Valparaíso - "Little San Francisco"

My two new European bffs and I decided to take a trip to the coast for the weekend. We met up at the Universidad de Santiago bus station on Saturday and booked a 2.5 hour bus ride to Valparaíso. You never realize how convenient cell phones are until you don’t have one. Even though I knew the time and the place where we were to meet, what if something happens and you are going to be 10 minutes late? You hope they wait, or you are screwed. Luckily, it hasn’t burned me yet. So we booked tickets on Tur-Bus, I think it cost around $3.000 each. I slept for some of the bus ride because the scenery wasn’t that exciting between the two cities.

Valpo had a very different vibe from Santiago, and you could feel it when we first arrived. It is a port town and all available waterfront has gone to the navy, cruise lines, harbor tours, barges and docks. The city rests on a bunch of very steep hills (cerros) and only has about three blocks worth of streets that are flat before the drop off of the harbor. All of the houses were painted in solid vivid colors. Supposedly this started when people had leftover paint for their boats. There were a few high rise buildings in the flat section leading up to the hills, but once you hit the 20 degree grade (yes, they were that steep), it was all one and two story houses and shops. The hills are so steep that they have vernaculars (that is an English word and no, I’d never heard it before either) to take you up the hills if you didn’t want to hoof it. Basically, they are like elevators on rails instead of a cable that go from top to bottom.

We didn’t have a set plan, and there aren’t that many ‘attractions’ in the city, so we got a map and started walking around to get our bearings. Carolien asked a random chileno for directions in Spanish, and he did his best to explain for about two minutes. He saw that we weren’t getting it and said in almost perfect English, “Can I just tell you in English? Because that would be easier.”

We had a good laugh about that… as it turns out, he had studied in the US for a semester and had an American girlfriend. His name was Francisco and he was born and raised in Valpo. He told us where we needed to go, and then invited us out that night for his friend’s birthday party. Talk about lucky! We picked this random guy, and now we had a plan for the evening and I could get a taste of the real chileno nightlife.

We wandered around the city for a bit and started to get hungry. We found this tiny little empanada shop on Calle Urriola with two older ladies behind the counter. It may have been because I was hot, hungry and a bit tired, but that was one of the best meals and definitely the best empanada I’ve ever eaten. They were made to order and you could put pick pretty much any ingredient to stuff inside. Delicioso.

After that we made our way to the Hostal Polanco, a hostel that was recommended by one of Kristine’s friends. I had never stayed in a hostel before, but it was about what I imagined. There was a kitchen, lounge area, dining room, one bathroom and 4 dorm rooms with 5 or 6 beds. We were lucky enough to get a room that had no one else in it for the night, so we didn’t have to worry about our stuff getting stolen (which was a concern of mine). It was on the dirty side, which is something I am not used to. I think it is typical for a hostel though, so if you are a neat freak and need a clean bathroom to shower in, I would recommend getting a hotel (although in Valpo, I don’t remember seeing any).

We dropped off our packs and went to walk around some more. The best thing about the city is the graffiti. I use the term lightly because it’s really noncommissioned street art. Almost every available street-facing wall space is covered in beautiful and colorful murals of every imaginable style. Walking the streets was more like going through a modern art gallery - around every corner was a new masterpiece.

It was time for dinner before we knew it and we got a few recommendations from locals (in Spanish) to a place that was just a short walk from the hostel. It served typical chileno food and could only seat about 30 people. There only happened to be two other parties there, so the place was relatively quiet (except for the Americans behind us… stupid gringos). As my European friends met in Spanish class and were still studying during the week, I suggested that we do our best to order in Spanish although the waitress spoke some English. I have come to discover that everyone is very enthusiastic when I explain to them “Mi espanol es muy malo, pero quiero practicar.”

A few other waiters came over since there was hardly anyone there, and we asked a lot of questions about typical food, what was in it, and did our best to understand. Sometimes they had to switch to English, but they obviously enjoyed sharing their culture with us. We got a bottle of carmenere, an appetizer of some kind of brushetta along with three different main courses. Mine had mussels, fish and a few things hard to decipher mixed into a creamy broth that was really good. After dinner we were treated to a drink on the house. It wasn’t that good, but it was interesting to try. The liquor was clear but had herbs in the bottle. It wasn’t minty, but had a very distinct flavor. Saludos for the gesture though.

