13th Nov. 2106
We sat on the bus for most of today and not a whole lot happened. Whilst a fair summary, after this famous post in Pucon 4 years ago, Janet is not going to let me get away with that as our blog submission for the day. Today we move down to Valparaíso, perhaps Chile’s most famous city (and legislative capital), and a seven hour bus journey from La Serena. The city was once the country’s biggest port until it was hit by an earthquake in 1906 and then a commercial earthquake with the opening of the Panama canal. It was made a Unesco world heritage site in 2003 and it is now known for having brightly painted, colonial era houses running up the sides of the hills that surround the port. Four years ago, on our RTW trip, Valparaíso was one of the places that we really wanted to get to but just couldn’t make it fit into the time that we had available. Now we’re finally going to get there.
It’s Sunday today and as we walk to the bus station, the streets are even quieter than normal. It isn’t that we are particularly early, it’s just, well, Chile! Fortunately, I have worked out where there is a supermarket (of a type that we know opens on Sunday mornings) and so after leaving Janet to guard the bags at the bus station, I nip off and stock up with water and snacks for the bus journey. This also gives me a chance to take a few last pictures of La Serena on a cold, grey morning. Where did the sunshine of Vicuña go? I hope it is warmer than this in Valparaíso.
We’re on TurBus again (driven by our preferred time of travel) and, once again, they stick with their record of punctuality. Given the distances that these buses travel, we aren’t really sure how they do it. We settle in for the long haul and, when not peering out of the window, crack on with sorting pictures, writing the blog and generally catching up on listening and reading. As we head through the neighbouring town of Coquimbo we catch sight of a flock of pelicans perched on the roof of a building and guess that there must be a fish market happening inside.
After Coquimbo, the bus heads inland, the landscape reverts to the familiar dust and rocks with the odd cactus dotted around and so we have no excuse not to get our heads down and crack on. As the bus (and the day) roll on, the landscape slowly starts to change and we start to see some trees and grass – perhaps they actually get rain in this part of the country. (Though while we’re here, lets hope not!). And then we get to see the sea again (with sunshine now) as the bus rolls in to Valparaíso.
For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been staying in hostels (with private bathrooms) rather than hotels. In practice, there isn’t much difference between these and a hotel and we’ve been spending about $50/night. Valparaíso is always going to be more expensive, but we have decided to splash out on our room and are rewarded with a balcony giving us a sea view. Once we manage to tear ourselves out of the shower (lots of hot water, no need to keep pushing the button to keep the shower on) we head out to see what all the fuss around Valparaíso is about.
We’re lucky that there are couple of miradors – lookouts over the hillside right by our hotel. The first thing that strikes us is the street art. It seems that every other building is brightly painted and some of it is quite extraordinary. As for the pastel coloured buildings ranging up the side of the hills, well, yes they definitely exist but the lines aren’t neat and orderly and some of the buildings look as if the last time they had any maintenance done on them was in 1906. And then there are the hills with streets winding up them – looks like we have a lot of walking to do.
Walking round some more we see that there is a more cosmopolitan, international feel to the restaurant menus on display. It’s not just local cuisine. The downside is, of course, that there is a cosmopolitan, international feel to the prices too!
There is, however, an energy about the place and this is confirmed as we sit in a restaurant and are about to order our supper and we hear a banging of drums. Poking our heads out of the restaurant door there is a band playing and dancing in the street. Somehow, it seems appropriate – its taken us four years to get here, so somebody should make a song and dance about it!