After my second time in Santiago I took the bus, only two hours to Valparaiso, famous for its steep hills an murals.
If you read the text on this arch, you will see that it was not just the Spanish who took an interest here.
Selling nuts by the tsunami escape route sign - are they crazy?
These tall ships arrived when I was here - one from each country in South America. They are from the training schools for the navies, and there was some sort of pass out parade for the recruits, who spent some time climbing the rigging!
As you can see, Valparaiso is built on a hill. Two days after I left there was a huge fire here, very tragic.
These sea lions look kind of cute!
More to do with the naval celebrations.
This very learned cat, obviously exhausted after all its reading in the bookshop.
There are several of these ascensores, slightly alarming with the creaking and rattling!
I spent two days here, then got the night bus to La Serena. After a couple beers with a fun American girl (I loved her copious use of young peoples adjectives) from the hostel and a couple of Belgians. . Though I had made arrangements to have a large taxi be at the station for 9pm, when I got there, no sign. Not many people about either and only this taxi driver was friendly.
Rather optimistically he thought that a bicycle might go in the boot. Not so sure myself I took a chance - but as you can see, a perfect fit.
Some people at the hostel helped bring down a couple of my bags and the taxi driver "Vamos" - "Let's go!".
"No there's more" I said. He dropped his hands to his sides, looked to the sky and said something about Jesus!
Unfortunately arriving at the next hostel at 6am wasn't such a good idea. It was cold waiting for reception to open at 7.
Trip here to see one of the observatories - Chile has the best conditions for earth based telescopes - the high altitude and arid climate leading to very clear skies. This is only a small one, but Europe and the US and others are building and planning bigger and bigger ones - VLT - Very Large Telescope, ELT - Extremely and maybe OWL - Overwhelmingly ... The amount of money being spent is simply astronomical!
This was a great bar just down from the hostel,an Irish couple I met said that they served the best chips they had ever had. When walking here Colleen noticed a strange thing high up. An amazing meteor travelled all the way across the sky. We were gobsmacked.
Some piccies from the Elqui valley, a fairly relaxing day out.
On top of the (nearly empty) damn.
Back in La Serena, Cola Cola have won the league.
Turns out the bird mentioned in a previous post is a Turkey Vulture. Actually quite common.
The Japanese gardens.
People setting up decorations for a craft festival.
This hostel, in some ways more of a hotel, had this poster. Run by Germans, it was very well organised and efficient. They do have a sense of humour!
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