Many of the buildings and homes are covered in spray-painted murals of bountiful colors, sizes, and designs. Lots of the murals are designed as messages - political or expressive, while some are just pretty pictures. Some of the artists are commissioned and paid in room and board or barter. Valparaiso used to have a huge problem with tagging, so the citizens came up with the idea of the murals on the outsides of their buildings; most taggers won't tag over another artist's work out of mutual respect. Now the city is 50% or more art. You can turn any corner and see something amazing.
When Robby and I got off the bus, we went in search of the hostel I had booked online. We found it 5 blocks from the bus station, but it was locked and in the auto parts section of town. Robby was adamant that she did not want to spend her last few days of the trip in a sketchy area and in a hostel that wasn't open when you need it to be; so we googled nearby hostels and I was sold on La Nona's Bed and Breakfast. Apart from mentioning an amazing breakfast with frsh fruit and homemade yogurt and granola, they offered real (non Nescafe instant crap) coffee 24/7. Perfecto!
We happened to be the only guests of Renee, his wife, and his 2-year-old twin daughters, in their lovely home practically at the top of the first hill. Our hostel was more like a homestay than a hostel because of the twins running around and shyly peering around the doors to look at us while Renee explained all the things we could do in the city as he cooked toasted bread on the stove and offered us the carafe of percolated coffee he'd just made.
We left our homey hostel and descended the hill to Sotmeyer Square, the main meeting point for tours in the city. The Square is very different than other squares we've been to as it's three square sections divided by streets. There is no grass and there are no curbs separating the traffic from the walk areas. I constantly had to remain Robby that she was walking in the street, not on the square. The only boundary markers are faded white lines outlining the sections.
We meet up with Ines, from Chilean Cuisine, and 5 other people to begin a 6 hour Chilean cooking experience. After we all reviewed our meal options for the evening, we settled on pebre - Chilean salsa, ceviche, chaurquican- mashed potatoes with vegetables mixed in, empanadas (including a vegetarian eggplant version), and Leche Asada- Chilean flan. The first part of the cooking class was a bus trip to the central and fish markets. We arrived to discovered that there was no fish anywhere. A week prior, Valparasio suffered a huge fire that destroyed a bunch of homes and apparently most of the fisherman's homes, so they hadn't had time to fish and bring their catches to the market. We switched the ceviches for hearts of palms stuffed into avocados.
Once all the rest of the food was bought, we hopped back on a bus and then started a steep climb halfway up the hill to the cooking school where we donned aprons and chef's hats. Ines told us that the school teaches traditional Chilean meals one would find in a home, not in a restaurant. A lot of the summer meals consist of soups and warm vegetarian dishes because of the selection of vegetables available during the season. Some families also add minced meat for protein.
Robby and I chopped, peeled, and diced vegetables while chatting with the others that came to partake. We were with 2 couples and a Bostonian traveling by herself. Everyone was super nice and although some of us were better at dicing tomatoes than peeling avocados, everything turned out delicious and very filling. We enjoyed our efforts with freshly made Pisco Sours and wine.
The following day I finally got my biking wine adventure. 15 of us hopped in taxis to drive 30 minutes to the Casablanca Valley. Valparasio's wineries are not as easy to get to as Santiago's. We picked up our bikes at the Kingston Family Vineyard and spent 1.5 dirt biking alongside grapevines. It was semi-relaxing with the rows of vines whipping passed us the farther we rode, but also super exhausting. I'm very much out of shape and the three or so mini hills we biked up, just about killed me. I could also blame the intense sun for my exhaustion, but mostly it's my laziness to exercise that caused my tiredness. Good thing all the exercise was followed up with wine.
Casablanca Valley is known for producing white wines, but The Kingston Winery is a very small family owned winery that started out making red wines. They are known for their Syrah's and Pinot Noir's, but they also produce Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, plus they grow grapes for other types of wine to sell to bigger distributors. Their Pinot was great, but their Syrah's - not really my cup of tea and definitely not Robby's.
During the tour, we made friends with Carol, and so we decided to kidnap her for the rest of the day. Our biking guide told us about large sand dunes 25 minutes outside of Valparasio in the city of Con Con where you could pay the equivalent of 1 dollar and 30 cents for an hour of sand-boarding. All we had to do was hop on a city bus and when we saw the dunes, hop off.
I rented the sit down sled type board while Robby and Carol got the stand-up boards. The dunes were rather steep and since we all had no idea what we were doing, we staked out a mini dune that was about 150 feet high. Robby and Carol definitely needed a few times going down the hill to get the hang out the board while I apparently am a natural and only fell once in about 14 turns. The sit down board was also fun, but I had lots of issues with trying to steer it and ended up in the bushes that bordered our little sand dune. Over all, I'd say sand-boarding is a lot of fun, similar to snowboarding, but instead of being wet at the end of your day, you discover sand in places it should never be.
We dusted off as much as we could before boarding the bus back to our hostels for a shower before dinner. All three of us ended up a quaint cevicheria that made delicious food. It also helped that it was a few blocks away from both our hostels, so we didn't have to walk all the way back down the hill.
We finished the evening with a night photo hike through the hills with Renee. He'd just bought a digital dslr and wanted to figure out how to use it. I wanted to see the lights of the houses and photograph some of the graffiti at night, so it was a win-win.
The last and final day of our Patagonia adventure arrived and we spent the morning learning about the unique history of Valparasio's off-beat areas while walking the hills and riding the Trolley Cars. It's the only city in Chile to have buses attached to overhead cables (like San Francisco). Most of the trolleys are from the 60's and brought over from Germany.
We had a very crappy lunch at a restaurant that promised white meat chicken, but ran out after we'd sat down, munched on bread, and ordered wine. The wine was about 10 days old and tasted like stale fruit juice. Our grilled fish arrived fried, over salted, and with skin. Overall, very unsatisfying for a last meal in Chile.
We left extremely unhappy and slightly queasy. Walking back up the hill to retrieve our backpacks from our hostel also ended up being vastly longer and harder than we anticipated because we decided to hop on the nearby funicular and ended up on the opposite side of a massive gorge from where we were suppose to be. We walked up and around, getting to see some of the more urban parts of the neighbors before finally arriving at Renee's.
We thanked him for having us in his home and hopped on a roller coaster bus along the cliff's edge and down the hill to the bus station. Since we had a little time before our bus to Santiago, Robby and I took an elevator (was really an elevator that acted like a funicular) up a nearby hill to look at street graffiti that our tour guide had mentioned. Once at the top of the elevator, we walked back down the hill, admiring the art.
We found a cozy cafe that served amazing milkshakes and we were quite happy to quench our thirst while stepping out of the sun for a bit. Before we knew it, 5:00pm rolled around and we boarded our second to last bus in Chile. A little over 2 hours later, we arrived at the Santiago bus terminal, where we boarded our final bus to the airport.
Our Patagonian adventure month has finally come to an end and Robby and I managed to accomplish everything that we set out to do. Yes, we encountered a couple set backs in our plans: an airline strike, a few border crossings to walk through, thievery attempts, lots of bread, and not so great hostels, but we also got to climb a glacier, walk amongst penguins, eat fresh seafood for really cheap, meet amazing people, and learn a little history. Overall, this was a wonderful trip, adding more memories to our constantly growing collection, and two more pins pushed into our "The Places We've Been" board. Thank you to everyone who's been kind enough to read these past few entries and experience Patagonia with me. Now get out there and have your own adventure - you won't regret it!
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