Valparaíso

After arriving late at night in Santiago, we drove a bit further north the next day. Our destination was the port city of Valparaíso, which means "Go to Paradise". The journey in the comfortable coach flew by, and Valparaíso greeted us with radiant sunshine! The city is very hilly and there are darned many stairs, so it was time to go mountain climbing. On the way to the hostel, we had to slalom around the equally numerous dog poop, which was, let's say, difficult in terms of smell. In contrast, there were many colorful houses and street art. So our first impression was somewhat mixed. After we had set down our heavy backpacks, we explored the city in more detail. Without luggage, the stairs were also easier to manage 😉 We discovered a few unsightly corners, but also some beautiful neighborhoods and took a ride on a so-called "Funicular". These are small elevators that bridge the particularly steep sections in several places in the city and have been in operation for over 100 years! In the afternoon, we sat down in a café with a beautiful view of the city and ordered a delicious chocolate cake with a liquid center. While we were waiting for the treat, a certain seagull had other plans. It launched a targeted air attack by pooping on the net roof stretched over Jana's head and the splatters spread abundantly on Jana. 💩 In short, in the end, Jana's list of birds she doesn't like got longer. In the evening, we dropped off our laundry and Philip went to the hairdresser, where a native Peruvian cut his hair meticulously and with great attention to detail. After devouring vegan (!) sushi, we started the uphill climb to our hostel.

For the next day, we had signed up for another free city tour, which we are totally excited about. There was an English-speaking tour and a Spanish-speaking tour. Since the Spanish-speaking guide was also named Felipe and we understood him well, we decided to go for the Spanish tour. In our group, there were two men, one from Chile and one from Peru. Felipe told us a lot about the history of the city. For example, many different nationalities live here because the city was an important stopover for ships on their way from Europe to California before the opening of the Panama Canal. Especially during the time of the gold rush, apparently some sailors decided against continuing their journey and settled here. A relic of this is the different architectural styles that show the various influences of, for example, the British, Italians, or Germans. In addition, Valparaíso has 17 different fire brigades, originally founded by different nationalities. Among others, there is the German fire brigade, the Italian one, the Spanish one, etc., although now other nationalities are also allowed to apply - except for the Italian one, where proof of Italian origin is still required 😁 The reason why there are so many is that the houses are very close together and must be built from flexible materials - which, unfortunately, are easily flammable - because of the frequent earthquakes. In addition, there are strong winds, which can quickly spread fires. By the way, the firefighters are all volunteers and only earn money through lottery sales or donations! After that, we looked at a lot of street art and learned about the political backgrounds of some of the pictures. The city is a real stronghold of art of all kinds, especially paintings on walls, facades, and stairs. As a little snack in between, we had a typical Argentinian sweet, Alfajores, two cookies with Dulce de Leche in between and chocolate all around. The tour was once again super interesting and we saw many beautiful corners of the city.

After the very smelly first day, we liked Valparaíso much better after the second day. The city is somehow really dirty on one side, but very interesting and also very beautiful because of the many colorful paintings and the winding steep streets on the other side.

For us, it's now a good stretch further north to La Serena.