Tuesday 14th May 2013 - We stepped off the bus and decided to get a taxi to our hotel since it was getting relatively dark. This time making sure it was a marked taxi. I showed him our address on my hostel world app and he knew straight away where we were headed. Angle hostel on Calle Cumming. This was right in the middle of the touristic centre and was near all the main streets that I wanted to visit. We met our hostel owner who had run up the hill with her shopping to meet us as she noticed us in the taxi and guessed it was us. She gave us a map and told us about our surrounding area, it all seemed doable despite the fact we were only here till tomorrow. We hadn't eaten in a little while so we decided our first opinion of Valparaiso would be based on its food. There's a lot of history in this city based around two poets, you can visit their homes and also a lot of the city has art dedicated to them so it felt natural to go to the restaurant in the main square at the bottom of our road called cafe del poeta. I had an amazing Chinese dish and nicki had a steak sandwich, we shared as usual and tipped well because of how much we enjoyed it. Still only came to around £14 tip included. Once we had finished our meal leaving very full we decided to walk to the supermarket which we had been advised about by the receptionist. It was not far and was called Liver, it literally had everything. Outside were men selling BBQ meat that they were cooking inside a trolly and had made a fire inside it but the only real attention these guys were getting was from the wild dogs that were shivering and hungry outside the market. We purchased a massive bottle of coke and some alfajors for the journeys ahead. We took some photos of the street art in the night on route to our hostel and arrived back at our room. To our delight the four bed dorm we were staying in was empty still so it felt like we had the room to ourself, we pushed our beds together and hit the hay. We must have been tired because a Norwegian girl and two Dutch girls were talking pretty loud but this didn't bother us at all.

Wednesday 15th May 2013 - The dogs ruined my sleep this morning. Some of them were having a fight what must have been right outside our window. Fortunately nicki who was still feeling a little under the weather from the altitude earlier hadn't woke up. I spent the morning on the Internet and chatting to people on whatsapp as I couldn't sleep so I was pretty much up from 6am. As soon as breakfast was being handed out I left the room, fortunately our room door would open right onto the area for breakfast so I was passing nicki cheese toasties through the door so she could eat in bed. She did come out for some cereal etc however. I must have eaten 10 cheese toasties, I kind of felt bad on everyone that hadn't woken up yet but I was the first bird eating all the worms :). Once nicki woke up we decided to press on with our exploration of this city in a day. We've done big cities in a day before so I was sure we could do it. We walked down to the main square again at the bottom of calle cumming and took a left at Calle esmeralda. On route we had a man in the street weigh to pears and sell us some water. Calle esmeralda is literally full of banks, it must be the financial street as all the buildings could well be offices. A group of youths had gathered in protest banging drums and making as much noise as they can with instruments and make shift instruments. We laughed about how the workers in the offices must have wanted to die as they were beating those drums all day. We took an early left off this street to walk up some of the many famous staircases in this city. This one was filled with art and mainly had impressions of the buildings and how the city looked on the hills. At the top of the hill was some graffiti of a black and white dogs face, and to our amusement the real life dog was perched right next to this art. He must sit in that spot a lot to have his own portrait there. At this point the staircase split but we were heading towards paseo Atkinson on the map. We walked to the left where we witnessed an amazing view of the city from this point it was a great opportunity to see all the different individual colours of each house and how they sit so uniquely on the hill. There was a lonely tree clinging on to the edge of the sheer drop below offering a bit of shade to the pavement we were looking out from and a very wrinkly man was starring longingly through the tree. He was obviously some sort of busker as there was a guitar lay down on the floor on the opposite side of the path. Nicki and I were taking photos of the viewpoint when suddenly he asked us what this bird was called in English. I hadn't yet seen the bird so I followed his pointed finger and looked hard. Suddenly my eyes changed focus and I could see about a dozen hummingbirds. I explained that they are known as hummingbird and then he went back to starring at them whilst repeating the word as if to get some satisfaction out of calling them hummingbirds. He seemed a very wise man and began to explain to us about the city and how it continues across the other side of the hill. I was still mesmerised by how many of these tiny birds there were, flying around the tree and then hovering perfectly next to each flower it was amazing. The man explained that they loved this type of flower and they also love a burgundy flower behind us and sure enough a few of the beautiful creatures were around this tree too. We asked the man if he knew where the piano steps were and he advised we were less than 100 meters away. We walked a little way up calle Beethoven to discover the steps in all their simplicity. Such simple ideas come together to make this city look so beautiful I absolutely love it here. This whole area had incredible streets, really tight angled tiny streets that are amazing. We walked up staircases that should be rank and abandoned but their not. They dripping in graffiti and colourful