Valparaiso

VALPARAISO

what an absurdity

you are,

how crazy:

a crazy port.

What a head

of disheveled

hills,

that you never finish

combing.

Never

Did you have

time to dress yourself,

and always

you were surprised

by life.

                                                                        --Pablo Neruda

                                                              

Judy. This translation of Neruda’s Ode to Valparaiso, a town he loved, sums it up. It’s definitely not like any place we’ve been before, though we kept trying to come up with comparisons.

It certainly couldn’t be more different than Santiago, our base in Chile for six weeks. (More on Santiago later—we’re still there, just had a couple of days in Valparaiso.) Whereas Santiago is all business and clean streets and orderly life, of a sort, Valparaiso is a dirty, graffiti-filled, hard-working port city. It’s also an artists’ colony, noted for its street art, artists selling their creations in corners of the myriad winding streets and staircases, and expensive little shops in ramshackle but colorful houses. Housing for tourists offers either expensive boutique hotels or not-much-less-expensive hostels. You can eat fabulously tasty take-out empanadas for $6 or a fish and salad lunch in a crazy-busy restaurant for $48. On thing is for sure, you don’t know what to expect next. For example, when we returned, we discovered our hotel was built on the land where a friend's grandmother grew up.

To be honest, we were only there for two days and two nights, so our observations come from instinct as we walked around, and from our guide on the Tours for Tips Walking Tour. But all of it confirmed Neruda’s love poem.

We were told not to expect much from the bus station, but that once we got into town, we’d see its charm. Our hotel was located on Cerro (hill) Concepción, in the heart of murals and tourists, although we didn’t see that many tourists. On our second night, during this, the high season, there were only three other guests, although each day we saw folks wandering around looking at the murals and views from the nearby overlooks.

 

Not so steep stairs near our hotel

To get almost anywhere required several flights of steps down or up painted walls and stairs. Steep stairs.  Valparaiso is built on forty-three hills, and uses every one of them. When you got to the bottom of all those stairs, the murals give way to graffiti and tagging, and a short walk takes you to Plaza Sotomayor, one of four “main squares.”  See what I mean? No rhyme or reason to the city.

Tagged buildings in the port

The port itself is ugly, and cruise ships don’t dock there. Rumor has it that the unions demanded a raise for unloading freight and cruise ships, so the ships moved to San Antonio or La Serena, further up the coast. I don’t know. I do know that an earthquake destroyed much of the city in 1906, and that in the following years there were fires and floods. Maybe that’s it. Definitely, the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 delivered the death knell. The Naval Headquarters and some national government buildings are located there (a move made after the restoration of democracy), so maybe that has something to do with it.

Macarena by some colorful doors

Our city guide Macarena, who has lived in and loved the city since she was twelve, told us that the porteños, as the citizens are called, are “crazy.” She says that they hate change, and that’s why all the buildings are falling apart. The government and the citizens want it to stay the way it is. There was a McDonald’s once, but it was burned down. There is not only a resentment of northern hemisphere capitalism, but also the distaste of anything “different”, so there are no chain restaurants or department stores, just mom and pop outfits. There’s something to be said for that. And yet there’s a Starbucks in Plaza Sotomayor and outside of town, a new mall. 

Part of a political mural decrying the Catholic Church and McDonald's

Acensores, or funiculars, once covered the city, but many of them caught fire, so the remains were torn down, and now there are just scars on some of the hillsides. Macarena says there are lots of fires. And that the fire departments were originally started by other countries. US, English and German citizens bought the equipment.

Streets themselves are made of brick, and sidewalks are narrow. Buses are filthy, and we rode on the oldest trolley bus still working. It was built in 1947.

A trolley bus as old as I am!

There’s an Anglican Church located a block from a Lutheran Church. The Anglican was built first, before there was freedom of religion, and the Catholic Church allowed it only if there was no steeple or bell, the doors were small, and stained glass windows were narrow, so as not to outshine any of the large Catholic Churches. It’s a little jewel box of a church. The Lutheran Church was built a couple of years after permission was granted, and it has a steeple and bell.

Definitely steep stairs

And yet. And yet. This insane city has a charm all its own, and street art to lift its spirits and cover the tags. In theory, the murals were illegal (a remnant of the Pinochet government), but if you get permission from an owner, you’re okay. Or if it’s public and no one catches you. We never even saw the police. In fact, now some world-famous street artists have beautiful murals all over the city.

Starting a new mural

Part of a mural by Cuelli

Porteños are creative in other ways, too. Because of the lack of trees, houses had been built of adobe before the earthquake, Obviously, that didn’t fare well. So afterwards, they began repurposing the corrugated metal that had been used to package arriving cargo. Unfortunately, that could rust, so they used leftover paint from the fishing boats—marine paint that would protect the metal. That meant they used any color available, resulting in vibrant colors in the houses as well as on the murals. Soon it became a choice rather than a necessity, and the hills are dotted with blue, yellow, orange, red, or green homes. Some owners have built “toppers” to their houses so they can see the bay over the hotels that hid the view.

Corrugated wall

La Sebastiana

City and bay from La Sebastiana

Standing in the living room of “La Sebastiana,” Pablo Neruda’s home in the hills of Valparaiso, you can easily see his loving description of this crazy port town. And somehow that worms its way into your heart.

View of part of the city from La Sebastiana

Getting to Valparaiso isn’t easy, unless you take a bus from Santiago. It doesn’t seem to be on the way anywhere. You go because you want to—because you heard stories about stops there during the California Gold Rush, or because Isabel Allende writes about it, or because of the mystery. Should you go? Sure. It’s sort of San Francisco weather with Lisbon hills. But it’s not really like anyplace else on earth. And why would you want to miss that?