Valparaiso

Valparaiso is the biggest port in Chile. It also has the dubious title of the cultural capital of Chile. I entered the city on Wednesday the 1st of December, the same day hundreds of people had decided to protest about something!! It really doesn’t help when you are a) trying to navigate in a strange city and b) the GPS maps are incomplete and suddenly say, “Cannot calculate route” and leave you sitting there. Eventually I found the Tourist information office down by the port entrance and asked if they had a list of Hotels? They asked how much I wanted to spend and my answer of $50 was not received well. I soon decided that the budget was going out the window and after a couple of calls I checked into the Diago De Almagro Hotel, a brand new four star Hotel with a view straight out onto the bay. They deal the tourist information office got me was very good in comparison to the regular check in rates. Expensive? Yes, but oh how nice.

The view from my bedroom

Although a port, Valparaiso is surrounded by hills, and over the hundreds of years the buildings have spread all along the hillside at the back of the city. Some grand and some ramshackle, it has become a colourful mix, that looks like it it now becoming more fashionable to restore and live in. There are old cable cars that for 1 peso will carry you from the hustle and bustle of the city centre streets below to the cool and quiet cobblestone streets that look out over the bay.


One of the old cable cars







I think the same cable company the got the contract for Phuket got the contract here, the OH&S people would have a fit if they saw this.