Viña del Mar y Valparaíso

The beautiful thing about the Chilean school schedule I worked out for myself is that I have a three day weekend. That is why I found myself boarding a bus on Friday morning with 6 other people, heading towards the coastal cities of Viña del Mar and Valparaíso. We were on the road for no more than an hour when the terrain turned from desert-like hills to a very colorful, almost plastic looking town, strung up on hills that bordered the shoreline of the Pacific Ocean. (disclaimer - none of these pictures are mine, but because I still have no access to them, this will give you an idea of what it was like)

We passed through the city what we later learned was in fact Valaparaíso and ended the ride in Viña, by comparison a much quieter city that was a lazy but upscale beach town. Luckily we had a good recommendation of a modest priced hostel from students who went the weekend before, so we had no problems finding a place to stay. The Monaldi Hotel had 4 long floors of rooms, communal bathrooms not as bad as it sounds, but there was an unbelievably strange type of soap. The flavor of the soap was, how do I put this, placenta. Obviously that must have two diverse meanings.), and free breakfast at for $16 U.S. dollars a night.

That first day was just spent soaking in the sun, and exploring the tiny downtown of Viña. It could have been a city anywhere in the world, but it was still beach, and beach is beach.

The second day was the real adventure. We had planned to take a bus to the adjoining city of Valparaíso early the next morning so we could see all there is to see in as much time as possible. We got there around 11:30 and ended up talking to one of the tourist guides that set up near the harbor. His name was Michael something, and he was a German living in South America. He offered to give us a tour of the city for merely $4 U.S. per person, and although we were questioning his motives at first, we decided that there was nowhere he could lead us that all 6 of us couldn´t handle. That decision turned out to make our day.

All through the neighborhoods and streets of Valaparaíso are giant elevators, or forniculas, that carry people up and down hills, therefore making it so much easier on the legs. We started on south side of the city and made our way north. All day we walked through pathways that lead to beautifully built buildings, in blue, pink, purple and green. We went to places of history, like the Naval Museum, the first fire station built in Chile, the port where all these battleships still are. We saw local artesans who made unbelievable works of art through their chosen craft; jewelry, purses, musical instruments, clothes. I bought a beautiful brown necklace made of some type of seeds and two leather bracelets with designs imprinted on them. We walked through traditional paseos, or boardwalks, like Avenida Italiana and Avenida Atkinson that winded and weaved through neighborhoods with mansions and pools, and some with shacks and dirt roads. We were always climbing up or down somewhere; nothing was flat.

As we talked to our guide, he lead us to people he knew, restaurants he´d eaten at, and generally made conversations with anyone. Adam, one of the people who I went with, had heard about an old prison that was changed into a cultural center, and our guide said he knew of it and of an actor who worked there. The prison was at the top of one particular hill, which the fornicula we rode in to get there was said to be a huge feat of engineering because of the steepness of the incline.

While walking around inside the prison, it was eerie to think that criminals had once been housed in a place that seemed to to bursting with kids playing on a playground, a group of drummers beating a rhythm on the steps, an exercise yard that had been converted into soccer fields. Our guide led us to a theater that the actor, who called himself Papito, was renovating with other theater students. We took a tour of the place, saw photos of his play which was about being in prison since he evidently had spent 20 years there, and sat and talked for awhile of what life in prison was like. We never found out what Papito was in prison for, but it could have been anything from criminal activity or murder, to simply being an artist and being stifled by a dictatorship. The man was a character, calling everyone ¨chorizo/a¨ which means sausage, and although he looked tough and mean, he wore a French buret and a purple scarf with flowers on it.

We ended the night at a restaurant that overlooked the entire city, and an Irish bar because it was Saint Patrick´s day. The bar was surprisingly Irish, with a live band that played live Irish music and green beer. We got back to Viña not too late, and got up the next morning for church. Spanish Mass is something I haven´t gotten tired of because of the necesity of paying close attention to what is going on.

After church, we spent the day at another small beach town next to Viña called Reñaca, which was favored because its scenery was supposedly prettier. It was indeed gorgeous, complete with a giant working clock made of flowers. We stayed until after dinner at a seafood restaurant where I split a meal of meat, shrimp, potatoes, and mixed vegetables with two other guys. We came back to Santiago at around 10:30 p.m. and waited for about 2 1/2 hours for a bus that could take us home. If you haven´t heard, Santiago is trying out a new system of transportation called Transantiago, which is just a regulated bus system. Unfortunately it hasn´t been implemented well enough, and there is big chunks of time when buses just do not come, or are so crowded that you are crushed against someone else, crushed against someone else, hanging for dear life because the door can´t close because of the amount of people. We ended up spliting a taxi ride after we got sick of waiting, and alls well that ends well, because now we are back in school dreaming of the beach.