Santiago turns out to be the first big city in which we regret not spending more time, and we learn that living in Valparaíso allows you to skip leg day.
After dropping our hire car in Talca we walked back to the bus station, firmly backpackers again. We needed to book a couple of long-distance buses for the north of Chile, including one across the border back into Argentina. But the guy behind the counter really didn’t seem to understand why we would want to go to Argentina. I mean, what’s wrong with Chile?! He also told us we also couldn’t pay on card. In the end, and with a woman getting a bit irate behind us, we gave up and just asked for a bus to Santiago instead. The buses go every 10 minutes or so (with different companies) so we hadn’t booked this one in advance. When we got on it, though, we realised we were on one that took a couple of hours longer than most, so we arrived in Santiago several hours later than planned.
At the main bus terminal we got a more helpful person at the Pullman desk, who was happy to sell us a ticket out of Chile, and who explained to us that we could pay on card but it would be a lot cheaper in cash. He also threw in some tips for the rest of our stay. Satisfied that we’d got one of the long journeys in the bag we set off for the nearest metro station where we had to buy a Bip card and load it with enough cash to do a few journeys. We were leaving the next morning so we knew we wouldn’t have a lot of time. It turns out we didn’t have time for anything. Once we’d arrived at our apartment, we managed to run down to the main square, Plaza de Armas, to stick our heads into the cathedral and take a nice old vs new photo.
Our apartment was very close to about 3 Japanese restaurants so we took the opportunity to have something a bit different for dinner and ate at Ramen Kintaro which had some fantastic gyoza. We liked our neighbourhood and suddenly regretted only booking one night. But later on, as we were relaxing on our 10th floor balcony with our bottle of Camenere from our trip to to the Colchagua Valley (well we couldn’t keep carrying it in our backpacks!) a few protesters pulled some trash cans into our street and set them on fire to make a roadblock. So maybe one night was enough…
The next morning we attempted to get some nice city views from the Cerro San Cristobal but we took the wrong path and then basically ran out of time. So we failed at the sightseeing but we did leave a large city not hating it, so that was something different. Onto Valparaíso! We had read that taking the metro to Pajares station was the easiest way to connect to Valparaíso, and whoever wrote it wasn’t wrong. Santiago main bus terminal is as hectic as you’d expect it to be. But at Pajares station you only have to walk about 200m from the metro to the bus station, not queue at all, buy a ticket, and be on a bus within 10 minutes. It also means a journey 20 minutes shorter than joining at the main station.
An hour and a bit later we were arriving at the coast. But no chance of a beach day here – it was suddenly cloudy and about 15 degrees colder than in Santiago. After checking into our very cheap hostel, then paying it all back at lunch, we started climbing up Valparaíso’s hills. The sun came out, my jumper came off and we enjoyed just wandering around thinking that it was good for our calves. After quite a work-out looking at all the colourful houses and grafitti, we felt that it was about time to have a beer in the sunshine in the place where brewing began in Chile. Valparaíso is home to Chile’s first ceveceria. We went there the following night but agreed that our original find – Anfiteatro – was much friendlier (and cheaper).
The next day we went up to the Maritime Museum in one of Valparaíso’s old funiculars, did some more wandering about, stumbled across some pretty cemeteries, and found a free and clean public toilet at the Parque Cultural – top tip if you’re walking around this city all day. But our biggest find was the menú del día for less than 5 euros at Kabala. We had to wait about 30 minute to get a table but it was fun watching all the suited business types rush in, wolf down 4 courses, knock back a pisco sour, and head back to work. I think we were the only tourists in there.
