Mr. Neruda's Valparaiso

I started to walk to the University of Santiago metro stop at about 7:45, and really it was still fairly dark, but I could tell the promise of sun was in the air. Today is the anniversary of e death of Allende and three are police all over the place because last year there was a bomb in the metro.  But I was taking a bus and walking to the metro stop where the busses go, so I felt just fine.  It was morning, my best time of day, and I had eaten my yogurt with peanuts and raisins and had two cups of instant coffee.  I was raring to go to Valparaiso, the port where Pablo Neruda had a house up in the hills, overlooking the sparking but often misty waters of the Pacific Ocean.  I didn't realize that once the Panama Canal was built, Valparaiso's significance as an international port was diminished substantially, but then, I didn't know lots and lots of things.  Ask anybody.

To prepare for the BIG national holiday on September 18 (really it will go for several days), everyone is loading up on meat, and the ads on the television monitors at the bus station attested to that fact.

I thought I would take a tour with Tours4tips, but when I got to Valparaiso, I was met by a charming English speaking young woman who quickly talked me into taking their tour for three hours - special deal for 12,000 pesos instead of 20,000 - and the entire bus was filled with Brazilian couples.  An adventure indeed.  We stopped first at the port where we watched these sea lions loll around on a former jetty where fishermen used to fish, and then we headed off to squares I couldn't really identify.  We all dutifully photographed everything, especially the fellow with one of those selfie sticks who kept inserting himself and his gf into every single shot...

I can tell you that this interesting building with the big cut out in the center where you can see he blue sky is the building where all the senators and politicians come to govern.  Who knew?  Apparently they all have expensive drivers who take them the two hours to Valparaiso from Santiago.  Bizarre.

This is our guide, and after enough of squares and churches that I couldn't quite situate in my book, we began to climb into the densely housed hills where every house has a little vista of the water.  We went to Cerro Allegre where I understood that the owners of the corrugated houses painted them brilliant colors, hence the term "happy avenue,"

My favorite photo is really a close up of this green house where a gray cat was nestled on the front stoop.

Graffiti is everywhere and is considered an art form, as it rightly should be, she said, trying toruffle feathers of the tidy and the pristine.

But this was one of the most spectacular, a full mural, painting along a long building by this group of indigenous people whose name I cannot really pronounce.  In this little coffee shop there hing a sign that made my day.

If you ask for coffee, it costs 1,500 pesos, but if you say,"good day" before you ask, the price is lowere; finally, if you say "good day" AND please, the coffee price goes down to 900 pesos.  Good, eh?

Views of the water were everywhere, and the houses were cheek by jowl, so close that when someone was hanging out laundry, you might be able to see more than was appropriate...

Finally, we got up to Neruda's house where he spent not so much time, maybe three times a year for Christmas and two other holidays like September 18, Independence Day, when fireworks were on display down on the water - fabulous array, I gather.  Here was his terrace, and below is looking back up at the modern house.

Andthe property went down into a little shaded garden area below.

We ate lunch overlooking the sea, and four young Brazilians let me join them at their table. Don't ask me why this is now blue...

The tour went on to Vina del Mar, but my bus was leaving at 4:16, and they dropped me off at 3:30, so I had more time to hang out in a busstation.  I walked around and found a market where I bought halfkilo of apples before the long slog back to the city.  I did get to siton the top level in the very front seat, which was by my standards,high riding until we arrived in Santiago and got stuck behind lines and lines of busses at a dead standstill.  A nice Slovakian coupleinsisted after about 45 minutes that they be allowed to get offthe bus,something I wanted to do but had no clue where we were,so I followed them off the bus, and we wound our way aroundtothe metro station where, despite the dire warnings of my friend about the bomb, we took the bloody metro back to our respective stops. 

One last exciting picture from the bus ride back to town is below. Because the sun was out I could get a sense of the magnificence orthe snow capped Andes looming in the background of the city.

Pretty incredible to see them, not realizing they were mountains instead of clouds...

Tomorrow off to La Serena for three days, but this trip is 6-7 hours on the bus.  I bought big bags of peanuts for the journey and hope to have a little Hostal el Punto awaiting my arrival; maybe it will even have wifi.  Life is good.