Valparaiso, or Valpo for us locals, is the countries cultural capital and a UNESCO city. As I’ve mentioned previously, Chile defies being what you’d expect from a South American country and Valpo turns that up a few notches. Sitting on the Pacific Ocean it is a major port city and the bulk of the city spreads out over several large hills. The hills are so steep that old rickety elevators are scattered
around town to get you to the top. True to its artistic flare, homes are painted in colourful pastels of yellow, green, purple, blue, red… every colour really. And in true Chilean form, one colour isn’t good enough and several homes have different colours on each face of the wall or even multi coloured curtains in the windows. Welcome to Valpo!

Arriving at night to a new city is a little annoying for me. For the most part there are rooms at the first hostal I try for, but on those occasions when you’re knocked
back it’s not all that fun to be wandering around at night in a foreign city with no bearings looking for a place to sleep. Then sometimes something special happens; I rocked up to the hostal and was let in my an elderly little man who beckoned me in. While I waited for the key to my room, I could hear what sounded like an argument. It turned out that his equally elderly wife was sick
and she didn’t want anyone staying. I had no problem with this, and then the
old man lead me out of the hostal and down the street. He was making sure I’d
find another place to stay.

After ringing the doorbell at a hostal two blocks away with no answer, a curtain
parted next door and a smiling womans face appeared. He talked to her for a moment, and after confirming I was good to stay here he parted ways and walked
back off to his home. I was let into this new home, which wasn’t even a proper
hostal as I’d later clue into it, and met Yolanda.

Yolanda didn’t speak any English and with my struggle to understand Chilean Spanish there were a lot of moments of nodding and just accepting what ever it was she was saying. The only time I did understand what she was saying was when she criticised my bed making skills (or lack of) calling them ‘mal’ (‘bad’ in
Spanish) which she then proceeded to spend 10 minutes making the bed the way
she thought was better… which it of course was.

On my last night staying with Yolanda her daughter arrived accompanied with her
hyperactive 5 year old son. She spoke English and translated, and it was nice to hear that Yolanda felt comfortable with me staying with her, and a little surprising to hear that I wasn’t the only tenant – an American student was also staying here who I’d never actually seen until the day I was leaving.

One thing Yolanda didn’t like was the street art in the suburb. I had to completely
disagree. The street art on Conception Hill is amazing. It really showed why
Valparaiso is the cultural capital of Chile, the streets themselves are alive with art. Even shop fronts have beautiful art decorating them and every café, every restaurant just screams art. And not in a pretentious or overly pronounced way, it’s so organically part of the city and running through its veins that you never feel overwhelmed by it, but rather absorbed into it.

Sadly the restaurant scene continued to disappoint, although with one beacon of shining delicious light. The restaurant had crackling jazz playing as though being siphoned from a 1940’s record and I had the most incredible pork steak along with their own brewed beer. It was the first encounter to what would prove to be a popular, if not expensive, dish in Chile – actual pork steaks. Pork rarely made
an appearance on this trip, I have no idea why farming pigs isn’t a big thing, but it’s clearing a thing here in Chile. The pork steaks are huge, wrapped in fat and so good, but just one of the most expensive things you can choose from on the menu. But damnit, it’s worth it!

Near Valpo is the resort town of Vina del Mar, and I jumped on the Metro train and 20 minutes later I was walking around this little city to see what it had to offer. Not really a lot, to be honest, but then again I’m here in the off season and the beaches in Vina looked pretty good, just a little deserted in the colder weather. I did have lunch in a placed called Africa, a restaurant dedicated to eating all things meat. It even had badly stuffed animals decorating the walls. As I gazed up at the giant ape looking fairly pissed off at being killed and stuffed, I ordered a common Chilean meal – WHAT. It’s essentially just carved beef on a bread bun, and of course you can pay more for the optional extras. The menu they handed me didn’t have any explanation of what exactly was on each of the African inspired names, so I just went for the Simple… which literally was beef on a bread bun. I’m a man of simple tastes, so I pretty much enjoyed this and knew this would be my go to food while in Chile.

I decided to walk back to Valpo, a good couple of hours worth of strolling along the ocean front. As I walked up the steep street back to Yolandas house I decided to stop in at a pub. This would have been my pub for this city, but I was leaving the next day so I had only one night here listening to Pink Floyd and drinking
pints of beer for only $1000 pesos. What I didn’t know when I left was the Boca
Juniors were playing Chile, and when, after a depressing dishing of prawns at a
nearby restaurant, I learnt this and I returned to the pub only to find it completely packed with cheering locals. Oh well, probably best not to get drunk with locals watching football on the night before catching a bus.

The next morning I said my goodbye to Yolanda and walked to the bus terminal. 10 minutes after buying my ticket I was on the bus to Santiago, Chiles capital, and
wondered what would await me there.