Valparaiso

After four nights in Santiago we took a bus an hour and a half to the west coast of Chile to visit the city of Valparaiso.

Valparaiso is a port city and is known for its street art and quirky houses. It has incredibly steep streets and has many funiculars installed around the city to get up the hills without having to climb huge flights of stairs. It kind of reminded us of a massive, overcrowded, colourful Wellington from a distance.

There are 42 hills, each with its own suburb area. There are two particularly European influenced neighbourhoods which have many nice restaurants, bars and artisan craft shops. These two neighbourhoods are the ones recommended to tourists to visit due to their safety. The other neighbourhoods are not as safe, especially at night and some are even no go zones during the day. We had heard many stories of crime and violent muggings taking place in Valparaiso so we made sure we only stuck to the areas our hostel told us were safe.

Spending time in the nicer neighbourhoods made us forget that it is in fact a very poor city and when we took a local bus to visit poet Pablo Neruda’s house it was made very clear by the amount of slum style neighbourhoods we drove through.

The houses are painted different colours because when the Spanish sailors arrived they all built their houses out of brown adobe brick, which when they got drunk at the port after being at sea, was very difficult to find which house was theirs.

The city also has a high percentage of pescatarians, vegetarians and vegans, who strongly apposed the Mc Donald’s when it opened a couple of years ago. We were told due to animal welfare standards of the meat used people threw rocks at it every day until it closed and never reopened. There is also a high recycling and reusing mindset where things aren’t thrown away and are repurposed, like old toilets and baths as planters.

We took a walking tour to see some of the street art in the city and this is when we took all of the photos on the camera. We kept the camera at home at other times we went out, but as always a bit of common sense made sure we were ok. We even had a couple of beers out one night and walked home safely.

The street art is really amazing and is done in three different ways;

1. The artist approches the house owner of the wall/fence etc., pitches their idea and they each share the cost or the owner pays for it if they like it or vice versa.

2. The artist approaches the council for public spaces, they pitch their idea and if the council approves they share the cost.

3. The artist doesn’t seek any permission and works through the night in secret at their own cost and if they paint an artwork that is colourful enough the city usually loves it.

The hostels here in Chile are really excellent. The staff are knowledgable of the local areas, they serve awesome breakfasts and are super clean and secure.

Below are some of our favourite street art photos as well as pictures of the city.

On the funicular to get up to the safe zone