Valparaiso, how absurd you are, what a lunatic, crazy port, what a head - rolling hills, dishevelled,
you never finished combing your hair, you've never had time to get dressed, life has always surprised you. (Ode to Valparaiso, Pablo Neruda)

We made our way to our hostel after the bus pulled into Valparaiso bus station. Our walk was through the central area of Valpo, as the locals call it, an area which did nothing to overwhelm us. When we arrived in the area of the hostel we could start to see the character of Valpo appearing.

We had our own little apartment complete with bathroom and kitchen which was brilliant. It was in a renovated old apartment building just up the road from the main hostel building and was a lovely violet colour, just one of the rainbow colours that adorns Valpo buildings.

Valpo is a port city that used to be quite busy and wealthy until the opening of the Panama Canal, after which time not as many ships paid a visit to the apparently debaucherous town. It is however still a haven for the artistic types.

Our first day there we joined the free walking tour so we could see some sights and get our bearings in the city. It began in Plaza Sotomayor where we met our guides dressed in Where's Wally red and white striped T-shirts, nice and easy to spot!

We checked out the port first, which still operates though at a reduced capacity to its heyday. Chile's primary port is now a little further south. We had a look at some of the important buildings in the plaza including the first ever fire station in Chile, called the American Station since it was funded by the US. Like all fire stations in Chile then and now, all fire fighters were volunteers.

Moving on we saw what was once the richest street in Valpo, now quite dilapidated. Leading up one of the cerros (hills) from there was the longest straight line stain case in Valpo. There are a lot of stairs in Valpo as most of the city is built up the hillsides.

Fortunately there are also several funiculars that can carry you up the hills for a small fee and it was the funicular El Peral which was our next stop, taking us up Cerro Concepcion. The funiculars were all built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and are largely original. In the 2010 earthquake many funiculars were damaged but a lot have been repaired and put back in service, mostly those that service the tourist areas.

At the top of the funicular and Cerro Concepcion we found the Museum of Modern Art housed in a beautiful old building, Palacio Baburizza, with a perfect vantage point over the harbour. We didn't go inside but our guide gave us a bit of a history, though we didn't hear much of it since it was here that we randomly ran into Jo and Colin. We had previously met months prior around the Colombia and Ecuador border, then again in Chugchilan then in Baños in Ecuador.

We had a brief chat and agreed to meet later before the tour moved on. We ventured down a narrow alley way where our guide knocked on the door of an elderly man with a sign out the front saying alfajores y empanadas.

When he answered he gave us all a free alfajore, a typical biscuit throughout parts of south America with 2 or 3 biscuit layers filled with dulce de leche (like caramel) all coated in chocolate. Obviously this was all a ploy to get us to buy empanadas, but we felt like a snack and they were actually really good empanadas!

From there we went to another alley called Pasaje Galvez. We saw some street art by some well known local artists including a mural by Daniel Marceli Millan, originally from the Island of Chiloé, which depicted both the struggle and the pride of the fishermen from the region. Then we moved on to Pasoe Atkinson, a walkway at the edge of the Cerro looking out over the lower parts of Valpo and the water.

There were some very impressive old mansions along here, all well looked after, and a few people selling their wares. From the corner of this walkway we had a view of a huge mural that had been painted by Inti, another well known artist who paints indigenous type figures.

We passed by Iglesia Luterana, the first non-Catholic Church of the area. It was allowed only due to the significantly multicultural society of Valpo and the contribution of that community. Making our way back down the Cerro on the other side, we then took the trolley bus which does a circuit of the lower flat parts of Valpo and still looks exactly the same as when it was installed in the 50's.

We finished the tour in the Bellavista area. We passed a mural painted on a 14 storey building by two artists known collectively as Un Kolor Distinto. The mural represented the winter solstice and was commissioned by the city. These artists have received a local grant offered by the city each year for 2 years running so their art is everywhere. We finished our tour nearby with a bit of chicha/wine combo.

The next day we did another free tour, this time a graffiti tour. We had seen quite a bit of street art on the city tour the previous day, but fortunately we took a different route for the graffiti tour and so we saw some very different stuff.

We spent most of the day on Cerro Concepcion again, but ventured up some stairways and through some streets with some amazing works. We saw countless works by Un Kolor Distinto again, as well as some work done by those artists individually. There were a few murals that we found really impressive. One of a woman's face where the shapes were constructed using dots of paint in varying sizes, colours and concentrations.

We visited a playground at the end of the tour which had paintings all around the perimeter depicting Chilean colloquialisms. It would have been great to have known what they meant as it seemed it would be quite humorous.

That afternoon we decided to visit Pablo Neruda's house. The eccentric poet had one of his 3 houses in Valpo, a city he loved to visit. It was quite a trek uphill to reach it, and the 5 storey house was quite interesting both inside and out. The architecture didn't seem to be of a particular style, and it seemed like each storey was just stuck onto the one below.

Inside was an odd collection of paintings and trinkets, even a carousel horse which sat in the middle of the living room. We weren't allowed to take photos inside, but were given an audio guide in English which helped make some sense of how Pablo spent his time here. It sounded like he spent his days working and his nights entertaining friends with a great view over the ocean.

That night we met Jo and Colin for dinner and had a great catch up. After wandering the trendy area of Cerro Concepcion we settled on a Belgian restaurant. The dinner was delicious but we were all very disappointed when it came time for dessert and they had run out of waffles!!

The next day we went for a walk up the hill from our hostel. We took a few streets winding their way up taking in the ramshackle, corrugated iron clad, colourful houses as we went. At the top was an old prison which someone had told us is now a cultural centre so we went to check it out. It turned out to only be a park, so we had pretty much wasted half a day making our way up the hill for no real reason. Oh well we had some nice views of the city.

On our last day we had a late bus so after storing our bags at the hostel we set of for a day of just wandering and taking photos of the very photogenic city. We went up the hill again, this time taking another funicular, they are culturally important after all. We ventured through more colourful streets and along more Paseos, soaking in the last of the vibrant surroundings.

We eventually settled at a café where we sat for a few hours and were joined by Colin and Jo until it was time to start making our way to the bus station. After collecting our bags we all shared an early dinner of Chorillana (typical Chilean dish of ultra oily chips covered in meat and egg). We then said our goodbyes to Colin and Jo, and to Valpo, a city that had really grown on us in our short time there.

LAPFWT