Dog Shit and Useless Swimsuits

Well, Sean and I spent the last couple of days in Valparaiso, Chile.  Known locally as Valpo for short, the city is located along the Pacific coast about 75 miles from Santiago.  The city is still one of the countries most important sea ports, but it is no longer their busiest and has certainly seen better times.  While once a required stopover for ships traveling between the Atlantic and Pacific via the Straigts of Megellan and Cape Horn, the city started to decline following a major earthquake in 1906 and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have many nice things to say about Valparaiso.  It is the dirtiest and ugliest city we have been to thus far, and remember, we're coming from Peru and Bolivia.  There is simply trash everywhere, lining the streets, sidewalks, the port, even the beaches.  They also have significantly more stray dogs than the other cities we've visited, which contributes to a ridiculous amount of dog shit everywhere you walk.  I had to walk slower than normal because it's hard to look for street signs, figure out where you're going, mind the traffic, avoid running into people, and still pay attention to where you place each step in order to avoid stepping in dog shit.  At least in Peru and Bolivia, store owners would sweep up the sidewalks in front of their stores and the city did a good job of cleaning up the streets, but in Valpo, no one seemed to care of mind. 

 

We took a 90-minute bus ride from Santiago and arrived in Valpo Wednesday afternoon.  The weather was pleasant, but there was a marine layer hanging over the city, much like San Diego during June Gloom.  This is the end of their Spring so it's still a month or so away from ideal Summer beach weather.  By mid-afternoon, the clouds did burn off and the sun actually came out for a bit, which was nice.  Our plan was to spend the first day in Valpo checking out the sites, then go to the neighboring city of Vina Del Mar on Thursday where the beaches are supposed to be pretty nice.  There wasn't much to see or look at in Valpo; it's an old dirty city built on the hills overlooking the ocean.  There are lots of narrow winding streets and steep staircases that go up the hills and, as I said before, lots of trash and stray dogs.  It looks like it could have been a nice city at some point in the past, but today it just seems as though no one cares anymore.  There was really only one attraction we wanted to do in Valpo, which is ride one of the ascensores (elevators) that take you up the steep hills.  Unfortunately, once we found the most popular/famous one, we found it was closed for a holiday... both days we were in town.

 

On Thursday, we woke up and decided to go to Vina Del Mar to check out the beach.  It was still cloudy and overcast when we left around noon, but we were hoping it would burn off like it did Wednesday by the time we got to Vina.  It was actually a little cooler as well, but that wasn't such a big deal since we decided to walk to Vina and take the train back.  It wasn't a very scenic walk, again, due to the trash and stuff.  But it was quite interesting passing by the remnants of old docks, buildings, and other oddities that clearly were once part of this great port city.  The walk was right along with bay so we had a decent view of Valpo behind us for most of the way.  The walk ending up taking about 90 minutes, but it was good to get some excercise.  Unfortunately, the marine layer didn't burn off by the time we got to Vina and it actually seemed colder when we got there than it did when we left Valpo.  The city was much nicer than Valpo, cleaner, better maintained buildings and streets, nicer stores, even nicer looking people.  There were also more tourists than in Valpo, although still not very many.  Tired, disappointed, and hungry, we decided to just walk down one of the main streets and have lunch, then head back to Valpo by train.  The restaurant was nice, although more expensive than it was worth.  It would have been nice to be able to lay out on the beach, even if I did have to find a spot not completely covered in trash.  Unfortunately, it looks like I'll have to wait until I get to Brazil before I can use any of the three swimsuits I brought. 

 

Bottom line: Valpo is the first city we've visited that I would not recommend anyone else visit.  You're not missing anything.  It's not worth the time or effot.