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Sunday, January 04, 2004

Valparaíso and Viña del Mar

If you're going to found a city, I reckon you could do far worse than naming it Valparaíso (Paradise Valley) or Viña del Mar (Vineyard of the Sea). The two cities have basically merged into one another. The former, Valpo for short, is a prosperous port city; the latter, Viña, is a posh beach resort where the rich and powerful own holiday homes. Both are only a couple of hours from Santiago, where we're off to tomorrow.

We're staying in Valpo - it's a bit cheaper, and has a certain charm to it. Much like San Francisco, the city is built in a terrible location, with hills all over the place. The main commercial centre is on the flat bit near the sea, but many of the residential suburbs are balanced on steep slopes overlooking the city. The fun thing about these hills, or cerros, are the ascensores - dotted around are funicular lifts that trundle up and down on tracks. For $120 you can ride up and down them - they're great fun, and the narrow, winding streets of the cerros are interesting to explore.

Yesterday we performed our usual administrative tasks (buying food, finding a hotel etc.). We also visited a book market on a nearby plaza - I succumbed to temptation and bought myself a Pablo Neruda book.

In the evening Katherine went back to the hotel to sleep off the bus journey, whilst I - finally! - got to see the third Lord of the Rings film in the local cinema (English with Spanish subtitles, thank goodness). It was excellent, as expected!

Today we took the train to Viña - only a couple of minutes, tickets are $250 a pop. Our first stop was an old quinta (or hacienda) that's been restored and done up, and now has some gorgeous gardens with all kinds of palm trees and flowers. Then we stopped in a supermarket to get lunch (chip butties! and nectarines for health), and ate it on a nearby Plaza with some live music (which soon turned into a clown show, to our dismay...).

After lunch we walked to the beach, and spent a lazy afternoon getting sunburnt and dipping our toes in the Pacific.

We got the train back, stopped off in a supermarket (ooh! proper supermarkets!) to buy Katherine a new book to continue writing her diary in - she's obviously been too effusive. Then we took an ascensor up to one of the cerros, and walked back down. We've just stopped in an internet café to do our e-mail, and this blog of course, and then we'll head back to the hotel for tea (bread and cheese, and soup, tonight - and more nectarines for health).

Tomorrow we'll catch the bus to Santiago, capital of Chile (as I'm sure you know).

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