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So many wonderful group memories were made on my trip to Valparaiso, a port city that is much larger than I had initially imagined. When we arrived after a 3 hour bus ride, my GW friends and I began making our way to our hostel, knowing the general direction was towards the ocean. It was nearly sunset and since I had been sleeping on the bus it was my first time taking a good look around. In one direction, small colorful houses—some buildings with balconies and some shanty houses with tin roofs—stretched up the hills, and in the other direction, down toward the ocean, there were crowds of bustling people, buying the end of the days produce in the street markets, taxis honking, and cyclists yelling.
Once adjacent to the sea, we walked by trains making their way into the sunset. One friend pulled out her phone to check a map. The hostel was still 30 minutes away, and our backpacks began feeling heavier with every step. While the hostel wasn’t far, since we had to climb steep hills, it took a long time. But I didn’t mind at all. We had entered a whole new part of the city in which cobblestones paved streets and sidewalks alike, and every other building was painted in graffiti or murels. We walked up endless staircases in the dusk, stray dogs greeting us at each new corner and cats watching down on us from their perches on rooftops and windowsills.
Our hostel entrance was bathed in a warm yellow light, and once inside, we made hot tea and chatted with some students from France and Germany. The atmosphere was as artsy inside as the streets were outside. We went back out and found a restaurant where we fueled up on chorrillanas (a chilean classic of french-fries topped with sausages, onions, and fried eggs), and we proceeded to wander around and find out what was going on in the center of town on such a fine Friday night.
Our group was large, there were ten of us all together, and it was very obvious that we were foreigners, more specifically “gringos,” as the Chileans always say. I tried hard not to be embarrassed and to just go with the flow of the night, but it was hard for me when some of the group spoke so loudly (and drunkenly) in English. My goal while traveling abroad has always been to explore the culture from a native’s point of view. To achieve this, I try to assimilate and become integrated in the local culture. So it made me cringe a bit when a large portion of the group was completely oblivious to how attention-grabbing their own actions were. Regardless, the night was entertaining and it ended with dancing at a “discoteca” (a chilean club).
The next day, after a delicious breakfast at a cafe with live-music, we set out to visit the museum La Sebastiana—one of the three houses of Pablo Neruda, a famous Chilean poet and politician. We decided to walk, that way we could get a better sense of what the city was like during the day. The artistic vibe of the streets was unmatched to anywhere else I have ever been. I kept stopping to take pictures because even the old broken-down fences had a certain beauty to them that I was itching to capture. Our calves and thighs burned from the steep steps by the time we reached the museum, but the view from the house was worth the pain. The sea glittered in the distance, and I could see every ship for miles. The rainbow array of buildings looked even more spectacular from Neruda’s ship-like house.
The next day was the last of our short trip, and we decided to split up. Part of the group stayed and looked at other museums in Valpo (the nickname of Valparaiso) while the rest of us caught a “micro” (bus) and headed up the coast to the next city over, Viña del Mar. The ride was a bumpy one, since the driver didn’t slow while the street twisted and turned. The buildings became less shanty-looking and I could see more and more hotels and fancy restaurants. Looking to my left, I could see a few surfers trying to catch waves, this was a beach town that didn’t have the same charm of the port city, but was nonetheless active and beautiful.
Our mission was to find the sand dunes that lay a ways up from the town. The walk was longer and hotter than expected, but it wasn’t in vain. At the bottom on the hill, we encountered a vendor with “sand boards” which we promptly rented and trekked up the steep slope to the top. We proceeded to entertain ourselves with the boards, and we slid down as if on a sled or a snowboard. The wonderful trip was topped off with an absolutely incredible meal of ceviche and fresh fish, with plenty of pisco sours and wine. My host mom did tell me before I went that the gringos love taking trips to Valpo, and I can definitely tell why. Although there will be far more tourists in the summer, I would love to go back when it is a bit warmer to explore more of the city and maybe try surfing.
