Valparaiso

Valparaiso was a welcome respite from city life and gave us our first taste of sunlight on our entire trip. What a nice change to wake up to a beautiful sunrise and clear day.

We made the most of the sunniness by wandering around the old city which is full of brightly colored buildings and funky graffiti. The city is based around a working port so the water was constantly in motion with tugboats, huge ships being repaired and a portion of the Chilean Armada. Our B&B host gave us a great walking tour suggestion which led us up to the town’s most well known funicular which takes you from seaside to a hill top sans physical effort (score!). The views are of the entire coastline down to the resort towns of Vina del Mar and Renaca.

Other than seeing the natural sights (which included the main citizens: stray ultra friendly dogs) and being introduced to a Chilean speciality *Pisco Sour* the rest of our time here was spent enjoying the Gastronomic center of Valparaiso – there were SO many good restaurants! We had delicious risottos, pizza, salads, seafood…you name it, we probably had it.

Side note: There were just as many stay dogs (whom the locals care for as a community) here as in Buenos Aires, but SO MUCH LESS POO! It’s amazing what happens when a city makes an effort to pick up after itself…and its furry dwellers.

Our favorite meal was a random stop one night at a place called Cafe Vinilo – one of the few restaurants that was jam packed (it is Fall in a beach town, afterall). Immediately upon sitting down a man approaches our table and starts talking to us in Spanish. After we explain that we don’t speak much Spanish he chuckles and tells us he’s the head chef and wanted to make sure we understood what he was cooking for everyone. He then gives us a play by play rundown of everything on the menu and includes a “special dish” that he just created which wasn’t on the menu.

When the head chef creates something unique, you order it. What a great decision – this dish was grass fed beef that had been infused with garlic which was stuffed with chilean white sausage and onions served on top of chilean beans and vegetables. I had the grilled swordfish on top of chilean vegetables which was also phenomenal, but obviously not as special as the yet unnamed dish the chef had whipped up.

The word to use to sum up Valparaiso: Delicious!

We had such a relaxing three days and reluctantly set out to head to our final stop: Santiago (via car of course). We had a similar experience getting out of town as the one getting into it…but luckily all of our walking gave us a better working knowledge of the street layout. We had smooth sailing up the coast to check out the other beach towns of Vina del Mar and stopped to watch the sea lion colony at Renaca (the rock is called “Michael Jackson” by the locals…because the rock apparently used to be black but is now white…too soon?). Just when we thought it was not a big deal to drive around in Chile we ran into a huge traffic jam due to the tunnel…the ONLY tunnel that connected our road from the beachside to Santiago by going under the Andes…had some problems.

Luckily there was a detour…

Crossing the Andes round three…stay tuned.

Tagged as: Chile, Valparaiso

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So you remember our first experience with crossing the Andes in a plane? Well the second time was a bit smoother, I think it helped that it was daylight, although it was still disconcerting when the final turn was so close to the mountainside that I could see individual trees.

Once we arrived in Chile we immediately picked up our rental car to drive a couple of hours to Valparaiso, a small port town. We had read all along on various posts from other tourists how difficult it is to navigate Valpo by car, but, being the extra savvy travelers that we are, assumed that we would do better than everybody else. We are expert navigators after all…

Our first clue that we might be biting off more than we could chew came when a taxi driver asked about our trip and where we were going and how, and then whistled and shook his head when we told him Valpo by car.

Our second clue was the dead dog on the side of the road being stood upon by a rooster…ok well, that really had nothing to do with our ability to navigate, but it certainly added to the overall atmosphere of a story about to go completely haywire. *Insert dramatic music*

The drive to the outskirts of town was a breeze and gave us some great views of Chile’s arid, slightly desert environment complete with the beautiful Andes as a backdrop. Once in Valpo city limits, however, we quickly realized that our little tourist map (complete with drawings of the sights to see a la amateur sketch style) ~~sucked~~ wouldn’t suffice, and the directions we downloaded meant nothing as there were no legible street signs. So here we were in a completely strange town, unable to speak the language, and driving up streets that are as wide as a smartcar at a 70% incline (Adam says there’s a slight chance I’m exaggerating…I beg to differ).

Sidenote about how a passenger’s memory differs from the drivers. Mandy’s Driving Memoralis Conundrum, if you will. Ahem. The Driver is more prone to not remember exact details in extreme driving conditions due to being in survival mode – you only focus on how to get everyone out alive. The Passenger, however, is in complete Traumatization Mode. Meaning everything that happens in order to get you out alive is emblazoned in terrifying clarity in the deepest recesses of your brain.

Science. It makes the world go round.

Luckily Adam’s iphone had GPS which more or less got us up through the twisting, winding mountain streets…until we hit the after effects of Chile’s most recent earthquake. (What is our affinity for earthquake stricken places?). Streets were completely torn up in places and completely barred the path we were on. We found a second route in and took that until, of course, the road inexplicably ended in a staircase.

Did I mention we were driving stick?

We called it a day and located a parking spot to make sure that the GPS had, in fact, gotten us remotely close to our hostal which, thankfully, it had. We made it just in time for one of the most spectacular sunsets we’ve ever seen (and when you’d done as much sunset chasing as Adam has, you know a good one when you see it!).

Long story short – if you ever find yourself in Santiago as a first time tourist wanting to visit Valparaiso, take a bus! It will save you a car rental fee, highway tolls, and, oh yea, the complete craziness of Valparaiso streets.

You’re welcome.

Tagged as: Andes, Chile, Valparaiso