Valparaiso

So Valparaiso - also known as Valpo to the locals - is the second largest city in Chile and was once the largest port city in Chile. So Elisabeth and I's adventures continued with a trip to the city to see more of the ocean and check out some of the sites after checking off of list of things to do with the trusty guide books of course.

Just in case you were wondering, here is a hand little map to show where Valpo is in relation to Santiago.

Elisabeth and I with our tour books on the bus.... such tourists.

Getting of the bus in this city was an entirely different process. We got off in to the middle of downtown and in the middle of the outdoor market area. However, it was not the cute, artsy outdoor market area. It was more like stolen goods laid out on trash bags and food. So lots of socks for sale and jeggings. Then lots of street food and fish. Needless to say it smelled bad and we stuck out pretty bad with a slightly scared and lost look on our faces and backpacks on.

Once we escaped the madness we walked about 25 blocks to find this great fresh seafood restaurant that our books had recommend. Cheap and fresh and good for lunch - exactly what we were looking for! We pretty much walked the whole length of the city to find out that it had closed a while ago.....

So plan b was to find the nearest place and that turned out to be seafood as well! So we got a table and got some fresh and delicious food. Since I don't really eat seafood I had a cheese and shrimp empanada, fries and a coke. Elisabeth had a crab empanda and some type of white fried fish and it was all delicious!

My yummy shrimp and cheese empanada

Cheesin with my cheesey empanada!!! I was just a little exhausted and punchy at this point....

That's right, reading the books in the restaurant.

After lunch, we consulted our books and headed out to find. Muelle Prat Wharf. It is the main point of entry for the port and also it's where you can walk in to the water and go out on boats as well. An interesting thing we found out about Valpo.... there are no beaches and it's not really a thing to have homes or property on the waterfront. It was mostly just for the ports and shipping. Kind of weird.

Once we found the wharf we bartered in our broken spanish for the price of a boat ride on the water and hopped aboard. We didn't really know what we were getting in to since Elisabeth and I's Spanish isn't exactly top notch, but it turned out to be so much fun!!

Valpo tour tug boats

Muelle Prat Wharf

On our tour boat with our awesomely horrible life vests.

Views of the city from the boat

We were just bumping along and all of the sudden we were right next to sea lions. A little close in my opinion.... I thought they might fall in to the boat, but our captian did not seem to mind.

Once we got back we took an "ascensor" which is like a little trolley car up into the hills of Valpo. So the city consists of the port and the 4 or 5 main streets that look like a normal city and then it's made up of 42 hills that rise straight up from the water. Think San Francisco style hills with driving up crazy steep streets.

Views of the city from the hills above

Artsy little paintings and colorful steps are through out the whole city

This area is very bohemain with lots of little galleries, coffee shops and bright colored homes. We wandered around for a bit. Found some cool stores and pretty buildings. Unfortunately, our trip was cut a little short (we were planning on staying the night), but I was feeling pretty sick so we headed back. Everyone in our volunteer class got sick with a little cold when we first got here and it finally hit me then. We hopped back on the bus and by the time we pulled in to Santiago I could hardly speak my throat hurt so bad.

All in all it was a great day! We had so much, saw lots of great sites and most importantaly took our first trip and figured out everyone on our own! I was quite proud of our day.