Valparaiso, Chile

by Eileen B. Smith

The inhabitants of Santiago, or Santiaguinos, take their vacation time very seriously. Not a three-day weekend goes by when they're not packing themselves into cars or buses to take advantage of the beautiful areas within a day's ride from the Chilean capital.

One of the favorite destinations is actually two cities wrapped in one, 10 kilometers apart and with a clackety old train that runs between them: Valparaiso and Viña del Mar. Valparaiso is the old, hilly, weathered one, while its wealthy sister town is gleaming, bright and just what the yuppies ordered. Valparaiso is the San Francisco of Chile, as much as any town can be the San Francisco of anywhere. It's about a two-hour drive from Santiago, and lies slightly to the north, and on the coast.

What makes Valparaiso so spectacular is its improbable topography. The city hugs a functioning port, and then sprawls upwards into hills so steep that fifteen funiculars travel up and down all day long to bring people to their homes, to the markets, and to various other points of interest, among them several museums, and of course, to La Sebastiana.

La Sebastiana is the famous home of the now-deceased favorite son of Chile, Pablo Neruda. Three of his houses have been turned into museums, full of his bric-a-brac including a cooking apron and shell collection. A visit to La Sebastiana allows a long look at the views that inspired the Nobel Prize-winning poet to write pieces like the following (translation mine):

The Pacific Ocean departed from the map. There wasn't anywhere to put it.
It was so big, disorderly and blue that it didn't fit anywhere.
So they left it outside my window.

Navigating Valparaiso's winding, cobblestoned streets and narrow staircases that link one part of the city to the next can be exhausting. After a walk through the open air museum, and visits to various other must-see spots, you will have worked up an appetite. Valparaiso is famous for its seafood. Options are varied, from the extremely inexpensive empanada de mariscos--a dough folded over a steaming hot stew of every imaginable shell creature and the occasional olive (watch out for the pits!), to a lunch in the central market of grilled or fried fish with a composed salad and rice. More formal restaurants are also plentiful, and supplement seafood with other Chilean staples, like cazuela, a beef soup with vegetables, or pastel de choclo, a corn pudding/bread cooked on top of beef.

After you've walked your feet off, filled yourself mind and body, relaxed at one of the many lookout points in the city, and taken a funicular or two, you'd better take a nap to rejuvenate, because the party at the city's discos starts at around 1 AM, and continues into the morning. A small cover buys you entry to a club and one of Chile's specialty drinks, a pisco sour, a piscola (pisco with coca cola), or an enormous (albeit watery) beer.

When the weekend draws to a close, the Santiaguinos leave the Porteños (Valparaiso dwellers) in peace. It's time to leave the fantasy world of funiculars, cheap seafood, clean air and precipitous inclines. The bus ride back to Santiago is not long, and if you time it right, you can watch the snowy Andes turn from brown to pink to grey, reflecting the sunset as you drive east. That is, if you can manage to stay awake.