Back at home, when we were planning our trip, we told to ourselves that if we have to wait for the car for a few days, we would visit Valparaíso, Mendoza and maybe Córdoba. We've been in Santiago for three long weeks and... well, you can imagine how much time was left for travelling around.
As we needed to head south, we had just 24 hours to spend, but decited to go for it. We visited Valparaiso on our way from Atacama desert - arrived late at night, found a place with a view of the city and this view greeted us in the morning. Valparaíso did not let us down.
For those of you that don't know, Valparaíso is Chile's second biggest town and a very important port as well. A Unesco Heritage site and home to "Porteños" (don't say Valparaisoanos, it sounds weird and they don't like it), it's a wonderful maze of small cobbled streets, stairs and most importantly - street art. Expect to walk quite a lot uphill - it's conveniently located on 45 seaside hills :) Pablo Neruda wrote that if we walked all Valparaiso’s stairs, we would make a trip around the world. But that what makes it beautiful and special.
The main square
As I mentioned, Valpo's main attraction is it's street art - the streets are absolutely full of it! As Valparaíso is and was a port town, it received many immigrants from almost all of the europian countries during the history, so the diversity is fascinating. The "Murals" have different meanings, from political, historic, sexual or just painting - it all adds up to the wonderful experience of just walking around the streets in Valpo.
Murals in Valpo are simply fascinating. If you are a fan of street art, you're at the right place.
Houses on the hills have wonderful rich colors - back in time, paint was expensive so they used what was left from the ships in the port.
Apart from it's artsy feeling, Valpo is well known for one other thing - Trolleys. It's the only Chilean city with Trolleybuses, and they have the second oldest Trolleybus-system in South America. We had a ride in one of these and it was quite cool - we might be used to them from our own country, but this Pullman Standard 43-CX would get anyone. It was made in 1953 and it's still making it's way around Valparaíso. :)
That's all for today! See you next time... oh wait, picture of a happy cat first. :)
