Valparaiso, Chile

After the ferry, I caught a bus to Valparaiso, Chile. I only had a few days left before I flew out of Santiago. I thought about kicking around Santiago for a couple of days, but a few different people recommended a trip to Valparaiso over Santiago, so that's where I headed.

To get there I took a 15-hour bus ride. I was a bit nervous about that because bus rides in the US are a bit scary. I think the longest one I've taken was between Chicago and Indianapolis, and that was a miserable couple of hours. But the bus in Chile, to my very pleasant surprise, was quite nice. The bus was right on time, there was plenty of leg room, the seats reclined pretty far, the bus was clean and odor-free, and they served snacks in morning. It was an overnight ride and I slept through most of it. (I have inherited an impressive ability to sleep from my father.)

I got to Valparaiso mid-morning and checked into a hostel there. As my trip was winding down, I wasn't too motivated to do a whole lot. I spent a good bit of time just wandering around the city, taking it all in. Valparaiso is on the coast of central Chile, about two hours north west of Santiago. It's a crowded and chaotic city with houses, many painted wild colors, precariously stacked up its steep hills. (It's also in an earthquake zone and it looks like about the last place I'd want to be in an earthquake.) The city was a very prosperous port in the second half of the 19th century. Its golden age ended after much of the city was physically wrecked by a major earthquake in 1906 and its economy was ruined by the opening of the Panama Canal eight years later. It has been bouncing back in recent years, and is still a major cultural center of Chile.

One of the most striking things one notices while strolling about the city is the graffiti. It's everywhere, and much of it is quite elaborate. There is, of course, a lot of unsightly tagging, but that mostly just disappears into the overall chaos of the city. In a few more lines, I'll shut up and let the pictures take over, and you'll notice I took more pictures of graffiti than anything else. There is an open-air museum of murals, but I found the real graffiti much more interesting.

Ok, as promised, pictures!

This is the hostel’s emergency plan. As I mentioned, I would not want to be here for an earthquake.

The next several pictures are from an "urban mountain biking" race that took place on one of the days I was there. The racers started at the top of the hill, and raced one at a time in a time trial down over rough cobblestone streets and over various obstacles to the finish line. The streets that lead up the hills of Valparaiso are a tangled mess which makes it hard to get around, but provides plenty of hairpin turns for the racers. The most striking thing about the race was how close the spectators were to the racers. A few minutes would pass between each biker, during which time the spectators would wander around the course, which was roped off with caution tape. Then a course marshall would blow his whistle, the people would scatter, and a few short seconds a biker would fly (sometimes literally--there were some big jumps) through the narrow course, dangerously close to spectators. I wasn't worried about the bikers--they wore full-face helmets and all sorts of protective gear--but an out-of-control racer could have caused some serious damage. Fortunately these guys seemed to know what they were doing.

And, finally, a parting shot of the city.

After my couple of days in Valparaiso, I caught a ride to Santiago, grabbed dinner with a few folks I had met at the hostel, then headed toward the airport. Early the next morning I started the long journey home. The cheapest ticket was Santiago to Lima to Miami to Charlotte, where my car awaited me for the two-and-a-half-hour drive home. So that was a long day. I'm now back home in Blacksburg, VA.

I'm not sure what's next. I'll be around VA for a while, and I'll do a little more traveling around the US. But stay tuned to see where I go! (The smart money is on climbing destinations.)