Valparaiso, Chile
Culture and the Coast
March 24, 2008
You're a piece of broken glass on a sandy beach
- U2
Of all the cities that I´ve visited I would say that Valparaiso was probably the most interesting place to walk around. It has such a great mixture with the colorful character of its diverse and aging architecture and the natural beauty of the steep rolling hills and coastal location. The steep hillsides are interconnected with the rest of the city though numerous ancient ascensors, short railway sections, elevators, and hidden steep winding staircases. There are innumerable numbers of murals painted the sides of houses and retaining walls and the buildings are stacked up at precarious and gravity defying angles, climbing all the way up to the highest stretches of the hills. Some of the buildings are rapidly decaying while others are newer structures with all the character of their older neighbors.
Located on a small perch of land on one hill is one of Pablo Neruda´s houses, its five or six floors are adorned with all sorts of intriguing artifacts collected throughout his life and there are fabulous views over the city. Sadly the waterfront area of Valparaiso is dominated by the container shipping port rather than beaches, although this is compensated by the numerous beaches lining the coast in Viña del Mar, its sister city that is a popular resort town whose beaches were packed with people in town to celebrate the Easter holiday. One of the nicer beaches, Reñaca, had huge waves with outstanding views of Valparaiso (slightly tainted by the smoggy air) through the pounding whitewater of the breaking waves, and of course a beachfront Burger King to top it all off.
There are a few museums in Valparaiso but the real draw to the city is wandering amid the labyrinthine pathways and alleys that run across the hills, mixed in with restaurants and cafes and outdoor artwork. The areas with the better views at the tops of the hills are strangely the poorer and reportedly unsafe areas. Being Easter weekend, many of the stores and restaurants were closed but the Saturday night before Easter all the bars and clubs were packed with people and I ended up hanging out in a plaza with a group of Chilean skater/punk types for a while after failing find some live Reggae show on the way to one of the clubs. On Sunday the beach was crowded and at least in Viña del Mar almost everything was open while in Valparaiso there were a lot of people out in the streets but very few businesses were actually open. The presence of the city was definitely enhanced by a great crowd of people that I met and at the hostel and explored the city with, but unfortunately as every good holiday weekend does, things came to an end on Monday. Everyone was leaving town and going their separate ways, although perhaps we would be able to meet up again somewhere down the road.