Valparaiso

Valparaiso

Valparaiso, on the west coast of central Chile, has a population of about 150,000 people. It is on a huge bay surrounded by 45 hills, filled with ravines, plunging down to the ocean. The streets and houses go nearly to the very top of the hills though, so getting from the port to the top on a bus is an adventure in itself.

Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was one of the busiest ports in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and today it continues to be a very active port. Where we were docked we were surrounded by mountains of containers stacked 5 high. It is such a busy and active port that we could not walk from the ship to the terminal but had to ride shuttle buses to assure our safety through the stacks of containers and the forklifts constantly moving among them. There were even officials directing traffic so the forklifts, buses, and tractor-trailers coming and going with containers and people could negotiate the many turns in and out in the midst of the activity.

Once again the terminal offered telephone connections world-wide so we did our best to talk to all of our children. Mostly they were not answering, in part because of the 2-hour time difference! Work does interfere with everything. Right now we are at sea for the second day after Valparaiso and only one hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time.

We were docked all day so in the morning we walked around the area straight up Avenue Argentina, where we walked past a Jumbo Supermarket and then on to a fabulous produce market. There were stalls after stalls of local produce, tomatoes, peppers, squash. The frisse was huge and fresh and the corn was the largest I have ever seen anywhere. The corn was about 14 inches long and about four or five inches in diameter – it might be corn for grinding rather than eating off the cob as we do at home. There was also a stall for cheese, one for candy, a sweet pastry stand. Then at the end of the market the vegetable stalls ended and a flea market started. At the flea market, there were people selling shoes, clothing, plumbing supplies, electrical supplies, electronics, housewares and books. There were mainly locals in the market doing their shopping for produce so there was not much conversation given my limited Spanish. The locals brought lightweight woven bags to fill with their purchases – not a plastic bag in sight.

We also saw the National Congress Headquarters (not in session so the building was locked up tightly.) We wandered to Plaza Italia where they were all set up for a Brisco tournament. I am not sure how to spell the word, but it is an Italian game. There were many people walking around the streets and many, many public buses.

All of the walking brought us to lunchtime, so we went back to the ship for lunch and to make plans for the afternoon. In most terminals there are people from the government’s tourism office who give accurate information and advice for visitors trying to get around on their own. They supplied us with maps and bus numbers and their stop locations and we set off on our own. First we went back up Avenue Argentina to Avenue Brazil to catch bus number 216 – and there one was just waiting for us to board. We road the non-air-conditioned bus with very worn leather seats around 9 kilometers to Vina del Mar, Chile’s “Garden of the Sea”, a luxurious resort town. Everywhere we went people were smiling and friendly to us and eager to help us in spite of my lack of ability to communicate very well in their language. We rode the bus with women with children and men who appeared to be commuting.

Very different from the working city of Valparaiso, Vina is set on a gorgeous beach lined with 5-story apartment houses, restaurants, a casino, horse-drawn carriages and many young people on holiday or enjoying an afternoon on a beach. We wandered along the beach, past the casino, along the waterways, over bridges. Our mouths watered as we looked in the windows of pastry shops, an Arab restaurant selling falafels. We reached the next bus stop and boarded #612 for the ride back to Valparaiso, along Avenue Argentina where we had walked earlier, and then up the narrow streets to La Sebastiana, a home once owned by Pablo Neruda, the Chilean Nobel Prize Winner for literature. Neruda, a poet, lived in the city and remodeled the house, which is today a museum. The balcony offers a great view of the city and coincidentally the QE2 at the pier.

Back to the bus stop and a bus down the narrow, twisty streets to return to the terminal and the ship in time for the final boarding before sailing on. On the ride down the hill, the narrow street seemed to be at the edge of the cliff and caused me to have a few anxious moments until I remembered that the driver travels the route repeatedly day after day, always arriving back home in time for dinner. We felt very safe the entire time, although there were warnings about taking the minimum ashore, keeping cameras out of sight, and being alert for pick-pockets.

Our grand adventure on shore cost us about $7 for all of the bus rides and $1 for a telephone call. Our favorite kind of port. Now we have three days at sea before reaching Easter Island, where once again we will tender and have a 50-50 chance of being able to go ashore.