Hi everyone. Hope you are all well. Thanks everyone for all the wonderful messages we have been getting...we love to hear from you all! (even though it doesn´t help our Spanish skills). We are still in Mendoza, but we tagged this blog as Valparaiso so that it will show up on the map. This blog will be about Valparaiso and Vina del Mar anyways.

We arrived in Valparaiso from Santiago in the afternoon on February 29th. After paying more than we would have liked for a hostel (we were beginning to realize that the price of hostels in Chile was not going to be like Peru or Ecuador) we went for a walk to see the city. After only a few blocks, it was easy to see why all the painters in the Plaza de Armas in Santiago were selling paintings of Valparaiso. This is a town that is full of character. Squished inbetween the ocean and high mountains, the residents here have learned how to live with their surroundings. Thousands of brightly coloured houses stand side by side, almost completely covering the hillsides. There is no pattern to the placement of these homes. Streets, pathways, alleys and windey staircases go every which way, which proved to be very fun to explore. However, it must be a nightmare in some places if a firetruck or ambulance needs to access some of the homes. In such a case, the directions might read: ¨Drive the firetruck 5 minutes away from the fire to the nearest road up the hill. Go up this road, and when you pass the third windey staircase on your right, take a left at the Y and go 50 meters. When you reach the T, stop, run the hose up the staircase to your right, turn to your left, run the hose down the narrow alleyway with the three dogs barking, jump over the fence, mind the dog poo, and put out the fire in the house below!¨ Anyways, because of the hills between the downtown and the residential areas, one hundred years ago the city developed a netword of "ascensors" throughout the city - single rail cars like the one we rode up Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago (two cars on tracks attached to heavy cable which goes around a large pulley). While still in use by the locals, they are also great fun for tourists like us to ride. In the port of Valsparaiso, small motorboats leave every 10 minutes to do tours of the harbour, where many cargo ships from around the world wait to load and unload various items. (There is a container port with four cranes in the main harbour). One quick sidenote about the character of downtown. The electrical system looks as if it hasn´t been redone in 50 years. More accurately, it probably has been redone, numerous times, but without removing any of the unused and obsolete wiring. What results is a mess off 50 to 100 wires all tangled together stretching from one hydo pole to the other.

A bit of history on Valparaiso. The port city was once bigger than the nearby capital of Santiago. Its hayday was roughly between 1870 and 1900, when it exported vast qualities of wheat and fish to feed the gold rushes in North America. The numerous character buildings in the downtown streets are all a testament to this era. Numerous mansions, now hotels, are also from this era. For example, our hotel had beautiful wooden floors, balconies, and in some places 30 ft ceilings. Today, it appears that the cities main economy revolves around the container port and tourism.

After our busy first day exploring the city (boat ride, cable car ride, main squares, the port, the residential area on the hill), we found a restaurant packed with locals to eat at. (Note for the traveller: when looking for a place to eat, don´t go by the menu or by the appearance, although cleanliness counts, but look for restaurants packed with locals - it can only mean good prices and hopefully good food.) At the restaurant, we ordered an individual sized vegetarian chorizilla (spelling?... a typical Chilean dish) and a vegetarian pizza. The pizza is what you might expect, but the chorizilla was a heart attack on a plate. A true chorizilla consists of a heaping plate of french fries mixed with chorizo sausage and covered with onions, fried eggs and cheese. We had this, minus the sausage. Our individual portion looked like it could feed a family of four - we were stuffed. Afterwards a jug of wine for 3 dollars (which we couldn´t even attempt to finish on account of all the food). Off to bed to sleep off the grease.

The next day we packed up our bags, stored them at the hotel, and caught a train to nearby Vina del Mar. Vina del Mar is a resort community of similar size to Valsparaiso for the Chilean rich. Because it lacks a port, it is much less ¨rough and tumble¨ than Valparaiso. Instead, it has well maintained buildings, beautiful churches, and a huge casino that sits right next to the beach. However, the most interesting thing we found in the town was a museum tucked in behind the town hall. The first thing that caught our attention was one of the famous statues from Easter Island (it is only one of about 6 that have been removed from the island). Inside the musuem, we first explored an exhibit of Easter Island. It had the usual artificats, but the most interesting thing was a chronology of exploitation by westerners on the islanders. Reminded us of the residential school system not too long ago back home.

Headed back to Valparaiso to catch our overnight bus to Mendoza, Argentina. On the way, Braden saw an advertisement in the paper for the Men´s Olympic Fieldhockey Qualifying Tournament in Santiago. We tried to change our tickets so we could go to a game, but it was to late. Headed to Santiago disappointed, but excited to see a new country.

Still trying to get our blogs up to date! Hope all is well with everyone. We will write more from Bariloche or San Martin de los Andes, about 15 hours directly south (still in Argentina).

Lots of love,

xoxoxox

Braden and Maya.