art, the curbs, steps, walls, lampposts everything. One street was so small that a bus had got stuck caught on the unbalanced cobble stone balancing on its back and front end with neither wheel touching the floor. The Chilean school children from the bus were sat playing games whilst their driver and some residents tried to free the bus from the cobblestone. We at this point had climbed enough staircases again to be relatively high with some amazing views over the city. This was located on a balcony belonging to a huge White House with a green roof. It kind of looked out of place a bit like a grand Victorian English seaside building, the kind I've seen in Cornwall. Nonetheless, it added to the random beauty of this place. We walked down what was supposed to be a funicular or a grand staircase but I think we took a wrong turn as this staircase was overgrown with massive greenery. A huge fluffy black cat followed us down the concrete steps as we made our way to the main square in Valaparaiso. This was called Plaza Sotomayor and was surrounded in incredible architecture and roads that didn't have any markings just the cobbled path. In the middle was a statue honoured to the sailors who have lost their lives covered in pigeons and occasional gulls. We walked across the to invisible roads and made it to the pier, where we came across a dog that looked a bit like kelpie, my old dog. She followed us down to the sea where we watched the waves move the hundreds of boats up and down, small boat trips were available by some locals but I didn't fancy bobbing around in their make shift boats. Our dog chilly dog got into a fight with another dog that tried to come close to us, and she continued to protect us as we walked a few Km's up the Av Altamirano looking for the famous funicular to take us up to the top of the hills so we can lay our eyes on the most googled view of the city. Chilly dog curled up to wait as we queued and paid 300 peso to go up the famous lift. It was ancient and wooden so made some pretty concerning noises but eventually we arrived straight into the thick of a market. Chilean flags were flying in the wind next to a glorious looking white home. We took photos of the port and piers and you could even see the beach of Vina Del Mar from here. The port was covered in red containers adding to the amazing colours of the city as you went from the blue pacific up to the multi coloured individualistic buildings. We walked past a couple called Tom and Laura that we briefly met back in Santiago. I finally found the famous blue house that is in all the google pictures. A kind French couple took our photo by it for us, but by this point the sun was so bright I basically cried whilst looking at the camera. A bit further along on this road there were beautiful houses of every colour in the rainbow the best of the bunch being a purple corner house. I got out the map again to navigate us down the steep part of this city and we eventually, after walking through a rather worn district, arrived back at the foot of the funicular. Sure enough our dog had sat there and waited for us and she was most happy to begin following us back towards our hostel. We retraced our steps and even found some new graffiti along the way but finally arrived at a pub showing the euro cup final between Chelsea and Benfica. I ordered a litre of beer for myself and after a long walk took pleasure in dumping my bag under the table to enjoy the game with some seedy looking locals on a ripped sofa with an uneven projector. Once the game had finished we opted to get some cash out in the well known supermarket by us, we were muttering about being hungry and since I had had my fair share of beer I began to babble on about it. Nicki, who was feeling sober, got the choice of the restaurant and we b-lined towards a Mexican restaurant. We decided to go for chicken and beef fajitas to share with home made pisco sours, which were hilarious because we had no idea how to drink them and when the waitress poured us both a little in our glass and looked at us optimistically we shotted them immediately leaving her to laugh at us whilst the sugar around the rim of the glass circumferences our nose. This only added to my drunkeness as we left the restaurant with a stumble. We climbed the calle cumming hill and arrived back at angel hostel. We had a bit of time to relax before our bus back to Santiago and ultimately to San Pedro de Atacama so we chose to start a conversation with the Dutch and Norwegian girls sat in the sofa area of the hostel. We had some jokes and enjoyed the company of the hostel receptionists shy 3 year old. Suddenly, after nicki asked me to check the bus tickets, I had a horrible sinking feeling. I had left the bag that I so casually threw under the table, back at the seedy football bar. Without barely explaining to nicki, I sprinted down the hill in my flip-flops and was greeted by a Chilean man with a huge smile making the gesture that I can only presume meant: "I've been expecting you". So relieved! Both passports, chargers, bus tickets and clothes were safe. I jogged home knowing well that nicki would be worrying to be welcomed back with a sigh of relief and two laughing Scandinavians. We recuperated after the drama and left to flag a taxi down in the street. I changed into trousers as I had now discovered the discomfort of shorts on a bus. The taxi kindly helped us to the bus stop with our bags and we sat patiently under our platforma until we saw the bus that would send us on our way. In the meantime we met Laura and Tom who we had seen near the blue house, they were really nice and we exchanged details. It seems unlikely but we were hoping our paths crossed along the way as it seemed we had a lot in common. The alcohol helped me sleep on this journey but it was short lived as we shuffled off in Santiago and sat under platforma 13 until we saw the bus that read San Pedro, knowing it was this vehicle we were going to spend a whole day on!

- Josh -