First day in Valparaiso

(Our first glimpse of the Andes, shrouded in clouds.)

After a 9 hour flight from Dallas, we arrived in Santiago, paid our tariff, went through customs and were off. We caught a public bus to the center of Santiago – because of a combination of our terrible Spanish and bad directions we ended up having to walk a bunch of blocks with our FIVE (yes five) bags – two ginormous backpacks, two daypacks, and a duffel full of food for the backpacking trip. We both agreed that after the backpacking trip we needed to pare down so that everything fits into our backpacks alone. The bus-ride from Santiago to Valparaiso was super cozy. The scenery on the way looked so much like California it was weird – iceplants lining the freeways, eucalypus trees, yellow grasses. Even the freeway signs were more or less the same colors.

We got to the Valparaiso bus station and a young woman who spoke English remarkably well gave us a map, showed us some interesting spots on it, and even explained exactly how to catch a “collectivo” (taxis that pick up more than one fare at a time) or public bus to our hostel. It was technically a super soft sell for her tour company, but so appreciated. The challenges of speaking Spanish were wearing on us as we got more and more exhausted. Plus, we were discovering that I could understand better than speak and Rebecca could speak better than understand, so our conversations with helpful (and incredible patient) people were a three-way sort of deal where they would say something, Rebecca would look quizzical and I would translate it into English to her, and she would respond back. We quickly practiced how to say “Gracias por su paciencia” -- which is probably grammatically wrong but does the trick.

(Hostel Bellavista -- our room is the upper left one that is open.)

Five plus hours after touching down in Santiago, we finally made it to Hostel Bellavista. A totally picturesque little hostal in a burgeoning artists area of town called Cerro Bellavista. The Hostel itself is covered in murals. The streets all around us and in a neighboring area, Cerro Concepcion, are covered in “graffiti” – basically totally amazing street art.

(Two 3 or 4 month old kittens and a painting of a man playing guitar. Blake has a keen eye for baby animals. There are so many cute dogs and cats everywhere here.)

Really truly some of the most exciting I’ve ever seen – incredibly good art – I couldn’t put my camera down as we were walking the streets.

We took showers and went down to have bite to eat and found this great little café bar where we had really yummy café con leche, sandwiches, local porter, and awkwardly ordered juice. “Cual typo de jugos”…“Duranza” … “Naranja?” …“No.” Okay I’ll take it anyhow. Turned out to be peach juice, also good. Needless to say we decided to sign up for 10 hours of private 2-on-1 Spanish lessons while we are in Valparaiso to give us a little jumpstart on our language adventure. We start on Wednesday.

We took a long wonderful walk after our meal, to an “ascensor” up to the top of Cerro Allegre. Valparaiso is basically a small amount of flat area surrounded by steep tall hills. You can walk up the many long staircases that connect these split neighborhoods together, or you can take an outdoor cabled elevator for 100 pesos apiece (about 20 cents). I looked up while we were riding it – Rebecca looked down and said it was a little scary – they are on a STEEP incline.

At the top was a little area chock full of cute cafes and bars, art galleries very reminiscent of the Telegraph and Grand Galleries – really really cool art. We immediate decided that we will come back here again at the end of our trip – since we have to come back to Santiago anyhow to fly back home.

We both also decided that Valparaiso is about as romantic as it gets. Tomorrow our plan is to take a long walk along the ocean, take another “ascensor” up to another neighborhood nearby, bring Rebecca’s fancy camera with us to take more pictures of amazing street art, charming buildings, and gorgeous views. Neither of us can believe this is only the first day of 4 months!

(View of the ocean from the top of the Cerro Alegre ascensor.)

(Here we are blogging from a perfect cafe with WiFi, that took us a while to find this morning -- but now we are eating cafe con leches, toast and jam, fresh squeezed orange juice, and some awesome eggs with ham.)

-- Blake