Valparaiso - We stayed in Valparaiso from 4th - 6th May at a cute little hostel called Casa Volante Hostal. Valparaiso is a very unique little place. Very arty and colourful. The houses are built up on high hills and if you lived there you would be very fit. It is a Unesco World Heritage site, and I can understand why, there are so many little unique houses, which I have no idea how they built. There isn't a single straight wall, door frame or even floor that is level in the hostel and I can imagine the whole city is like that. They are packed to the rafters, buildings ontop of buildings and they all managed to stay up??? It is a beautiful place which overlooks the port, with the Andes in the distance.

The day we arrived was not good, They dont have proper street signs and the map we was given when we got off the bus was beyond useless, it didnt have all the streets on or any names. We went round and round in this maze like city trying to find the street, and when you dont know how to ask for directions in Spanish, it isnt fun. Finally we just happended to stumble on the place, in an alleyway down the steepest steps. Just sheer luck. Lovely little place once we got there. Then we had to find a bank open to get some money. Another impossible task. It was Saturday afternoon so nothing was open apart from cafes, bars and little shops. They dont have ATM's on the outside of the banks here and the doors were shut and you needed a card to open them. When we did find a bank which would let us in the machine wouldnt give us any money, I think we searched for a good hour until we decided to go into a supermarket to buy food with our card, and I spotted an ATM in the corner, hallelujah it gave us some pennies, at last we could eat. We went out for pizza that night to a lovely little restaurant and had the most amazing thin crust pizza, gorgeous.

The rest of the time we spent wandering the streets and taking photos. On the last day we spent the afternoon doing a walking tour, 'Tours for Tips', our guide, Erica, orginated from the states but now lives in Valparaiso. She was good and very informative, we spent 3 hours walking around Valparaiso enjoying the sites and the history behind them, ending with a pisco sour. hmmm nice!

We caught the bus to La Serena the morning after at 10am, it was a 7 hour journey, oh well back to long bus trips once more.