We’re just finished our second day in Valparaíso and Viña Del Mar, and it’s been a rollercoaster with exactly one big dip. For the rest of the time, we have been flying high.
“Valpo” is a seaside city on the west coast of Chile, just an hour from Santiago (which should give you a sense of just how skinny Chile is given Santiago is just right of the middle). Viña is it’s sister city- it’s Gold Coast to Valpo’s Brisbane, except only ten minutes drive apart. Where Valpo is a bohemian wonderland of colourful and winding streets over hills and hills and hills, Viña is huge stiff apartment blocks close to rollicking beaches.
I can’t understate just how colourful Valpo is. There is so much street art – not just protest messages, proper professional pieces – stretching over kilometers and kilometers of streets, lining every edge of the various abandoned buildings in the city. It gives this place life.
Yesterday, we went for a wander around Valpo, around Playa Ancha region, and then around Viña. To get around, we took the small buses that hurtled – I mean absolutely hurtled – through the main streets between hubs. The bus numbers aren’t displayed large and you barely have a moment to comprehend what it is and where is going before making a split-second decision whether to flag it down and then throwing yourself into it while it barely stops to pick you up. There’s no margin for error. Then you’re screaming through the streets, overtaking the cars.
Today, we took an amazing street art tour, where various pieces and artist styles were explained in detail, intertwined with knowledge about the city and its history. It was so amazing to have the detail in the art explained – there’s so much in it, and knowing the back story brings it to light in a new way. We have thousands of pictures so I’ll leave it to dear Dan to do the hard part of picking which highlights to share.
We spent the afternoon exploring more of the street art precinct, and then headed to Playa Reñaca in Viña for a swim. The swim was brief and shallow because the waves were out of control wild – sucking up half the beach to slowly create one massive dumper at a time. It was still lovely to get in the water and enjoy the atmosphere of everyone at the beach.
On the way back, in just a few moments of jostling as we got off the bus, my phone was stolen. We noticed within seconds, and logged into “Find My Phone” within a minute or two, but it was already a fair way away before it had been turned off. So disappointing. That was the foreshadowed ‘dip’ in our time here.
As if to make up for the bitter taste in our mouths, the city delivered us an exquisite evening. We explored the seaside Muelle Barón area – we weren’t allowed to go up the pier but our walk the other way took us past a former section of pier covered in sea lions, like a lumpy carpet, and an abandoned rail yard now covered in art, converted into a rock climbing and acrobatics space, and another festival-like space featuring old train carriages. We emerged from these warehouses to the most stunning sunset over Valpo – bright gold, pink and purple in the sky, and the hills a dusky blue dotted with golden lights. We enjoyed this as a guitarist and double bassist filled the air with experimental jazz.
We go back to Santiago tomorrow, and will head up to the Atacama desert on Thursday. I can’t imagine finding a city more colorful on this trip, but we’ll see!
VRPS, with big thanks to DPS for the collages
[Valparaíso]
The Two Swords 