South America Part 20 – Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso

We had a leisurely breakfast at the hostel – but of course – it was completely different (as always) – this time with fresh fruit and a strange bun with ham and cheese (slightly toasted).

We wandered off to the “touristic” port area of Valparaiso – which didn’t have a tourist (nor any living thing) in sight. The city had recently renovated an old unused port dock into a “tourist” facility – but unfortunately it was really hard to work out how to get there. There were a couple of disused restaurants and a sort of “trendy” looking bar/club at the end of the wharf (which had closed “Tu Tu Tango” style).

After getting a good view of the city – we decided to catch the newly established commuter train to Vina Del Mar and have a day trip there. According to the lady who runs our hostel – the train is only 1 month old – it still has that new train smell. After forking out a hefty 900 pesos for a ticket ($2AUD) we caught the train. Ant (aka Trainspotter) recognised that the train was the same as the trains in Perth (complete with the tacky blue and green décor).

Vina Del Mar (when compared to Valparaiso) was very tidy and leafy looking. It also had semi-recognisable shops and several western style malls (of course Imelda Marcos aka Ant set off straight away to the mall). The streets were fairly European-esque (almost like BA) and the town has the reputation for being the “garden city”. It also felt a whole lot more “better off” than its poorer cousin Valparaiso.

After quickly checking out the 4 level mall and realising that this was a lot more expensive than Argentina… I forced Ant to take me sightseeing instead.

We checked out the local beach. This area in Chile is sort of the “beach” area for Chile and the locals – except we were there at the height of summer and it is definitely 2 layer weather here… (need to be paid large sums of money to get into the cold water).

Some parts of the beach felt a bit “gold coasty” because it was overrun by old people. After being chased by a rabies infected dog for 20 minutes – we headed for the local “natural history” museum. Because the Easter Islands are so close to Chile – the Chileans seem to claim it as their own (just like Australia claims to own Russell Crowe and Richard Wilkins). There was a section on the Easter Islands and a large range of “timmy the timid taxidermist” stuffed animal collection.

We wandered back into the main square for lunch – I was still refusing to partake on a “hot dog” so I bought a couple of bits of bread and a banana and made sandwiches… Ant had a hot dog (admittedly – they are better than hot dogs in America or at home).

There was a nice big park (which used to be a private home/park before it was opened up to the public) that we wandered around for a bit to kill time (it was only 2pm at this stage). There was a weird space ship style stadium plonked down in the middle of park. It had the whole abandoned feel – plus bits of the roof were falling off (despite it looking quite new).

Against our better judgement (and LP’s advice) – we decided to check out an art gallery which was also situated in the park. LP had described the collection as “uninspirational” and it was pretty crappy. Of note – they made everyone wear these “ugh” boots over their sneakers (as not to dirty up the place) and the strange guy who ran it was playing, what I describe as “classical murder music” at really loud volumes. Ant and I spent the whole time “ice skating” in the ugh boots whilst making “stabby-stabby” motions with our hands. On the plus side – it was an old nice building (which looked like the “Voodoo Academy” or “Clue” building).

We were soon getting really bored and headed to the town’s floral clock. Ant is a big fan of floral clocks and was screamed at by the locals to “step away from the floral clock and off the grass”.

We were scrapping the bottom of the barrel in terms of tourist attractions and checked out a restaurant in the shape of a boat and a European style castle set up on a cliff. It was 3:30pm and we had exhausted all there was to do in Vina Del Mar. Don’t get us wrong – Vina Del Mar was very pretty and nice looking – but it would be OK to do this in a quick day trip from Santiago.

Feeling bored – we decided to head back to Valparaiso and find us some dinner. We found something non-hot doggy at the local “Marco Pollo” restaurant. The prices here are almost at the Australian level ($9AUD for a big plate of lasagne).

Ant was desparate to have a Sth American “Hoyts” experience and we did so at the local “CineHoyts”. The tickets were about $3-4AUD (we went on the cheap night) – and we saw Flight Plan (or Planeu de Flighte or something). The whole “Hoyts” introduction had the “Hoyts” theme music from about 6 years ago. We were a bit shocked when the movie started as Jodie Foster started talking in German (sin English subtitles)– but thankfully the rest was in English. The best bit was when Jodie Foster punched the snoody flight attendant in the face (my dream to do it in real life on AA or Qantas). In true Hoyts fashion – the sound got very crappy for about 3 minutes and someone had a 5 minute chat on their mobile half way thru the movie.

We decided to call it a night at 12:30am…