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.