Valpo

After all the excitement during our last day in Santiago we were looking forward to getting to the coastal city of Valparaíso, which we had heard so much about. And on first impressions, you can see why. 

The city itself is built on and amongst around 45 hills of varying sizes. Some so steep that they require feniculars to get up and down them, for when your legs aren't up to the task. 

As we arrived in the evening our first priority was to look for food. After the whole wallet fiasco and the bus journey, we decided to eat out as we didn't really have the energy to find a supermarket and then cook (that was our excuse anyway). We found a nice little micro brewery which did burgers. The beer was good and the food was excellent, so I think we did well. We then made our way back to the hostel, which was just over halfway up a ridiculous flight of stairs on a stupidly steep hill. Stairs we would have to scale at least twice a day for the next few days. 

After being woken up by screaming seagulls, we got up, had breakfast and found the local supermarket for a bit of a food shop. We spent the afternoon on one of the recommended walking tours of the city. Our guide was a young and enthusiastic Chilean guy, with a bit of an American accent, who you could tell loved living in the city. The tour was very informative and was interesting learning about how it was once one of the most important port cities in the world. Mainly because it was used as a stopover for sailors to enjoy the bars and brothels whilst en route to America for the gold rush. The tour took us up hills and down alleyways where we were shown a lot of graffiti and murals done by local artists. We heard more about the dictatorship and hiked up more steps. Apparently there is a set of over 300 steps known as 'the stairs of death', due to a drunk local who had decided, halfway up, that he could go no further and slept where he had got too. On awakening the next day and taking his first step, he slipped and tumbled back down to his death, so probably quite an appropriate name for them. 

Our second day was spent mooching about the city. After gaining a couple of companions, in two stray dogs, we set about the hills in search of the cultural centre. We came across a place that could've been it, but there were no signs and hardly any people, except a few security guards, so we rejoined our new friends and carried on. Due to needing to use one of the many feniculars around the city, we had no choice but to abandon our little guides. That and the fact they were offered food by another passerby...so fickle. We found a nice restaurant on top of a hill with a good view to have lunch. This was all good except there was a wall of fog coming in from the sea which limited our view. After this we climbed further into the hills in search of a famous poets house (so famous we have no idea what his name was), but it was shut. So after an unsuccessful trip we descended back down the steep hills via a few walkways to look at some more murals, although the majority of these had been graffitied over with absolute tosh. After a brief stop for ice cream we returned to the hostel. 

After walking the ridiculous hills of Valparaíso, I feel we should have no problems tackling the Inca Trail as I doubt some of that will be as challenging as some of the streets here.