Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso

Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso
January 16-25 (9 days)

After bidding chiao chiao to Santiago (note: no-one, anywhere says Adios, or Hasta La Vista baby here - they clearly have not watched Terminator), and saying goodbye to our decadent hotel, we started the slumming it part of the trip by heading to Vina Del Mar, about a 3 hour drive north of Santiago. Chile has got a first class transportation system and you really do travel comfortably - no rickety-rackety death traps round here (yet!). It almost feels like you are doing it too easy, and I'm assuming our Sydney state transport ministers went to a different school of politics than our Chilean friends.

Upon arriving in Vina Del Mar, we were picked up by "crazy Mirta", who was to be our host for the next 9 days. Mirta ran a family hostel in Vina, and spoke as much english as I (Ben) do Spanish - i.e. hardly a brass razoo. Mirta was highly flappable, very eccentric, and couldn't stop talking - an absolute crack up. Mirta's hostel also became a place where we got a taste of actually what it might be like to live in Chile. We originally went for 2 nights, decided we'd do some intensive Spanish lessons in Vina, and ended up staying for 10. We were based off the main city streets out of tourist zones and had a self-contained room that felt like our own unit. It was all highly domesticated, even if it required creativity in a kitchen the size of an airplane toilet and a lack of luxory items like salt and oil.

Vina Del Mar sits on the coast-line of Chile and has long stretches of beaches that are heavily populated even on overcast days, and each beach is an eclectic mix of rainbow coloured umbrellas, merchants selling ice cream, water and beach toys, and girls and boys in skimpy swimwear - no budgie smugglers coming out from here though! On our first day of arriving in Vina Del Mar we met some Argentinians in our hostel who took us to Renaca beach, the most popular beach. Renace, like most Vina beaches, is for sunbaking not swimming as the waves are all dumpers amongst a competing body of rips, and the water often plunges from waist height to metres deep in the space of centimetres. Not that this stops people jumping straight in of course - but us beach-hardened Australians are far too smart for that.

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The city of Vina Del Mar itself is, like Santiago a very safe tourist-friendly place and very well policed - in fact they are everywhere, on horses and dirt bikes (true!). Chelle and I were trying to think of how we'd describe Vina and along the beach coast-line we would call it the love child of the Gold Coast, and inner city Sydney - trendy, tanned, hot and slightly identity challenged. There are skyrisers lining the horizon in all directions and there's plenty of obviously touristy set-ups for cafes and restaurants and the token casino on the beach. There's also, however, some upmarket shopping and dining to be had. It's an interesting mix, which often shares only one common denominator - Sydney prices.

Away from the coastline Vina Del Mar has wide open streets, with a market stall to be had every few metres and street performers EVERYWHERE: clowns, jugglers, fire twirlers, puppeteers - even some Australian dancers!! (OK - that may have been us). Interestingly a lot of the performers choose the traffic lights as their chosen stage, waiting for the red light before starting a quick 2 minute routine. Certainly beats those windscreen washers, and I'm thinking I might be writing Sydney council a suggestion letter.

We were also fortunate to be in Vina on the night of the Chilean elections when Pinera - the billionaire harvard trained economist - got voted in as president, marking the first time the right had got back in power for about 5 decades. We went down to the CBD of Vina to be a part of the atmosphere and crazi-ness that surrounded it. Horns were honking consistently for hours and flags were everywhere. It felt more like a soccer match than a political election - I guess us Australians just don't care enough to get this excited about politicians.

About 15 minutes from Vina Del Mar - and in some ways a world away - is the port town of Valparaiso. Whereas Vina can often be quite monotone, Valparaiso is an explosion of colours in all directions. It has high built narrow streets with walls covered in street graffiti, and is peppered with hostels, art galleries and cafes once you start exploring away from the main plaza. A very eclectic artisan style city, it also boasts the funiculurs, cable railways that date back to late 19th century and assist with transportation up some of the steep hills that surround the city. Many are part of the historic quarter of Valparaiso which has been protected by UNESCO.

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Whilst one can get lost in randomly walking the streets of Valparaiso, it also does not feel like a safe city at night, and so our visits there consisted primarily of day trips. We were lucky in our timing as the annual Valparaiso Vivo ("I live") festival was on, and on the last day a parade is held down the main streets of the city which feels like a mini Rio Carnival. People come from all around South America for it, and form a mix of drummers, dancers, floats and musicians. It's an energising atmosphere and helps to make up for some of our pain at not being able to be in Brazil for Carnivale over the next month.

The carnivale ended our domesticated Chilean experience and it was time to catch an overnight bus 14 hours south to Pucon for some adventure and to really get stuck into travelling.

So ... to Pucon we go!
Love
Ben and Chelle