Valparaíso (also known as Valpo)

The plan was to go to Valpo Friday, but because of the tsunamiwarning I stayed in Santiago and decided to go Saturday when I knew nothing was going on there.

Valpo is a really beautiful city, and it is known as a very artistic one as well, since there is a lot of graffitti artist who do art in the streets there. 

A volenteerfriend from Cusco lives there now, since she is in an exchange program there, so I called her as soon as I arrived (I have a cellphone now, it is so civilized :p) and she told me that her family was having a barbeque and we, Nacho and I, were very welcome to come and join them. So that's what we did. They were very welcomming, and the house was filled with a lot of different food. We also bought a fish on the street to prepare and eat there. WOW, it was amazing. It is the fish that they fish a lot just on the coast of Valpo, but I don't really know what it is or what the name is.

At night we went out with some of Isabelle's friends. And as always around here we decided to go out (to a club or a bar) like 3 o'clock at night. To me that is just silly, because the bars and clubs close like 4 o'clock, and you are already tired when people decide to go out. Anyways, we ended up not being able to get in anywhere because the clubs were too full of people. But it was not all a waste of time, because we saw a pirate bar (which is cool in it self) but outside there was a onelegged begger.That is just SO cool, and it made me think of a volenteer guy from Cusco who talked just like a pirate.

The next day we ate brunch with the very nice people that we had stayed with, and then we went out to explore the city.

The amazing view from the apartment.

At the beautiful mosaic plaza. I was impressed.

This is typical Valpo. Graffitti on the walls, and old cars. Very nice. On the wall you can see a cat painting a portrait. It is graffitti from a very known artist around here, and his "label" is the cat, so normally he is painting this cat, but now that he is painting his selfportrait the cat paints him. Cool!

Beautiful mosaic benches. All unique.

Delicious veggie pizza at a really cool restaurant.

This is the ugliest city in all of Valpo according to Isabelle.

"Turn off the tv and live your life" - that is what it says. But Nacho told us that "apaga la tele" also means to get really drunk, so I guess you can interpret this message as you feel like.

Anyways. I had a really great time in Valpo, and it is definately a place that I would love to go back to.