Leaving New Zealand was pretty hard. The amount of beautiful scenery, the memories, sunsets, adventures, wonders, forests, I could just go on and on, we were allowed to witness was mind blowing. But the Travels have to go on. We both tried to be as excited as possible, hey its a new continent, South America, everyone who has been, told us how great it is. So we shouldn't be too sad.
We got lucky and had some emergency seats on the plane, after a little scare on the check in desk when the very friendly LAN employee couldn't find our booking, anyway finally on and settled in our seats we were on our way to country number six. Wow time flies. The flight was a usual one for me. I couldn't sleep a minute and instead watched a lot of movies and TV series, read a bit and... watched some more. No wonder I was totally destroyed landing in Santiago.
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| Our "Stammtisch" at Conception |
I kind of prepared myself that the South American efficiency might not remind me of my home country with "mañana mañana " being one of their favourite phrases. To my surprise we managed to get off the plane, through customs and pick up our luggage in less than 20 minutes !!!!
Very impressive.
Now we only had to pick up our pre booked pick-up truck and off, we would hit the road, to Valparaiso for our first 4 days.
Shame it wasn't as easy as that. The car rental people gave us our first 'mañana mañana treatment'. First they took ages to do the paperwork and than they couldn't find our car...an HOUR later we cancelled our booking (meanwhile I was nearly asleep on our luggage trolly ) and booked a simple car with another company.
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| Pisco sour |
The drive to Valparaiso was apparently very nice, I couldn't keep my eyes open I tried but I couldn't. As we arrived, I think apart from being very tired, we were a bit shocked. I mean we kind of knew that we would visit the biggest and most important harbour city of Chile, and I had the feeling the clouds didn't help, but what I could see from the car was exceptionally ugly!
But we know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover or something like that. Arrived at our small hotel up on one of the hills, this city is famous for, we appreciated a wonderful view of the harbour from our room.
For dinner we decided to take it easy and just go to a cosy restaurant next door, where we ended up dining 3 out of 4 nights as the food was just exceptionally good.
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| On the far left is our hotel room and on the little balcony on the right was our favourite dinner place |
The following 4 days were about relaxing and catching up with the good old blog-writing, sorting out photographs and doing some exercise. Which meant that we hardly left our hotel room in the first 3 days. Jet lag had me totally messed up I hardly could sleep before 5 in the morning which obviously made the days a bit sleepy and so on.
For the last day, before we would go back to Santiago, we wanted to book a city tour, we had to give this place a chance, and found "Michael the German Pirate" over trip advisor, who took us on a 7 hour walking tour around town. Which I would like to share with you here:
Please imagine all the photographs with a blue sky.
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We went on a little walk after dinner on our first night.
That's where i discovered the first few pieces of street art |
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| You will see that these artists use any little corner to paint or print |
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| I was very impressed with this persons iron work |
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| The first image of our walking tour with Mike the german pirate. He knows a lot of people so he took us into little hostels or B&Bs to meet the owners. |
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| Nice bike |
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It was 10am and very misty, I was hoping so badly that the sun would come out at any point of the day.
This is hill Concepcion |
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| Another spray print, might be the same artist as above |
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| Some of these street kids are so talented |
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| If these streets would't be so colourful and the Valparaisiens wouldn't paint their houses it would be quite a miserable place especially on a grey day like this. |
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| One of many many street dogs, there must be thousands here.. |
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| Just cool, I love all these layers of colour |
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| More orgasms less beatings |
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| Alex: Spend some time and look at the lady......interesting |
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| Here you can get a little bit the idea of how much nicer this would have been with just a little bit of sunshine |
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| Alex: (Sailor on right) "So I said to him, I said, Thar she blows!......" |
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| I really liked this house, shame no one seems to feel the same way as me |
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| The trolleybus they are very proud of them |
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| Alex at the stock exchange... |
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| Alex: Harold the Serenading Security Guard - he sang "Only You" to us in the "pit" of the Valparaiso Stock Exchange |
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| ...and trying to win the lottery to extend our travels. |
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The Bank.
I thought these kind of counters exist only in movies |
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| They do call this tower Big Ben..not sure why |
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Guess what........ these shops are all hairdressers...in one shopping mall layout...one next to the other!
how on earth could they think that would work??? |
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| Just beautiful |
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| As I told you before any little corner gets used to be creative, even the pipes |
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| Alex: Not sure what to write about this......but I liked it :) |
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| This is one of the famous "paintings" which made it into the museum...I don't really get it ! |
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| Even the rust is artistic...can you see the shape of a woman? |
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| A hommage to an artist that committed suicide not 50m from this mural. We met his mother by chance at the mural on the 1st anniversary of his death |
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| Another one of the famous one's who made it into the museum |
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| Blue sky would have been lovely |
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| The one on the building at the back made it into the museum as well |
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| Random |
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| Little coffee stop in someones house |
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| Alex: Valparaiso has spent nearly 80 years in a depression (that damned Panama Canal!) and in the last 10 years has tried to dig its way out....with private enterprise springing up everywhere |
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| Alex: Spouting rubbish again |
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| Alex: Hey....YOU! You lookin' at my car? Back off man...this is OUR car! |
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| 50 Shades of Rust |
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| have a close look which order is written on this window |
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| Alex: I saw this and my first thought was "Oh look....Charlie Chaplin!"......yeah right ;o) |
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| Alex: Such a beautiful car kept behind bars |
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| Alex: For those that know Bordeaux....you'll know why we took this photo |
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| I really liked this little cafe/shop |
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| Alex: The Stairway to Heaven is closed for repairs! |
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| That just made me smile |
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| I let Alex explain this....Alex: it's NOT the best view......the guy with the terrace next door (on the left in the picture) has a better view! |
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| Lobster Birds......they were all over the place |
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| Roast lamb anyone? Mmmmmmm....looks like something off of Aliens |
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| Mike brought us in this academy of art, the old man was not very happy that I took a Photograph. Well |
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| Alex: "You don't mind if I just slide my blue building into yours do you?" |
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| So this is very interesting. Guess what kind of building this grey concrete block is....Alex: This building is the bleakest building in Valparaiso...it's also a family health clinic....not sure if that's ironic or just unsettling |
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| Two dogs playing with... |
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| ....what we later figured out is a spiderwasp! |
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| Alex: The sign says (basically) "Vote for George, he's a nice person"....this is the current Mayor's electoral campaign poster. Got to love a place where being a nice person gets you the vote! |
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| Not quite sure what I've been photographing there |
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| Alex: I just had to have a photo of a big, colourful cock |
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| One of the newest street art pieces...we called it "Suicide" |
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| I wasn't exaggerating street dog wise |
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| Alex: You just can't imagine how brutally ugly this town would be without all the effort that has gone into the street art here. |
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| Another one of the famous painter |
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| Love those postboxes |
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| Dinner again...same spot |
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| Our last evening |
On our last morning the sun came out and magically changed the place, what a difference it makes. Watch for yourselves
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| A condor outside our window |
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| Alex: "Urrrrrggggghhhhh! God, it's so wrong, but it feels so good!" |
I really hope you enjoyed the little City tour.
See you in Santiago x
