Ports, Poetry, Politics and Pottery

Valparaíso. The Jewel of the Pacific. And for us, a chance to live the high life.

Earlier in 2012 my parents had journeyed through this part of the world, taking a ship down the Chilean coast to hike mountains in Patagonia and visit a few other locations in both Chile and Argentina (sorry for the vagueness Mum, I just can’t remember exactly where you guys went). And on their way they had stopped and stayed in a very nice hotel in Valparaiso.

So as a birthday present to me, my parents (Mum) put Naomi and I up in the very same nice hotel that they had stayed in for our brief stay in the port city. Upon a little research it turned out that the nice little hotel is actually rated as one of the best hotels in Valparaiso so your gift was very much appreciated, thankyou (the hotel was actually good too, not just the reviews).

The hotel was three stories high and from the top floor there were amazing views looking down over the old part of town, Cerro Concepcion, as well as the Greater Valparaiso area. Leaving the hotel put you straight amongst the famous painted houses, each painted with a different and very vibrant colour giving a relaxed, bohemian feel to the place. Valparaiso is separated into two areas, the flat section of land immediately adjoining the docks, and the hilly sections or Cerros where houses perch precariously on cliff edges and are interlinked by insanely twisting and steep cobblestone streets. The fastest way to get between the two is to ride these ‘elevators’ know as funiculars or ascensors which were built in the late 19th to early 20th century. They even still look and feel as if they haven’t been upgraded since the late 19th century, which they probably haven’t since they were all declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 2003 and fuck knows how much paper work you’d have to go through the even think about doing anything to one of those.

Down at sea level the main mode of transport is by trolleybus (buses connected to electric wires). The colourful buildings, the architecture, the ocean and the trolleybuses all combine to give Valparaiso a very San Francisco like vibe. And I shit you not but I just Wikipedia’d (yes it’s a verb now) Valparaiso and it reckons that it was once known as “Little San Francisco” by sailors. And of course we can take that as being historically accurate.

Google things to do in Valparaiso and any number of websites will tell you that the number 1 must do is to visit La Sebastiana, the house of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. For those who don’t know, Neruda was a Nobel Prize for Literature recipient in 1971, or for a more contemporary definition, he is Ted Moseby’s favourite poet. He owned three houses (one for each wife), one in Santiago (La Chascona), Casa de Isla Negra in Isla Negra and obviously La Sebastiana in Valparaiso. He named the building Sebastiana in honour of the previous owner who had died while trying to build this grand 5 story house. Neruda came along and finished the home off with a few alterations to make the house perfectly to his liking.

The home is now run by the Pablo Neruda Foundation, who have turned all three houses into museums. Entering on the ground floor (interestingly the original front door was actually on the first floor) you receive an earpiece and instruction manual guiding you through all five floors and providing you with an insight into what I found a quite fascinating life. The entire house from top to bottom is simply jam packed with little knick-knacks and odd pieces that Neruda had collected or been given to fill up the space in his home. From paintings of queens wearing ruffles, to ornamental bowls, stuffed birds, nautical maps, chairs from ships (he loved the ocean but hated to sail), english dinner sets and even a ceramic cow from which he used to serve punch, it is easy to find all manner of strange items in La Sebastiana. The thing is, (to me) not a one seems to be out of place. Supposedly, Neruda painstakingly positioned every item he owned perfectly for full effect and feeling, even going so far as to buy a painting of a man wearing a ruffle because he didn’t want the queen to feel out of place and placed them facing each other so they would always be able to mantain eye contact. All manner of glorious objects aside, the absolute highlight of the house is the view. Nearly every floor has open plan windows through which Neruda spent a long time gazing either from his sofa chair he called his ‘cloud’ or his fifth floor office and it’s from this viewpoint he gained much inspiration for his work. I wish I had a photo to show you but unfortunately you weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the house, so you will just have to go and see for yourself. There is too much to talk about on the subject of Pablo Neruda’s life so I leave it up to you to do a bit of research but if in Valparaiso, visiting his house is as Google says, a must.

View from our hotel (the view from Neruda’s house was even better)

Valparaiso is a sprawling coastal city which has been experiencing a modern renaissance, mainly due to its heritage listing in 2003, but it still has its grimey dirty corners. But to me it only added to the charm and wandering through the streets filled with old buildings is something I could do all day and sitting and watching that view I could do for the rest of my life. It is one of the coolest places I have ever been to and I don’t know if it’s the nice hotel talking but it was the highlight of the trip for me so far in terms of towns or cities visited. A lot of dog shit though. Like I’m talking land mines in Laos sort of situation (insensitive I know blah blah). Clean that up and like Neruda I could buy a house and whittle my days away in this little town (not historically accurate).

Now that my vagina has stopped gushing over Valparaiso we will move onto Santiago. A little over an hour away from Valparaiso is Santiago, the capital of Chile and it was to there we headed next.

After a couple of weeks of beautiful coastal air, arriving into Santiago and its dense cloud of pollution was a bit of a shock. Everywhere you look, the sky has this faint brown colour to it and even the looming nearby mountain range can be hard to make out. Despite this however, Santiago turned out to be a pretty awesome city as well.

Our hostel was located near the down town area in the university district, run by three self-proclaimed hippies. It was nice enough, if not a little ramshackle and it was the sort of place where you’d wander into the kitchen of a morning to find the owners chop bowl sitting on the fridge (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chop+bowl for older people who might not know what a chop bowl is). Chop bowl and a permanent stench of weed aside, the hostel was perfectly located to wander through the downtown area to the presidential palace, the Plaza de Armas, the Bellavista neighborhood, Parque Forestol, Cerro San Cristobal, the central market and a little further out, the massive Parque Arauco mall (unfortunately we didn’t get to visit La Chascona). Just like Valparaiso, the colonial period buildings are magnificent and again I could wander for hours here (I think the fact we have nothing old in Australia has something to do with this fascination, and yes I know that’s a generalisation, just shut up).

View from Cerro San Cristobal (notice the smog)

We also managed a day trip out to a little town called Pomaire where they are famous for their brown clay pottery and for making clay piggy banks. We had planned to spend a few hours there but ended up spending most of the day as there were few buses heading directly back to Santiago. It’s a nice little trip if you have the time.

Having missed out on a few things I wanted to do here, it’s is definitely on my list of places to come back to, maybe when we decide to tackle southern chile (another on my list, everyone we met says it was awesome).

It was only as we were leaving Santiago that we got to experience how beautiful this place can be. It had rained all night before so the level of pollution was severely diminished and all of a sudden the mountains jumped out at us. Below were these amazing old buildings and above the best snow capped mountain range you’ve ever seen. Hopefully you’ll get lucky and see it to if you go there.

It gets even better when you cross the border to Argentina but I’ll save that for next time.

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Foreign Language Tip of the Day: Completo

Language: Chilean Spanish

Meaning: Hot dog with Sauerkraut, Avocado and Mayonnaise