24 hours in Valparaíso

Well, I just a really good 24 hours in Valpo, as it is known, and the neighbouring posh seaside resort of Viña del Mar. I went to Valpo with an Argentinian girl called Claudia who was going to meet some American friends she had made.

Valpo sits on the coast about 2 hours west of Santiago, built around a series of hills rising up from the coast. It has a network of ascenores or funiculars, to take you up the steepest hills. They are all about 100 yars old and so are as rickety as you like. The ascensor Concepcíon:



We arrived and caught a bus to Cerro Alegre, one the nicer hills where there are a lot of hostels. We found beds in a dorm in an OK hostel overlooking the port (and most of the Chilean Navy). There was a 2km walk around Cerro Alegre and Concepcíon that we tried to follow but ended up at La Sebastiana, another home of the famous Pablo Neruda. Like his other house, it was inspired. From that part of town, the view:



We then headed to Viña del Mar to meet the Americans. These guys turned out to be amazing surfers (from Hawaii and California), totally tanned and male model-esque (sorry girls, no photos!). They also appears to have had a Bill and Ted personality transplant - here's the conversation when I met them:
"Hi Christian, I´m Pete, how are doing?"
"Hey bro, like how´s it hanging dude, I´m like totally stoked to meet you. Dude."
We had a really good chat about all the amazing surf things he did (only happy catching "sick" barrels on 10-16 faces but could surf up to 25ft waves, along with his pro-surfer buddies).

After a very late dinner we headed to a club back in Valpo until the early hours. This was really good fun, great atmosphere, very Latino music.

After far too little sleep we headed back out to explore a bit more of the town, and found the ascensor polanca which goes up at the end of a 100 metre tunnel through the rock - here´s me there:



When we had reached to top we headed back into downtown, visiting the Plaza Sotomayor before heading off. Valpo was devasted by an earthquake in 1906, so few old buildings survive, and what do tend to be next to some very modern structures:



So now I´m back in Santiago, staying at the excellent Bellavista hostel, heading to Mendoza overnight tonight. I´ll be starting an expedition to climb Aconcagua on the 27th, all things being OK, that will take 3 weeks. Then I´ll fly down to Tierra del Fuego and start heading north.