VALPARAISO

We arrived in Valparaiso (Valpo to the locals) at 8am after sleeping for the second time in Santiago airport. I don't think we will actually ever make it into Santiago. Nothing much was open and we had trouble contacting our Air BnB host, so we found somewhere that was serving breakfast and waited for him to get in touch. He was a musician called Moasis and was a pretty bohemian character. The flat was kinda crazy six floors up in what looked like an abandoned apartment block, near the top of an old characterful spiral staircase. The flat itself was huge, there was art, drums, roadsigns and other unusual bits and pieces everywhere, and the kitchen was a fucking mess. Kind of like your typical student house. There also was a friendly black Labrador who would wag his way around the place.

Our room was pretty spacious and had a great view over the colourful city, precariously clinging onto the urban hillsides. We dropped our bags and headed out to explore.

First we went to the 'Open Air Museum' to follow a free walk around loads of colourful murals, all painted in 1992; it was amazing that they had lasted so long as other walls in the area were covered in scribbly tags, but I guess even the 'taggers' know when to respect a previous artists work. There is a massive street art scene here which is actively encouraged by the council.

From there we walked to a plaza Sotomayor to catch the free waking tour that took us through the Concepcion and Alegre neighbourhoods which sit on top of two big hills. First we visited the harbour and saw the huge boats in the port, unloading their cargo. Then we caught a trolley bus (totally pointless invention that's half tram and half bus) back towards where we're staying and he pointed out tonnes of good places to eat and drink. That's tonight sorted then! Then we climbed the hills and wandered through some pretty cool streets where there was more street art and some abandoned buildings. He discussed the pros and cons of the area being a UNISCO world heritage site. In a nutshell it will forever remain pretty, however if anywhere gets damaged by earthquakes or fire they will forever remain rubble due to expensive and strict rebuilding regulations.

The city prospered during the gold rush era when ships from Europe would have to sail all the way down around Cape Horn at the tip of South America, then back up the west coast. They would make stop offs in Buenos Aires and Valparaiso for supplies. Often they would unload large amounts of corrugated metal and tins of paint used for ballast in the ships which is why so many of the city's buildings are a wash with colourful metal sheets. Unfortunately for Valpo the good times came to an abrupt end with the opening of the Panama canal.

We took a short boat trip around the harbour which brought us scarily close to a huge cargo ship, plus some Chilean Navy ships (apparently some of which were bought from the British Navy) and the fireworks ready for the big New Year's Eve celebration they have in Valparaiso. A huge floating jetty of fireworks was bobbing worryingly close to the many Chilean navy vessels. 

In the evening we followed our tour guides recommendations and had a beer flight in Chile's first brewery. Followed by a 'chorriana' basically a massive plate of chips, steak, cheese and egg that's big enough for two people and cost around £7 in a little unpretentious restaurant down the hill. Back at the brewery a little later a jazz band had got into full swing, as we had already tried all the beers we knew which one we liked (the IPA, obviously). The night ended in the 'Cat by the Window' a rough and ready little place with more live music and supposedly the city's best 'terremoto' meaning earthquake, a cocktail prepared with pipeño (fermented white wine), grenadine and pineapple ice cream. It was as disgusting as it sounds and made us sleepy. Today had been a great introduction to this vibrant little city and we wished we had more time here to explore.

On our second day we planned to visit the Casablanca wine region and partake in some wine tasting. Set in rolling vine covered hills it's a pretty spot not unlike hunter valley in Australia. We accidentally got up really late and took a while over breakfast, so didn't arrive there until 2.50pm. Luckily at Botegas RE they had a tour and tasting starting at 3pm. We tried five wines; a rose, a white and three reds. They specialise in blending wines and try to do the same with the names for example Chardonnay and Pino Noir becomes Chardonnoir. Some were more successful than others. As I still know nothing about wine, all I can say is that they were all delicious. We had cheese, bread and oil and olives to accompany, all of which were grown/made locally too.

Then it was time to see the huge clay pots that this winery is known for. Instead of putting the wine in barrels straight away, it is put into the clay pots for the first few weeks. I'm sure there's a really good reason for this, other than the pots look cool. We also got to see their fruit liquors slowly fermenting in jars of all shapes and sizes. It looked like a mad professors lab only replace bottled floating eyeballs and spiders for strawberries and mandarins.

We managed to squeeze in one more winery before heading back to Valparaiso. The lady at Loma Larga Vineyards spoke no English so we didn't get the sales spiel here but all three wines we tasted were great and we purchased a bottle for the evening.

After a hitch and a bus, we arrived back in the city and headed straight for Emporio La Rosa, the famous ice cream shop that our tour guide had recommended. It didn't disappoint, the dulce de leche flavour was to die for and in the square out front was an acrobatic circus show going on. At the end I went up to drop some money in the hat with all the kids who had got money from their parents. I didn't not realise the compare was counting up for the age of people to give money, I should have waited quite a while longer to give my donation!

Later in the evening we went to a locals bar called Pajarito the ceiling was covered in different coloured origami birds and there were some weird and wonderful musical acts playing. First up was a chap of about 80 in an old suit jacket and flat cap, who was belting out what we can only assume were Chilean classics by the way everyone was singing along. Later on, a Chilean Elvis impersonator arrived and played to his adoring fans, he was enjoying the lime light so much he played one of his songs twice. Despite the energetic performance I think he had trouble selling his homemade CDs. 

Tomorrow we head to Peru in time to spend New Year's Eve with Diego (our flatmate in Bondi) and his family who live in Lima. See ya Chile I'm sure we will be back soon to spend another night in Santiago airport! 

Ch Ch Ch, Le Le Le, Viva Chile!