Last Day Half-Days Are Not As Much Fun

Something big was happening outside the Edificio Armada de Chile, the headquarters of the Chilean Navy in Valparaiso

This was the final day in Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar, which meant the final day in Chile and the final day of this vacation trip. Correction: this was the final half-day. My flight is leaving for the USA at 8:40 p.m., and the airport is a two-hour drive away, which means the day's tourism will need to end before 2:00 p.m., to shower and check out, then catch a cab to the airport and do all the international travel niceties one must do everywhere around the globe before boarding an international flight.

This is the hotel where stayed for the Valparaiso/Vina Del Mar leg of this trip: the Novotel in Vina Del Mar.

I am staying in Vina Del Mar because nobody stays in Valparaiso except maybe the young backpacker crowd. Not my demographic. Vina Del Mar is cleaner and safer than Valparaiso and, more importantly, much safer after dark. (During daylight hours, the only crime issue in Valparaiso is pickpocketing. It's safe during the daytime. When the sun goes down, Valparaiso is not the place to be.)

This is the Iglesia de Los Padres Carmelitas a block from my hotel.

Like just about everything in Vina Del Mar, it's beautiful. It looks historic. But it's faux historic. Vina Del Mar was built for wealthy tourists to hang out somewhere that looks historic. Think of it as the Colonial Williamsburg of South American beach resorts.

It's the only "historic" looking building on Avenida Libertad, the main inland street in Vina Del Mar. And, truth be told, a faux historic looking church is 1000 times better than every suburban-modern church.

This is the Plaza Vergara, a large park in Vina Del Mar.

This is the way to get to the Vina Del Mar station of the Valparaiso Metro.

This is not Mr. Vergara, by the way, in the statue:

This is the Club Vina Del Mar:

I don't think it is a "club" in the sense of a nightclub. It does not give off that vibe. I'm guessing it is/was the social club for Vina Del Mar high society.

And this is the Parroquia Nuestra Señora De Dolores church:

Another example of a beautiful but faux historic church in Vina Del Mar, a city where artifice is not just on the surface, it goes down all the way to the city's core. I'm not saying that as an insult. It is what it is. In fact, it is yet-another great example of how Chile is the California of South America. California without the Californians! It's why I love Chile so.

Time is of the essence on this final half-day of vacation, so time to take the Metro to the end of the line: Puerto.

"Puerto" is "Port" and the port is the reason there is a Valparaiso. For many years, this was the first port of any consequence a ship would reach after traversing the Straits of Magellan and Cape Horn in the time of global shipping before the opening of the Panama Canal.

It was lively at the port.

But things were even livelier at the Plaza Sotomayor, the main plaza is the oceanfront part of Valparaiso, and the Edificio Armada de Chile, the blue building that is the headquarters of the Chilean Navy.

Unlike Vina Del Mar, Valparaiso is real historic, not faux historic. It's also scruffier. (Not sure why I used the -er here. There is nothing "scruffy" about Vina Del Mar. It's like talking about the scruffy parts of Carmel or La Jolla.)

This is the Plaza Sotomayor and its monument to the Héroes de Iquique, the Heroes of Iquique, that great naval battle of the latter 19th Century where the upstart Chilenos defeated what had been perceived as the superior navy, that of Peru, in the War of the Pacific.

Today the monument was packed with naval officers. I later looked it up and Tuesday, May 21, is Navy Day in Chile. I am guessing that this day, being the weekend, was the day for the Navy Day parade in front of the Edificio Armada de Chile.

The parade was a mixture of dancers in festive costumes and old soldiers and sailors marching in uniforms.

I believe this is Avenida Cochrane.

It was closed due to the parade.

