Valparaiso

Off to the bus station and off to Valparaiso - Chile's oldest and most important port is only 1:30 to the west.

Stray dogs (and there are potentially more here than in Turkey, which is saying something) spend a lot of time conserving their energy by flopping down and napping wherever they feeling like it.  Here's one at the bus station.  Awww.  They're surprisingly non-aggressive (that would take too much energy), and generally just hang out during the day, waiting for people to put their garbage out on the curb in the evenings, when they rip the plastic bags to shreds and chow down.  Sometimes one will try to join you as you're walking, probably out of instinct to join your "pack," but that usually only lasts 1/2 a block.

Some of them really abuse the stray dog privilege, though - this bloated fella parked himself right in the middle of the bus lineup, not caring (or noticing) that hundreds of people had to step over him to board.

Getting to Valparaiso was pretty easy and fast, even though our bus was speed limited to 100 km/h and a loud alarm would go off if the driver exceeded that speed.  We went through the longest vehicle tunnel I've ever been in, and through the white wine region of Casablanca, on the way to the coast.

Valparaiso is set on a huge natural amphitheatre surrounding a bay, and has been an important port for Chile since Europeans first arrived.  The city is a huge jumble of houses cascading randomly down steep hills to the  port and the water below, which makes for a unique looking town.  To get to our hostel, we took one of the city's many old funiculars (ascensors) to the Cerro Conception neighbourhood, formerly where well-off British families lived.

Ascencor Conception - wooden and rickety since 1883!

Not sure what happens if the cable breaks - at least there are two cables

Sarah loves ascensors

View from the top of the ascensor - Chilean naval base as well as a container terminal

View through the side window of our hostel porch

We walked along some of the promenades lining the ascensor-top hills, then down into the old port, which is a bit sketchy and has some not-so-good areas.

Romantic promenade

Not a lot of wiring has gone underground here - yikes

An odd "fake museum" for tourists, in Bavarian style

Our hostel host told us about the statue of justice commissioned for Valparaiso's main courts.  His story goes that it was commissioned long ago from a French guy, who spent a few months in Valparaiso and saw the corruption of the local courts firsthand (the wealthy and politically connected always prevailed, etc.).  So he created a statue of justice with no blindfold - staring wide-eyed and straight ahead - and with the scales of justice tangled irretrievably under one arm.  The local officials were shocked, but the artist excused the lack of blindfold by saying that justice needed to clearly see all available evidence before rendering a decision.  I don't know how accurate that story is, but the statue is hilarious and exactly as described.

Umm, can I be tried in a different court?  Please?

We also climbed the 162 "stairs of death" to a viewpoint and the Thomas Cochrane "museum".  There are a lot of stairs like this around town, but this is probably the longest and straightest set.

Sarah cranks it up Berg Lake Trail style [Sarah: you'll notice that Chad is already at the top  taking the photo!]

Another story from the hostel host (true or not, who knows): Around the time of Chile's independence they realized they needed to have a great navy to survive, since the country averages about 175km wide but is 4000km long, and one of the long sides is coastline.  Thomas Cochrane, a retired British naval officer, was hired to be the first admiral of the Chilean navy (Chile declared independence from Spain, so hiring a long time foe of Spain made sense.)  Streets are named after him, and his naval exploits are celebrated.  When Queen Victoria visited in later years, they told her that the famous Brit Cochrane had lived in a lovely house on a hill, which they kept as a museum - which of course he hadn't, but they wanted to impress her so they set up a temporary museum there.  It's now a nice viewpoint from which to see the port (below).

Looking toward the upscale resort town of Vina Del Mar

When we got to the far end of the port, it was impossible not to notice thousands - actually tens of thousands - of people heading along a street past the port.  (It was a big holiday weekend in Chile.)  So we went with the flow, and it turns out a huge Afro/Latin cultural festival was taking place all along this road, that hugged the port and waterfront for a few kilometres.  Lots of very well-drilled afro/latin equivalents to marching bands performed all down the street, with Brazilian Mardi Gras style dancers in costumes and/or body paint.

People swarming through the port, with tall stages in the background

Music and dancing alongside the container terminal

It was pretty cool, with some great music, but we had heard that things got rowdy and the police had broken up some groups with tear gas the night before, so we decided to head out before things potentially reached that level again.  We wandered back.

Tourist boat port with some boat pilots being ferried to shore

Cats are not nearly as common as dogs

Back at the hostel, we rewarded our long day of walking by opening our emergency tetrapak of wine.

As we were heading out to dinner, we heard live music coming from a church around the corner.  We popped in; 1/2 the church was filled with an enormous latin-influenced folk music ensemble, and they were incredibly good and having a lot of fun.  I wish we had seen the whole performance! (They were part of the IX Festival de Musica Immigrante.)

Ensamble Transatlantico de Folk Chileno

I was super-impressed with the band, which was all-acoustic.  It seemed to be a collection of volunteers, but they were very in sync and sounded wonderful.  There were more musicians than a full symphony orchestra - a whole bunch of strings, about 10 guitarists, a half dozen accordions  flutes/trumpets/saxophones and various other woodwinds, tons of percussion, singers, even two bagpipers.

After that sweet, donation-based musical pick-me-up, we grabbed dinner at a seafood restaurant, also featuring some live music (as many places here do).

Chad and his first pisco sour - the Chilean national cocktail, though Peruvians also claim they invented it

I had a huge bowl of shellfish in tasty fish broth for dinner - I had been craving seafood for some time, and this was just the ticket.

Nothing but fish.  Yum.

And to make my night complete, the acoustic guitar playing singer inserted an acoustic version of "Fade To Black" (by Metallica) in Spanish, though I think I'm the only one in the restaurant who noticed.  Rawk!

It's never too acoustic or too soft for... Metallica?