I made it to the lobby, barely, and still slightly drunk. Promptly fell asleep during the bus ride, so no pictures were taken of the countryside this time. We arrived at Valparaiso, the port city of Chile, at around 11 AM, as I grumbled my way off the bus. With a little bit of fresh air and a cigarette, I began to wake up and feel a little better. Valparaiso reminded me of pictures that I have seen of Rio de Janeiro, a wide, arcing panorama of coastline littered with tiny shacks up on the hills. The houses were all extraordinarily colorful, which I really enjoyed, from deep hues of red and green to bright yellow and purple, making for incredible scenery. As the guide explained, the poorer you were, the further up on the hill you lived, as we found out later the hills were pretttty steep.
We took a boat tour through the harbor first, which I hadn't been expecting but was quite enjoyable. Tagging along on the boat was a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay, who was traveling through Chile on a break. I took the opportunity to pick his brain for a while, since I was already accepted for a program in Sub-Saharan Africa come June 2010. He was really helpful, and told me that if I was having doubts about Africa and would prefer Latin America (very much so), that I need to be more forceful and put my foot down, that they would change my assignment. Basically a life-changing conversation, since Africa definitely intimidated me a bit and I hadn't been taking it too seriously.
Following the boat tour, we drove a short distance through the city, and then embarked upon a walking tour of the various barrios. Valparaiso, like the Bellavista neighborhood, is chock full of amazing graffiti murals, so I ran around snapping pictures left and right. We took the Chilean version of an elevator, more like a cable car, to the top of a vista with pretty amazing views. Up there I bought a couple random items, including an Alpaca wool hoody for less then 30 dollars US. The rest of the day was spent exploring more of the city, including another cable car up to an open-air museum of murals that was closed, but still offered lots of great graffiti shots regardless. I also found a women selling magnets of the local street art, from whom I promptly purchased 20 dollars worth of magnets (gifts for friends back home...) Lunch was at a local restaurant, I had a pretty decent cheese empenada and fettucini alfredo.
There were street dogs everywhere, but one in particular was amazingly endearing. We got off the second cable car ride, and a golden retriever came running over to follow us. Someone must have given him a little food, because he followed us a LONG way, for at least a couple of miles as we walked up many flights of stairs, hills, and down streets. After several hours later, he was still with us, as we had to say goodbye at that point since we were getting on the bus. What a loyal companion indeed, Valentina our tour guide rewarded him by buying a thing of dog food for him. Annie our professor randomly decided to have us all stop at a bar on the way home, which I was not too enthused about given my overindulgence the night before. Despite the intention of taking a day of from drinking, I ended up splitting a big bottle of Escudo with my roommate, which still felt like taking the day off given the past week. The bus ride home was agony however, as I had forgot to go to the bathroom before we left and half a 40 ounce of beer was desperately trying to get out of me. Finally someone else had to pee too, and the bus driver pulled over on the highway. What sweet, beautiful, relief...I slept the rest of the way home, and called it an early night. Having missed the fire spinning that evening in the Parque Forestal, I decided to buy my own fuel the next day so I could spin whenever and wherever I wanted to....
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