Which meant I did not know how to get across the street that was closed off for blocks because of the Navy Day parade, Which meant I did not know how to get to the various funiculars of Valparaiso which, of course, were further inland and not right at the beachfront,

I thought the funiculars of Valparaiso would be like the two funiculars in Pittsburgh, lined up along one steep hillside, a respectable distance apart. No. Valparaiso has many more funiculars, not all of which are functioning at any one time, and they are haphazardly scattered throughout the city. And, for some reason, google maps was not working on my phone. So I had to find the funiculars by memory of what I had seen on google maps, which would have been difficult enough, but I had to do it with the main drag through the lower part of Valparaiso blocked off for a Navy Day parade. And I had to do it on limited time since today was only a half-day of vacationing, with the other half to be allocated to "flying back home at the end of the vacation," which is the why the final half-day of a vacation is not much fun.

So it was time to hop back on the Valparaiso Metro and head to Plan B: the Ascensor Baron.

By the way, Valparaiso Metro. The Valparaiso/Vina Del Mar area is served by a single metro that is a mixture of subterranean and surface. The "surface" part is a great ride as it goes right along the beach. And despite Valparaiso being gritty and graffitied and bohemian, the metro is clean, efficient and cheap. How cheap to ride? 500 pesos per ride, which translates more or less to 50 cents. Riding it along the Valparaiso oceanfront is one of the world's great travel bargains.

The Ascensor Baron was easy to find even without the aid of google maps.

Unfortunately: cerrado.

Closed. Many of the Valparaiso funiculars do not open until 1:30 p.m. on Sundays and this probably was one of them. Sometimes a Valparaiso funicular is due to a sudden-onset mechanical issue. I could've been that, too.

But the bottom line was that there would be no funicular rides on my final half-day in Valparaiso as the time was drawing near to head back to the hotel to clean up for the overnight flight back to the USA. At least the sights to be seen from the Valparaiso were available for the low low price of 500 pesos.

Let's have a closer look at that big flying bird statue over there.

Awesome. And, with that, it is time for me to wing it back to the states as another vacation draws to a close.

My Last Supper in Chile (This Trip), So I Took Pictures

Dinner at a Chilean restaurant. In Chile.

Tonight is my last night in Chile (this trip), so I went out to eat a nearby Chilean restaurant and I took pictures.

I had dinner at La Flor de Chile, the Flower of Chile. Very local. They had my favorite Chilean beer!

Cerveza Austral, Yagan. This is the dark beer from the brewery in the far south of Chile. It was delicious.

I ordered the Chicken Schnitzel -- which doesn't sound all that Chilean, but thinly cut meat breaded and pan-fried is a culinary universal. I ordered a salad as the accompaniment. Palta palmitos. A salad of avocados and hearts of palm.

I was expecting the avocado and the hearts of palm to be on the salad. No. They were the salad. No lettuce. At lunch, I had an onion salad. It was red onion in oil and vinegar. Again, no lettuce. Detecting a pattern? Chile is not a lettuce-loving country.

But it was all good. I had my Yagan. And that was enough for me to give La Flor de Chile five stars.

Valparaiso, Chile: the City of Funiculars

Valparaiso is not only about the funiculars. It also has a beach. And a port.

This Chilean vacation comes to its conclusion at the twin beach towns of Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar, about two hours WNW of Santiago.

One of the problems in adding Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar to my itinerary was getting here. There are two choices. First, there is an inter-city bus. It is extremely cheap, between 10 and 15 dollars U.S. But you have to get to the bus station and, once in Valparaiso, you have to get to your hotel. All the while lugging a heavy suitcase filled with Chilean alcohol and two weeks worth of dirty clothes. Or you can take a taxi/uber, which I had prices quoted to me between $140 and $250 U.S. (The exchange rate for the Chilean peso is about 1000:1. Not absolutely precisely, but when you are spending money here, a 20,000 peso note is close enough to a $20 bill for purposes of understanding the price.)

I chose Option 3, which suddenly opened up on Thursday. My tour to four wineries was canceled and every tour company would prefer you to book an alternative tour to refunding your money. So I booked a tour to Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar, and had them drop me off before the tour van headed back to Santiago. I got a trip to Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar, with a three-hour or so guided tour of the cities, all for less than the price of the taxi transportation. Vacation magic! The first stop was Vina Del Mar.

