Yesterday my dad and I decided to get out of Santiago for the day and head to the coast. It was easy and cheap to get a bus to Valparaíso from the Pajaritos bus terminal, and the exchanges I had at the boleterías in the metro stations and bus terminal made me feel for the first time that I might be able to communicate in Spanish! Yes, Spanish, that language I don’t really get but somehow it’s my major!
When we got off the bus in Valparaíso, however, I felt like I had made a terrible mistake. This looked nothing like the picturesque port my guidebook had described! And, I must admit, I’m very dependent on that guidebook. It was cloudy and I felt disoriented, but my dad and I eventually figured out which direction to walk in. We could have taken one of the buses to our destination, the Ascensor Peral (a lift that would take us to the best view in the town), but Valparaíso’s public transportation outright terrified me. The tiny, colorful buses sped around town like they owned the streets, and they made being a pedestrian crossing the street scary enough.
Instead, we ended up getting lost and wandering around for hours. Up some hills, down some hills, and suddenly everything was beautiful. The sun finally made an appearance, too. We were still lost (turns out the map in my guidebook wasn’t so great), but I realized that getting lost was the best part of the day. Up more hills, down more hills. Lots of cobbled steps beside the pink, orange, blue, and yellow houses. I think I got the real experience, though by the time we sat down for lunch at 14:00 I was so exhausted that it took everything I had to conjure up the words “agua—sin gas—por favor—gracias.”
We ended up making it to Cerro Alegre without the lift, as well as Cerro Concepción and some other beyond gorgeous sights. We were supposed to visit Viña del Mar as well, but we never quite made it there. We finally got on a bus to take us back to Santiago, and I slept for the hour and a half journey back.
I must say, the experience was different than expected, and it definitely did not feel like a relaxing day at the ocean. Totally fun, though, and I can’t wait to go back!
The few pictures I took don’t do it justice:
wall art on the side of buildings--much prettier than your average graffiti, no?
A glimpse of the sea
Up and down, up and down
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