Today I took a bus to Valparaiso, Chile's main port town, with Leandro, one of the Brazilians at my hostel. A woman at the bus station told us about a bilingual van tour around the city, so we bought tickets. It took a little over an hour to get to the coast, and we passed lots of forests, wineries and shrub-covered hills on the way...it actually looked a lot like parts of California. We found our van at the bus terminal and after about 5 minutes I realized that our guide didn't speak a word of English, but he was old and funny so I decided I didn't care. He also told all of the other people on our tour that I was Brazilian, even though my ticket specifically said I was from the United States, so I just went along with it and said I was Brazilian all day. Why not?
Our first stop was Pablo Neruda's house. We didn't pay to go inside (I'm going to his house in Santiago with my program anyway) but it was cool to see and had an amazing view. Then we drove backwards (????????) down the hill to our restaurant, which was in an old house overlooking the port. I thought I ordered spaghetti with marinara and almost cried/burst out laughing when the waitress brought me pasta COVERED in seafood...shrimp, clams, the works. This is the second day in a row...come on. I decided to not complain and gave all the seafood to Leandro, then tried to eat my pasta without thinking about how all that shrimp touched it. Ughhhhh. Sick. Nasty. Anyway, after lunch we went over to this walkway lined with a bunch of vendor stalls and saw some more views of the bay. Finally we drove toward Viña del Mar, saw the beaches and took pictures at the Reloj de Flores (Flower Clock). Valparaiso was a lot dirtier than Santiago, and the neighborhoods were filled with tiny, brightly colored, falling-apart houses on steep, tiny one-way streets. I liked it though...it actually reminded me of the hills around where my dad grew up in LA (shout-out to Dad!!! haha) but a lot denser and more run-down. And a lot more colorful, but everything's more colorful down here!
Going to bed soon, gotta get up early to climb San Cristobal tomorrow!
Valparaiso:
Our restaurant!
No comments:
Post a Comment