10 of the 13 episodes. I'm guessing I finish before I leave Chile. Around 1:30-2PM I finally got ready and headed out to Plaza Sotomayor. I was going to find somewhere for lunch, but by the time I wandered I only had a half hour before the free walking tour was beginning from that location, so I grabbed a caprese focaccia and a passion ice tea lemonade from Starbucks. So exciting and original, right?! I ate outside on the plaza and enjoyed the warmth until I met the tour. 

Pedestrian street on my walk down the hill

Plaza Sotomayor and the memorial for War of the Pacific

Naval building in Plaza Sotomayor

The tour was with a company called Tours for Tips that runs tours in Valparaíso and Santiago. Since we only had one day in Santiago and we were exhausted we skipped out on it there, but I decided to do it here. We started at the port and learned about how it used to be the most important in Latin America during the gold rush when boats had to take the long way around. When the Panama Canal opened the port lost much of its importance, and the city starting losing importance as well. It's now not even the most important port in all of Chile, but the city is still very interesting. We walked through Cerro Conception and Cerro Alegre, two of the hill neighborhoods in Valpo and saw a lot of street art, nice views, and learned some interesting factoids. We also took the tram a few stops and took one of the acensors (basically little funiculars that were built to help the people get around the hills since it would definitely be a LOT of uphill walking). We learned that the houses are so colorful because the working class had to by the materials used to weigh down the ships from Europe that had carried produce from Chile so that they wouldn't tip on the journey back. This included mud, straw, wood, and metal siding. Because of the sea air the metal would easily rust and the sea of grey building was unappealing, so people would ask for the leftover paint and combine it together to make enough pint to paint the buildings. The street art is also plentiful, but illegal nonetheless. Apparently they work in teams of roughly 30 and each has a job so the whole mural is completed in the night in about 2 minutes! Crazy! 

Look up the acensor

Our guide

Going up the acensor

View of Valaparaíso

The slide we all went down

Mural on a huge building

Street art with a view

The first church with a cross in Chile (and I think South America)

Lukas

Cool street art

More street art

When you walk down the stairs they look grey, but when you go up they are quite colorful

We got a little taste of food in Chile when we stopped at a little place where a man sold alfajor (a cookie with dulce de leche and dipped in chocolate) and empanadas. We all got an alfajor with the tour and I bought an empanada with cheese and mushrooms. We also saw a house built by a Croatian who didn't want a family or a spouse, didn't want to work, and made his money by buying milk and meat and selling it to others. He even took a donkey north to the desert in San Pedro to sell milk and meat to miners. The rest he got by periodically traveling back to Croatia and asking for money. He also collected a ton of art that he put in his mansion. When he died he obviously had no heirs, so the mansion was passed on to his nephews who had no interest in Chile. They eventually sold it to the government and it because the fine art museum of Valparaíso. Interesting story I thought. The tour ended with a sampling is chicha, a drink made of old white wine and sugar or something like that, and then gave our tips and went on our way. I almost signed up for their bike tour of the white wine vineyard region, but decided there were other things I wanted to do tomorrow and I live close enough to Napa that I won't die if I miss a wine tour. I'll just go up this summer. 

Our faithful maker of alfajors and empanadas

Really cool mural done by Cherkipunk, a famous muralist who always includes hummingbirds in his work

I next walked back to the port because I wanted to see the artesenia of course. Instead I ended up taking a lancha, which is a boat that the load up and for about $5 they take you on the water of the coast. The tour was unfortunately all in Spanish, which was fast fast fast, so I didn't catch much, but it was still pretty. I then walked back to my bed and breakfast since it was after 7PM and took the Acensor Conception to get up the hill. Tengo un poquito gripe hoy (I have a little cold today, ugh), so I was very ready to rest. When I opened the door to my room the cat who lives in the bed and breakfast bolted in. She totally just wanted to be loved and clung to the bedspread so I had to literally pry her off to get her out. She's really cute at least! I hung out, talked to my mom, and caught up on emails until I ventured out to dinner. I also signed up for a cooking class tomorrow, so stayed tuned to learn about that! Should be fun times. 

Valparaiso from the water

I set out to go to a restaurant from my guide book, but it was closed so I found this place Viavia while wandering because they had soup, which sounded great with my cold. Sadly the soup was a cold gazpacho, so I got a chicken pesto crepe instead. It was delicious, but too much food! I also had two bottle of expensive water because upon my first sip I realized I was exceptionally thirsty. Now I'm ready to pay the bill. I think I'll grab a small dessert at a cute place nearby and then buy some water to drink tonight. A Benadryl is also likely in store tonight. Ciao!

Chicken pesto crepe