Stopped through Santiago for 1 night on our way back to the mainland from Easter Island. Then caught a bus 2 hours westward towards the coast, to Valparaiso.

We arrived in Valparaiso, with expectations of a small, hilly, seaside town, with a few cool murals. Valpo ended up taking us by surprise in quite a number of unexpected ways. The city isn’t small at all; it’s actually a million strong and built into at least a dozen coastline hills. It’s also in a huge bay containing a few other cities, making for some amazing views of a coastline full of towns.

The bottom of the hills, just a few blocks between the ocean and the beginning of the hills, feels like normal city life complete with shopping, restaurants, commercial buildings, etc. But when you start to climb the hills, the beauty and appeal of the city grabs you.

This is for two reasons: the first is that the overall coastline incline hill that is the city has 10s of mini hills embedded creating confusing zip zagging, criss crossing streets like you’re in an old school European city center, except that it’s all on a 20-30 degree incline. The city feels like an endless maze of steep winding streets and multi-story staircases with destinations unknown, and each offering a unique view to a cliff dangling house, or of course, an amazing mural you didn’t know existed. And those murals are the second reason, making the city a breathing piece of art with imaginative and eloquent artistic expression lining the streets, virtually on every building, and often even on the stairs themselves. Just look at the pictures and you’ll understand.

The highlights for us were…

• Ridiculous amounts of free art in the form of murals and graffiti
• Getting lost in the windy, hilly streets and staircases (highly recommend the donation-based walking tour)
• Eating a humungous plate of Chorillana, which is french fries mixed with scrambled eggs, topped with beef, topped with grilled onions and then topped with “sausage” (more like Oscar Meyer wieners). We asked for the meat on the side but they only managed to put the beef on the side, leaving the wieners for Lindsey to eat around. Accompanying with a pitcher of beer is highly recommended.
• Visiting Pablo Neruda’s house, San Sebastián
• Taking a long walk around the shore and observing a colony of seals for about 30 minutes

Below are a few of our favorite pictures from Valparaiso, but you can see all of our pics from Valparaiso on Flickr, here.