Couldn't leave before visiting Cerro San Cristobal, so we woke up early in the morning and got there on foot, which is perfectly doable but took a little longer than I anticipated and I wouldn't recommend if the sun is high up in the Summer sky. CSC It's a hill with a big variety of attractions: panoramic views, zoo, swimming pools, Botanic/Japanese Gardens, a sanctuary, restaurants and even a museum!

We hadn't time to visit all of that, but we did buy Funicular and cable car tickets, which carry people up and down from the main entrances to the sanctuary. Funicular is ridiculously inclined, literally goes from base to the top, awesome view.  This funicular pic taken from its own website:

From the sanctuary we took the cable car. Great vie as well, although a bit too close to an oven in the Summer. Two stops: one in the heart of everything and the last one in the other base of the hill, from where we walked to the Japanese Garden, in company of some dog following us. Pics from the Funicular website and random agencies:

 

View from the Japanese Garden (my favorite, lovely area, very relaxing):

Obs.:  Fernanda is my friend, unless she kills me, some of her pics will show up here in replacement for my lost ones *no mocking, enough with that... ok, Pemais?*. 

Back to the hotel to get in the pick-up truck (odd!) to Valparaíso.  Aside from a few vineyards, the vegetation, sun, view and air on the road made me feel like I was in a desert, which only reminds me I need to go back and visit Atacama and... every little piece of Chile =D. But yeah, Valparaíso... The first time we all saw the Pacific ocean! W00t! More than anything, what comes to mind is how Valparaíso -World Heritage nod- really has its own ID. Colorful houses crawling up the hills, tight streets with not so gentle curves, old and gorgeous buildings and monuments side by side with a lot of color, chaos and poverty. It's almost too much for your eye to take in and when you're familiar with Brazilian slums you can link them to Valparaíso straight away, but that's how the city naturally developed. Here's the B&B (the yellow one):

 

It had a nice terrace/restaurant with live music:

Across the street:

After lunch we rolled down the hill (or something like it) to get to the main avenue and catch a (400 bucks muahah) bus to Viña del Mar , hoping to exchange some money in the process. That ended up consuming a lot of time, but forced us to see unlikely places in Viña, a much more sober (lol) town, with cute buildings, trees, fountains, a love for flowers, a rather pleasant coastline and I know amazing mansions and stuff, but we didn't get to see those.

Be sure to bring an umbrella, wild sea =D.


Sunset over Valparaíso

The famous (?) Flower Clock

 

And then back to Valparaíso, where we went to a supermarket that had a >pretty cool basket. I had never seen them, let me be a happy kid, ok? Street market, free jazz show, climbed the evil steps (there are elevators all across Valparaíso and yet I didn't see any :-S). and took my tripod out for a few night shots. They looked a little bit like this:

 

 

Shower and bed, listening to the restaurant music and watching TV, probably some stupid American sitcom. Oh, globalization, how I love thee.

Next day a visit to Pablo's Neruda house, La Sebastiana,  quite peculiar. More walking through the hills and seeing the older part of the city, back to the hotel. Some random pics from wiki:

 

Boarding time! Which went smoothly... or not. Erm, there were 4 of us and loads of luggage, it was reasonable that we dropped everything in a taxi and those of us who got deprived of space in it just walked to the port, took a bus or whatever. Thing is, we went to the Customs Service, it was crowded, the ship was docked a few meters away, things looked normal... but we couldn't find the check-in hall at all. I ask a couple cops about it and they didn't have any directions. Fine, we walked through the parking lot, nothing. We tried to find doors to the Customs, nothing. We went to the other end of the Customs building (by now, that was not exactly  a short walk), nada. I see some security guys from this commercial building and walk to them, hoping they'd have wise words. They go "ohhh, you're in the wrong place" (you don't say!!!). Thinking Brazilians are retarded beings, they don't trust we can get instructions in Spanish (my portuñol is very good, thank you) and decide to draw a map. We're running against time, they are taking theirs. No, sir, we don't play volleyball, No, that doesn't make me any less of a Brazilian (wtf?). Yes, we have some cash. Oh, that bus, thank you! Truth is, funny guy totally saved the day, explained that passengers checked in at the other end of the port and helped us finding the right bus. Are you seriously telling me the cops I approached, who work there, didn't know we were in the wrong place? Anyway, we got out of the bus, some random place, a bit confusing, but finally saw our destination. I don't think it took 10 minutes from running, to seeing my brother, to checking in, to taking the bus back to where we were so we could slip into the ship.

The ship, oh, the ship. One of my dreams ever since I was a kid, watching Titanic...