 

Vina Del Mar is a nice upscale-ish beach town which great restaurants (I've been told), but not really many sights to see,

There are two sights to see in Vina Del Mar. The Reloj de Flores, or the Flower Clock.

It is clock made out of flowers. Except for the clock mechanics,for  which plant-based construction would be unworkable,

And the second is the moai:

A little bit of Easter Island in Valparaiso. Which is fitting, given that Easter Island is in the "Department," the Chilean equivalent of a state, of Valparaiso, 

This moai was a gift from the people of Easter Island. This is the only one of two moai anywhere in the world other than Easter Island, Rapa Nui. It is the only one that was not stolen. The other moai somewhere off Easter Island is in the British Museum. Status: stolen.

The first stop in Valparaiso was a fish market on the beach.

I believe this is Playa Caleta Portales. Google maps describes this place as a beach with a fish market, which sounds about right.

I stuck a finger in the Pacific here. The water was cold. Muy frío, as the cool kids would say. Could be the cold Humboldt Current up from Antarctica. Could be that it is a few weeks from the southern hemisphere winter.

For the bad reputation that Valparaiso has, the beach was clean. Not "picture postcard for tourist" perfectly clean, but clean enough for my purposes.

And here is a look at Valparaiso proper from across the waters of Valparaiso Bay.

The fishing boats were lined up here. Must be getting close to that fish market.

But, first, a pelican and two seagulls.

And sea lions under the dock of the bay.

And another pelican.

And more sea lions.

Up close this time. Thanks for the wonder of a telephoto lens.

Let's poke our nose into the fish market.

This one has octopus:

The sea lions would approve.

Sea lions. Keeping Valparaiso Bay penguin-free.

Valparaiso is gritty and working class. It is also bo-ho. As in "bohemian."

Some of the graffiti is just graffiti.

Some of it is art. The most prominent graffiti artists of Valparaiso even have galleries that sell souvenirs of their more prominent designs. 

The graffiti art is a legitimate tourist attraction here.

But we all now my idea of a legitimate tourist attraction:

A funicular!

This is the Ascensor Reina Victoria. The Queen Victoria funicular. The ride was short, but very steep.

And the views up top were impressive.

The upper end of the Ascensor Reina Victoria is the way to Cerro Alegre. Happy Hill.

I expected that the area was named from all the hippies smoking cannabis, since the bo-ho vibe of Valparaiso got me to think of hippies smoking weed.

It got the name because it was once an upscale part of Valparaiso and the upscale people were believed to be happier than the working people in the lower part of Valparaiso.

How does one get down off Happy Hill? There are two ways. You can walk the stairs. Or you can do as the locals do and slide down the smooth sidewalk.

This looks like I'm out of control, but I'm merely contorting myself to avoid hitting the wall. The slope of the slide automatically brings you into contact with the wall. I think I also was afraid of blackening the seat of my pants which, since so many people do this, your pants stay clean.

This is off a street named Galvez. It really is a thing. I didn't just slip and fall and now I'm claiming it is a thing. No. It's a thing. 

We are now in the heart of graffiti street art country.

This mural was done with a Sharpie:

The artist is Varas McKenzie. He has a gallery where you can buy art from him that looks like this. I'm not a fan of "graffiti" art, but even I am going to admit that Varas McKenzie legitimately is very talented. I don't care about the medium here being a Sharpie. This is work of a talented artist and I am not being sarcastic, ironic, or any other type of -ic.

This is the Grand Hotel Gervasoni. It was converted from a mansion once owned by an Italian gentleman named ... Gervasoni.

The steep cliffsides of Valparaiso have two great benefits. Funiculars, of course. And great views.

And it's not all graffiti art up here in the high part of Valparaiso.

Everything is not bo-ho.

This is, if my memory is correct, the oldest Anglican church in South America.

Or at least Chile.

My plane leaves for the United States tomorrow, but late enough in the day that I should have time to head back into Valparaiso from upscale Vina Del Mar for a day of funicular-riding before heading back to Santiago and its airport. Valparaiso is lousy with funicular, a dozen or more, and I've only ridden one so far. Not nearly enough funicularating.