Thankfully I set the alarm to allow me a quick breakfast before heading off on my tour today because I was out like a light when the ringing started at 7am. The dining room was full when I arrived but luckily a group left so I could bolt down breakfast and be ready for my 8am pickup.

I won't bore you with the cumbersome arrangements to get our large bus full ready but will skip to when the guide, Christian (but pronounced in Spanish is much more interesting) asked everyone where they were from. Imagine my surprise when the man in front of me said he was from Australia - Townsville (I caught yo with the man and his wife later and over lunch - he is from Germany and his wife too - sounds like he came to Australia penniless, worked as a chef, made good and now does business in Australia, Chile and Germany), with several others from China and the USA, but the majority from Argentina, Brazil and Columbia.

A 2-hour drive over hills and then down into and along an agricultural valley growing all sorts of fruit and vegetables (notably lemons, cherries, avocados, olives, corn and not forgetting all the grapes - the area is full of wineries) and over more hills and into the Casablanca region before dropping to the coast where the weather greeted us with thick clouds (see pic of Vina del Mar) but the guide told us that that here would be sunshine in the afternoon and warm (not hot). Like all good guides, he was right.

But before I go on some history so you get the Valparaiso - Vina del Mar thing...I know you may know but I didn't ... Before the Panama Canal opened up the Central American shipping route between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, when the shipping route was around the tip of Chile, Valparaiso (which has a large, natural port) was the last and first stop for ships on the Pacific side. Hence it was an important global port and was people of by many nationalities came to live there, including a strong British influence. It was also the commercial and cultural capital of Chile.

But with the limited flat land around the port taken up with trading / port administration activities, the wealthier residents of Valparaiso went around the headland to find flat land for their large residences / castles and to take advantage of the beaches of what became Vina del Mar. Today the two cities and distinctly different, run into each other and combine to make the population of the region around 800,000.

Another surprise to me is that Chile has only one central government (no states) and the congress actually is based in Valparaiso, which is also a major university town (yes, more on every corner including some big ones by Chilean standards) as students prefer to live in Valparaiso over Santiago because it is cheaper.

Back to my tour - we spent the morning making stops around Vina del Mar where we first went to an old estate where the stately home (see pic) was badly damaged in the 2010 earthquake and is being restored (though note that a much more severe one in 1906 which destroyed the original homestead also means that both Santiago and these 2 cities have very few buildings pre-dating 1906) and at the end of the estate, tucked into a hill is an outdoor stadium that holds 15,000 people was being prepared for Chile's largest music festival next month (pic above).

After the estate we stopped to see a flower clock which was constructed when Chile hosted the 1962 World Cup (which Brazil won, much to the delight of the many Brazilians on the bus, and Chile came third) and Vina del Mar was building its image of a flower city. I wasn't much interested in the clock so my pic includes another dog - one of the many that lie sound asleep right at an attraction.

There was another one at our next stop to pay our respects to one of the 6 Maois that are no longer on Easter Island. The others are scattered all over the globe (including London, Canada, USA) and as the Easter Island is Chilean territory despite being 3,600 miles of the coast, they are very proud of this one. Though it is just sitting in its own outside on a quiet suburban Street outside a small anthropological museum which was once a (not too grand) house. No fence or security of any kind. I wondered if the one that resides in the Jeffersonian is under lock and key as I would have expected, though they are pretty hard to run off with.

From there we had lunch (made very pleasant with the company of the Australian-German couple who are missing Australia having relocated back to Germany to look after ageing mothers - his aged 86 and hers 83, though their descriptions of where they live near the Black Forrest sounded lovely - but not like Townsville which they miss!) while the sun came out and we had a quick beach stop (see pic of me on the beach), though long enough for me to gaze west and think of nearly all of you in NZ and Oz out over the water somewhere. The water felt cold (13 degrees year round) and a sudden wave (all 30 cm of It ) soaked me up to the knees.

Then on to Valpriaso and what a difference. Clearly a busy port with merchant, naval and pleasure boats in the harbour, with the docks loaded with containers an cranes / mobile machines shifting them around. The bus took us to the top of the hills that rise steeply behind the port and we walked down. This was indeed a highlight - I have added a few pics with captions to try to give you a sense of how delightful it is.

Most of the houses are brightly coloured, wooden construction covered with finely coloured iron /aluminium cladding. The streets were windy (ie wiggly not breezy - In fact we got off the bus at an intersection of 7 streets aptly called 7-corner plaza), some steep, lots of street art covering history, abstract, inequality and creativity. My favourite was a mural addressing injustice including an image of 2 children in chains brokering over 1/2 an apple (sof the children in my pic), with the other end of the mural going around and over 2 dog kennels. I have included the snaps but can show you the pics and tell you more later. :)

My pictures don't do the place justice but it was lovely - look it up on the web - the photos are real and the colours amazing. We descended the last bit (equivalent to a 10 storey building) by one of the mechanical funicular lifts which were installed by a British company in 1906. Initially steam operated, they were converted to electricity in the 1940's. 100 pesos (20 cents) was a bargain.

Some of the tour went for a boat ride out to take a closer look at the ships in the harbour but I used my camera zoom to do that and stretched my leg while staying out of the sun - remember it was out by then and warm, not hot. Oh and I took a snap of the 'Melbourne Cafe' - yes I know that the name is British but as there were no other Anglo Saxon sounding names on anything and Australia is closer, so I deemed it to be significant.

Back on the bus then for the 120kms back to Santiago. It was 8.30 by the time I got to my hotel, so a quick shower and blog over a beer by the pool finished off another lovely Chilean day.