So, we’re over the Andes, and it’s winter, so Chile is pretty chilly. We’re also pretty knackered, so we decide to rent an apartment for a week and catch up on world events, principally Wimbledon and the Tour de France. Our apartment is in a high rise block (complete with outside swimming pool!) right in the centre of the city, next to the Palacio de la Moneda and a flagpole with a giant Chilean flag. Here’s the aforementioned flag, which must measure 100ft by 50ft, and also Diane watching Wimbledon in the mess we called our living room. We got up early-ish and watched the whole of the mens’ final. So near and yet, so far.
As we do every now and again, we decide to go to the cinema and watch El Sorprendente Hombre Arana, the latest Spiderman movie (in English). The cinema is in a mall some way away, complete with upmarket shops and a Starbucks, so we have to travel by the good, though overcrowded, metro system which apparently runs all the way to the south of the continent. Ha ha. We do enjoy the film, though: it was a bit lighter than the previous versions where he was always a bit whiny and depressed.
Another day we walk to the top of Cerro San Cristobal, and look down over Santiago. As you can see, it’s a tad polluted in the winter. If you look closely, very closely indeed, you should be able to see a ski resort on the snowy peaks in the distance on the left of the photograph. This is Valle Nevado: we considered going for a day’s skiing, but it would have cost us about 300 quid, so we didn’t.
Like most South American cities, in the middle of the city is the Plaza de Armas. This unusual statue is there, along with lots of people playing chess, hanging round, preaching, selling postcards (and stamps in the same place, what heaven!), eating ice cream and generally doing their thing.
We visit the central market and discover the delights the empanada (like a small cornish pasty, but tending to squidge out down your clothes if you’re not careful) and the berlina (a doughy donut with custard). We also explore the rather touristy area called Bellavista, where we find a bar selling Kross beer, which is really rather nice, and benefits from not being lager.
After a week or so, we head for the coast at Valparaiso to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time since Lima. Valparaiso gets mixed reviews: some people love it, some hate it. Our taxi driver when we arrived in Santiago described it as “feo”, ugly. It is, but it’s also a bit charming. The main problem, though, with Valpo, and especially where we are staying, is the dog, er, waste product, which comes from the stray dogs all over the place. Even the locals are hacked off about it: there were articles in the local paper (incidentally, the oldest newspaper in South America): nobody collects them up, and local people feed them, so the problem grows and grows. There are vast numbers now: on some days, there were 25 in the little square at the bottom of our road alone. This leads to a lot of, er, product. Every few feet on some streets. You really had to keep your eyes out. Anyway, enough of that, here’s a picture of a pretty bit.
We went to an old bar called La Playa a few times, interesting with lots of old film and music posters. It also stays open until 5am as Valpo is a pretty big party town.
Valpo is built on a series of hills called cerros. Cerro Concepcion and Cerro Alegre are jolly touristy, and expensive, but so is the whole of Valparaiso. This is a restaurant called Brighton, looking nice at night.
To save people the fag, there are cable cars up the cerros. All are marked on the tourist map but a lot of them aren’t working – somehow these are the ones we kept aiming for so we ended up walking everywhere.
The steps next to it are pretty steep. Here’s me grinning inanely near the top and showing that I don’t have any products on my shoes today.
Valpo is very arty: there’s lots of street paintings and the like, and Pablo Neruda, Chile’s most famous poet, had a house here, and wrote a poem about the town.
There’s also the Pacific ! It’s lovely, one of my favourite oceans. It’s right in town, as well, as are the cargo ships.
The following day, we catch the local train to Vina del Mar, a rather more upmarket town just down the coast. Here’s Diane lounging on some rocks in the winter sun, and a picture looking down the beach, with Valpo in the distance.
Here’s one of the fabled dogs in typical pose. They spend most of the day like this, in any warm spot they can find.
We walk back to Valpo, passing a wreck on the way !! It’s so shallow it’s almost on the beach. Perfect: a wreck you can walk to.
We also pass a lot of sea lions, hanging out on a disused pier support. The platform is about 15 feet above sea level, and the lions have to jump to the sloping bit, hang on, then shuffle up to the top. It’s an impressive jump, over their body length, straight up. Many of them fail and splosh back into the water. And nearby are two guys working hard on their latest graffiti project, they’re real professionals!
After a couple of days we head back over the Andes, but this time to Cordoba in Argentina, a 23-hour bus journey. Good heavens. Here’s the view back down the pass, and another of the snow.
We stop at the top for a sandwich at the immigration and customs post. The bus passengers far outnumber the few skiers who’ve trekked over from Argentina to ski at local resort Portillo, although it is early season and there isn’t much snow about really.
So farewell then, Chile. Back to Argentina !
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