The street art of Valparaiso

I woke up late again at 9.30am. We went out for breakfast to a nice cafe, much closer to a New Zealand cafe than cafe Melba was. I had an enormous degustation of salmon eggs benedict, coffee, juice and warm brownie with ice-cream. The final of the football world cup was playing.

I packed up all my belongings except the yoga mat and Death Road neck warmer. I said goodbye to Susie and Joao, heading off in an Uber towards the bus station. The uber driver presumed I could speak Spanish and continued to talk to me even though.

I indicated I couldn’t understand. The bus station was busy and filled with the same stalls over and over again. A lovely lady sold me a ticket and told me where to go.
Just minutes before we were meant to leave, the right branded bus rolled into the station. It was another ultra-luxury bus with massive plush reclining seats. I settled in for the two hour drive, almost wishing it was longer!

We left the haze and smog of Santiago, eventually reaching clearer skies. The area around the bus station in Valparaiso seemed quite dodgy, with lots of homeless people. There were no taxis and my phone said the hostel was 1km away, so I walked. I was glad to find the colourful villa, painted with cool murals inside. It has really nice facilities, with a rooftop area, lounge and big kitchen.

I am the only person in my room, although there are lots of groups of other people here. After arriving, I went for a quick walk around the main square near the hostel. There was some kind of children’s fair on. Then I popped into the supermarket and bought some veges for dinner plus a wine for 1,500 (about $3).

I spent the evening just relaxing, booking some accommodation for Pucon and looking into ski resorts. I cooked myself dinner and edited photos, while a group of German boys played chess, some Chileans talked about a party, a girl learnt gin on cards and an Australian played guitar covers of Wonderwall and Justin Beiber.

I got up and had breakfast around 9am in the hostel. It was bread with dulce de leche and coffee. There was another solo girl there looking at walking tour flyers. I asked if she was going to do one and she was. Her name is Ottavia and she was from Italy, we walked to the tour together.

There I met lots of other girls, a kiwi called Alex who started following me in Instagram last night! A girl from London called Omams, a Somali girl from Sydney and the Japanese girl who had been on our star tour in San Pedro.

The tour was kind of random, we caught a bus up to the top of Valparaiso’s hills and then saw the old prison (now a cultural centre), the first cemetery and some of the lower street art. But the weather was great and the other people were really nice. I ended up having lunch with the other girls at this big outdoor restaurant in a carparking lot. I had a burger and chips.

Then we caught one of the ‘boat tours’. I was expecting a nice ferry, but it was actually a tiny boat that looked like it was going to sink so there were many people were on it. Somehow we crammed aboard into seats so small my knees touched the seat in front. Then we were treated to a man barking information about the port’s technical capacities in Spanish, while another man behind us sung the words aloud on his iPod. I couldn’t stop laughing.

It was late afternoon so I walked home with Alex and Ottavia through the cerros covered in murals.

Back at the hostel, I cooked a delicious mushroom pasta with broccolli. I was just quietly finishing my red wine, when two British guys and an Irish girl invited me to join their table. They had just met, but had cooked chops and veges together. At some point it seemed like a great idea to go to the supermarket for more cheap red wine.

We ended up playing cards, I won one game of something similar to scum before becoming so tipsy I couldn’t even play snap because my reflexes were so slow. The others went out and I stayed in for an early night. When I woke at 5am for the bathroom, two people were in my empty room. I assumed it was the British boys, and had left my clothes everywhere. Actually, it was a Chilean boy and an older Chilean woman.

They both left before me. I had a very leisurely breakfast with Jon from 9am-10.30am. At that point I had to pack and check-out. Around midday I headed out to Cerro Alegre and Concepcion to take a closer look at the street art. It was completely quiet with no one around – a strong contrast to yesterday! I easily took some pictures on the piano stairs and had a coffee in a little cafe with a view.

I was hungry now, so I walked around the Lonely Planet recommended restaurants, eventually going to a small Japanese place that sold ramen. It was really good food! It was around 2pm so I started heading for the free walking tour, when I ran into Omams. We doubled back, found a place for her to eat her packed lunch and then went down together.

This tour covered more of the main attractions (which I’d actually seen yesterday), street art and explained certain pieces, but everyone on it was a couple apart from one Danish lady who had lived in Auckland for a year. I chatted to her and Omams. We got to ride one of the funiculars and eat an alfajores (like a toffee pop with dulce de leche).

I walked home with Omams and said goodbye. Then I treated myself to half a bag of chips and some cup noodles! Ottavia left and I said goodbye to her too. Now I’m getting ready to head to the bus.