Carolien got Francisco’s cell phone number, so we called him and walked to a major intersection at the bottom of a cerro to meet up (without a cell phone, I don’t think we would have been able to find him... +1 for technology). We walked to a pub and met his friends at a low key pub. Francisco introduced us to vino con frutillas: iced red wine mixed with strawberries and sugar. He ordered a whole pitcher of it and passed it around to everyone although we already had drinks of our own. It was… ok.

The next stop was a disco. As you know, my hobbies are ping pong, sun bathe, watch women make toilet, and disco dance. There was a small cover to get inside, but it got you a free drink. Or, you could just let us in for free and we can buy drinks. Whatever. One room was playing house style music (ick, flashbacks to Bar Constitución, get me away) while the other had popular dance songs (some chileno music, Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, etc.)

Francisco’s friends were really cool and we had a good time dancing and talking. It wasn’t that much different from a club in the States, except for the stupid bar lines. There were quite a few gringos there to my surprise, but I guess when people travel through Chile, they only spend a few days in Santiago and then come to Valpo and Viña del Mar (definitely worth the trip if you find yourself in Santiago). A lot of people were still going strong in the disco, but we wanted to be functional on Sunday. We ended the night around 3 am with a stop at a food cart for completes. These are very popular low end cuisine, comprising of a hot dog with cole slaw, pureed avocado and loads of mayonnaise. They had me until the mayo, but I took a bite of one anyway.

We didn’t get up until around 11 am and checked out of the hostel. A different woman was working, and she arbitrarily raised the rate $1000 pesos, saying that was the standard price. I wasn’t going to argue, because we thought it was going to cost $10 US, and now it was going to cost $12. Kristine was pretty pissed, but I wasn’t going to sweat it.

We had one more thing to do in Valpo before we hit the beach at Viña del Mar – a boat tour. From what I could tell, there were 3 companies all vying for your business, waving their arms and walking up to you to get on their boat because it was the best. We settled for one that looked almost full for $1500, little did I know they were going to cram 10 more people on it after us. We sat on benches toward the back and I really hoped I wouldn’t get seasick. And I couldn’t be the only gringo on the boat AND the only one to get sick. I keeps it real. They flung each of us a life vest that went around your neck and tied at the waist. Little kids, well… they were out of luck. No baby life vests. Parents didn’t seem to care though.


Our boat tour guide was apparently pretty funny because all of the other passengers were laughing at things he said. The jokes were lost on us. I understood a few clips every now and then, especially when they stopped the boat and asked if everyone wanted to pitch in more money so it lasted an hour instead of just a half hour. No, gracias. We drove by some massive ships, saw some sea lions and got a beautiful view of the city from the water.

There is a tram that runs right along the coast and connects Valparaíso with Viña del Mar. After about a 15 minute ride that took us to a station in downtown Viña, we headed to the beach. The city was so much different from Valpo… there were palm trees, wide avenues, high rise condo towers and parks along our way. It looked more like Miami. I was told that all of the well-off people in Valpo move to Viña.

The beach was somewhat crowded, but it is still early in the summer season. It was definitely hot, but the water was cold from the Antarctic current. I was really tempted to change into my trunks and lay around on the beach with Carolien and Kristine, but none of us had any sunscreen and I didn't want to look like a lobster the next day. I also wasn’t too keen on being all gross for the return bus ride later on. Instead, I decided to walk around the city. I told the girls that I would meet up with them in a few hours.

I didn’t see all that much that was interesting. The streets were packed with restaurants, hotels and boutiques. There were a lot of families and small children, probably on vacation. I got some gelato (very popular here) and sat down on a bench in the shade because it was pretty hot. I got approached by two gypsies that wanted to read my fortune, but I just said, "Lo siento, no comprendo." One walked away mumbling something, I think to the effect of 'You understand, alright.'

After a few minutes of relaxation I met up with the girls and we took the tram back to Valpo and walked to the bus station. After another nap we were back in Santiago and I was ready for another work week. These two places should be on your MUST SEE list if you ever make your way down here.