Valparaiso

To my greatest joy, I went to Valapraiso this weekend.

With Astrid driving, and me in the front seat, it took us two hours to get to the seaside city: Valparaiso. Our group was composed of a 21 year dutchman named William, two Peruvian girls whose names I embarrassingly don't remember, Astrid, and I. On the journey to get there, I got to see the side of Chile (and Santiago) that was out of the bubble that I lived in. The "beautiful hilly landscape" that I expected to see was covered in rubbish and advertisements, massive, ugly billboards have been placed on the hill sides amidst the garbage bags and what little brown grass there was left. Nonetheless, Renca, a shanty-town suburb of Santiago, has a huge Hollywood-like sign on the hill it flanks, with written "RENCA LA LLEVA" -Chilean slang for "Renca rocks!"- all due to the mayor's one-time sudden inspiration for spending the city funds. All this is to say that I have left my bubble, and that Chile seems to try really hard to hide this side, which surely has more truth to it than the modern Santiago I have been living in.

Valparaiso was again, a whole other world. I don't think I have ever seen a city with more charm and colors than Valparaiso. Its innumerable amount of alleys winding up the hillsides, amazing Graffiti and charming coffeeshops reminded me of Lisbon but more Latin, and with even smaller roads. To go up the hillside we also used the small, creaking, wooden elevators that are distributed disorderly along the city's "ceros".
Astrid and the Peruvians left on Saturday evening, leaving me alone with William, the "play-date" Astrid assigned me over the basis that he is European and my age. William is a very nice Dutchman who taught me a lot about my camera but who is also very frustratingly passive most of the time. At night, together with William - who refused to drink any alcohol despite my encouragements to maybe get some activity out of him - we chanced upon a musical gathering of people from the Andes.I never thought there could be so much rhythm coming from a pan-flute and we both had a wonderful night. As we were watching the dancers, I thought to myself that I had finally found the Latin America I was looking for. To top off the greatness of our short stay in Valparaiso, the hostel forgot to make us pay! We tried to pay, but there was no one there, they really gave us no other choice but to enjoy a free breakfast and just leave.

In short, I fell in Love with that city.