DAY 122
We hear about a free jazz festival and start the day by getting our tickets for the next day. The city has a lot street art and is perfect for walking randomly and getting lost. It's a taxing thing as it's stuck between the see and countless cerros or hills ;) The guide talks about an outdoor graffiti museum so we head there. It's meh, we actually like the unreferenced one better. We'll learn later that it was a project not involving street artist but art students... That's why it's so academical. Once again a dog adopted/escorted us throughout the whole visit of the outdoor museum. We part ways in town.
Tonight we do something we haven't done for month... Going to see a movie, in a cinema! I read the Martian a few month ago and was super exited to learn the movie was about to be released. The book is a lot of fun and I even got Mar to read it ;) We have some time before the show so we go walk on the waterfront. Deception! But not so surprising. Valparaiso (Valpo for the locals) was a commercial port from the get go and the seafront is packed with storehouses, train tracks, etc... To the north towards Viña del Mar is where one can enjoy access to the beach.
The movie was fun, of course they take shortcuts but it keeps the essence. If you liked it though read the book, you'll enjoy it! It was the perfect night to go to the cinema on top of that, there's Brazil-Chile tonight and everyone is watching it obviously. We go for a quick bite right after the movie and the game is still on. It's still a draw but our added support (what else??) gives Chile its first goal and a second one to secure the victory. The locals go nuts as they haven't beaten Brazil in a long time.
DAY 123
We have a sleepy morning once again. We really finished Africa tired and we reached the 3-4 month mark. According to common wisdom, that's when you start to get tired of traveling and have to slow down. When we finally leave the hostel it's lunch time already. We check out the oldest bar in town. Bar Liberty was founded in 1893. It was originally a sailors' bar for whoring and drinking. It's still shabby and the patrons look surprised to see us. We try the bar's specialty, a monstrous cholesterol bomb made mainly of French fries and cheese. The beer to wash it down is mandatory ;)
After some more walking about randomly, we head to the Jazz concert. There's already a line but we get in for the first session. The first group is meh, not so much jazz on top of that but some kind of world music. The 2nd is really good though. It's a Chilean guy now living in France and they play pieces of his from different periods. Very interesting to see the evolution of his style overtime.
DAY 124
It's Saturday and the cerro Concepcion where we have our hostel also happens to be the more touristic one. It was quiet the two previous days but they were not lying when they told us that they are invaded by people from Santiago every weekend. And they insist on using their car to go everywhere in town creating huge traffic jams. With its geology, Valpo is not meant for heavy car traffic but some people (I'm looking at you SUV/big car owner) just cannot walk...
Since "our" ;) part of town is overrun we head to a less touristic one. With all these hills, local have from the beginning installed public elevators. It's usually a hybrid between an elevator and a cable car (San Francisco, USA). It does not got straight up but in an steep angle and it has train tracks to keep it steady. The one named Polanco is different. It's a 150m tunnel dug in the hill with a regular elevator at the end. Sadly for us it's closed. It has been under repair for some time and should have been back in service but they don't know when it's going to happen.
We have a look at the tunnel and climb the hill using a tested and proven technique: the stairs. Some of the graffiti along the way are really nice and it's yet another vista point on the city. Back down we head for "Baron", another cerro. The elevator there works, yeah! It's located at the northern end of the bay and the view is really good, as advertised.
It's time for dinner already and Caleta Portales is a short train ride away. With the fish market and lots of restaurant, it's supposedly the place to eat fish in Valpo. The waiter in the fancy restaurant in Santiago recommended one of them but we fail to find it and end up having the worst restaurant in a while. Nothing is fresh and we barely touch the food. Very unhappy we let it be known to the staff and eventually get a refund. Becoming more local by the day, we hop back on the train to go back to town and even use the elevator conception to avoid the steep hike uphill back to our hostel ;)
DAY 125
It's our last day in Valpo and there's still much to do. We've still to see Neruda's home and we scheduled a graffiti tour for the afternoon. To go to Neruda's home we follow the avenida de Alemania which is high on the hills and has lots of great vista point on the city. It has also lots of big walls hosting graffiti. There's no space lost here, even the garbage trucks are decorated ;) on the way, the plaza XXX offers us a ideal playground to fool around with the panoramic feature of the iPhone.
La Sebastiana, Neruda's home, is crowded on Sundays. We hope we'll have time to visit it without missing our graffiti tour! It's once again a peculiar house but with awesome views on the city and the bay. The self-guided audio tour is very informative. Neruda had many artist friends and it clearly helps when it comes to decorating your house ;)
Without rushing it, we arrive for our tour 5min early and use them to get a delicious fruit juice. It's just the two of us for the tour and our guide is an artist itself. He tells us about the codes of this community. It's ironic to see that a community that is about breaking the rules has such a established code of conduct when it comes to their pieces. We pass by lots of places we saw already but he points out details, style differences and tells us stories about the different artists. One piece is a tribute to Van Gogh. What makes Van Gogh special is the way his paintings have texture and volume. It's very difficult to emulate with the material used for graffiti. The artist here still used the sprays but also his fingers to give texture to the wet paint and it works.
For our last night in Valpo, we have another little earthquake. It's still a weird feeling the second time around. I'm happy I didn't experience the big one they had a few weeks ago that lasted a long time...