Valparaíso, Chile

Where our next adventure begins: Valparaíso

Had a wonderful time in Ecuador for 7 months, and have now landed in our new home for the year - Chile!  Before heading south to Pucón, our final destination, we spent a week admiring Valparaiso.

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So.  The first thing Niko and Kaia have to say is: Yes, the stray from Quilotoa made it to Chile!  There is no way they would have left without him.  With all of his papers stamped, dotted, crossed,  and stamped again before leaving Ecuador, there was a lot of scrutiny of his dog food by the Chilean Ministerio de Agricultura airport officials.  

But the dog? No problem. 

      

However.  What we discovered quickly was that unlike Ecuadorian buses which accept pretty much any living creature - dogs, goats, chickens, guinea pigs etc... - things work differently here.  In a country 4300 km long (like driving from Juneau Alaska to the southern tip of Baja California), no animals are allowed on any buses, even in a kennel underneath.  We figured it all out before making our way to Pucón, but first:

VALPO!

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New digs in a new city

Our first landing pad in Chile was an apartment/hotel on Pasaje Margarita in the steep coastal city of Valparaíso .  Even the taxi driver spent 10 minutes on the cell phone getting directions.

It's not hard to see that this city grew up with San Francisco before the Panama Canal allowed ships bound for Valparaíso's North American sister to avoid  "rounding the Horn." In fact, much of the city is built with Redwood and Douglas Fir that arrived from the north as ballast on ships en route. Today, many parts of Valparaíso seem literally frozen in 1915 and the city has only begun to rebound in the last decade--and it still has a long way to go.  On the up side, there's an energetic, edgy grit here that the Bay Area has all but lost since its silicon moment.  Ironically, the catastrophic (lack of) urban planning has created a city busting with raw architectural potential. Valpo is a case study in both the uselessness and usefulness of architects.

Pasaje Margarita is that gap in the buildings 1/3 in from the left.  See the street lights to the right of the blue building?

4 garbage collections a week, up and down these stairs

...and the view back down.

The views are worth the hike.

Bedtime view

catching up 

 A drinky-drink and view to celebrate Grampa's arrival

View of Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Americas, from our balcony. 0m to 6962m in 160 km.  Where else can you see something that huge while standing at the seashore?

  

Between fog and rain (remember April is autumn down south), and frequent smog and dust from the central valley in between Valparaíso and Aconcagua, apparently we were pretty lucky to see it as often and as clearly as we did.

A view so nice, we could hardly sleep.

... and nice to know some things are always the same...

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Great for strolling...and your quads!!!

Watching moon rise over Valparaíso Harbor

 

Getting around Valpo is not for the faint of heart, but the ascensors or funiculars, make it more manageable and oh-so-much more fun.

Notice the submarine out in the harbor?






Kaia makes her way through the city in graffiti camouflage

Graffitti or mural?  Either way, Valpo is likely the biggest guerrilla gallery in the world.

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Valpo Seafront

Ring side entertainment:  Watching sea lion turf wars.

Quilo doing his job: Making friends

Waiting for lunch:  Grampa and Kaia enjoying heavy surf at Valparaíso beach

...as fresh as it gets...

Beach side Pisco Sours, and fresh grilled fish.

        

     
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The Glorious Catastrophe of Valparaíso:

City on hills

We're indulging in more architecture shots.  It's such an awesome walking city.

Since the opening of the Panama Canal meant a  major economic downturn for Valpo, many of the city's wealthy moved to Santiago, Viña del Mar, or North America.  Suddenly short of the resources to maintain itself, it also couldn't "modernize".  The whole city feels like some kind of performance piece with distinctive half-century old electric buses and rattling ascensors leading to markets and studios crammed into little asymmetric alleys.  Graffitti, corrugated metal siding, murals, bottle glass, formed concrete, paint, scrap metal, even power lines, have been elevated to art form. This place has a grit that would make NYC's Meat Packing District green with envy.

City on a Harbor

Once again, Derk's love/obsession with doors and windows is rewarded all over Valparaiso