The City by the Sea

Last Saturday Henry and I caught a bus west to the coast to spend the weekend in the city of Valparaiso, home to one of Chile’s most important seaports. After Chile’s Independence from Spain, the port was opened up to international trade and became a required stopover for trading ships traversing between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. With this traffic the city grew and grew with an influx of European immigrants who had plenty of work in the booming port town. However, the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 sealed Valparaiso’s fate as a second tier port. Ships no longer had the need to sail south around the Strait of Magellan, and the necessity for Valparaiso’s port decreased substantially. 

But fortunately in the past few decades with Chile’s increase in world commerce trade and the construction of ships that exceed the limits of the Panama Canal, Valparaiso has had a slow but steady re-growth of ship traffic in and out of the port.

We arrived in town around 10:30 a.m. after a quick 1 ½ hour bus ride from Santiago. Within a few hours the usual morning cloud cover broke off and we enjoyed a beautiful day touring the colorful city.  I found an English spoken tour online that had some pretty good reviews so we went for it. It was led by an American (ex-mortgage broker) from Georgia who has been living in Chile for the past four years.  His name was Bobby and he led us on a great venture through the city to 8 of the 40+ ‘hill districts’ in Valpo.

Story has it that the reason the houses were painted so bright is that when the locals were finished painting their boats they often had paint left over, and they used the left over to paint their houses. Apparently you can't find two houses side by side of the same color anywhere in the city.

I loved the tangled webs of electric lines strung throughout the city.

Aside from the vibrant colored homes, Valpo is also known for the many murals and ‘graffiti’ painted throughout the city. It is by no means your typical graffiti - these artists create remarkable murals all up and down the streets. Graffiti is not technically allowed in the city by law, but it is accepted by almost all residents and permanently disregarded by the police.

Once our tour came to an end Bobby invited us for a few beers and a bite to eat at one of his favorite local joints.  A few beers turned into a few more and a few more after that (what can we say it was a long walk in the hot Chilean sun) and by 8:00 we decided we had to go somewhere else for dinner to balance out all of the barley pops we acquired in our bellies.  We ended up at Casino Social which claims to be the original creator of the choriana.  They serve nothing there but choriana and drinks.  This dish consists of a mountain of french fries topped with onions, egg and lots of meat.  It was pretty good despite its looks but in that sitting I probably had my fill of choriana for the next year. 

We washed down our meal with a local Valpo beer called 'Barba Negra' (Black Beard) I didn't know he made it all the way down here from the outer banks...

Sunday morning we woke up to both thick cloudcover over the city and thick hangovers (whether it was from the beer or the choriana we’re not quite sure). So we spent a few good hours sittin’ on the dock of Valparaiso bay watchin’ the ships roll in.

We only had a day and a half to spend in the bright city but we’ll surely be returning throughout the winter –There are still many things to see and do that we missed like a ride on the funicular, a tour of Pablo Neruda’s second house, a boat ride to see the sea lions and more. We’ll definitely need a few weekend splashes of color during the long gray winter months of June, July and August in Chile. So Valpo – We’ll be back!