For some reason all the computers have stopped recognizing my card reader, so I can´t upload photos :(
From San Pedro I went to La Serena for a few days, and it was alright, but kind of boring. In the summer, all the Chileans just go there to party on the beach, so the beach was a bit douchy. Like there was some big stage blasting music...not exactly the vibe you want when you´re at the beach. The hostel I was at was super cute though. I went to the archeological museum my second day, and aside from an awesome statue from Easter Island, it was pretty lacklustre. Also, everything is closed on Sundays here which is really frustrating. What are you supposed to do when everything shuts down?? I went to a Japanese garden which is the biggest in South America. It was donated as a show of the fraternity between La Serena and Japan. It was pretty, but fairly small, and only took about a half hour to walk through. On my last day there I went to another museum half about La Serena´s history, half about Gabriel Gonzalez Videla´s life. It had some nice paintings, but it didn´t really seem like there was a curator or focus to the museum.
Valpo was so much nicer. There is street art everywhere, and ascensores to get up the Cerros. I did a free walking tour the first day I was there and met some nice American girls that I ended up hanging out with the rest of the time we were there. The history of the city is super interesting--it was the biggest port in the whole continent (and as a result the richest city) until 1914 when the Panama Canal was built. At that point the city went into decline, as European ships no longer needed to go down around the bottom of the continent, so they were no longer stopping in Valpo. The city has suffered numerous earthquakes, and is now the city in Chile with the highest unemployment rate. We saw a building that was completley in disrepair with cracks in the walls from earthquakes and old marble stairs that had chunks ripped out of them by thieves who would sell it on the blackmarket for jewellery. It´s crazy to see such the grandiose history compared to what the city is like today.
Also, because the city is centered around all the cerros, you can get a great view, all the way to Viña del Mar and Con Con. One night I was waiting for Anya and Ivan outside a restaurant when this guy Christian started chatting to me, and it turns out he´s from Spain, but just moved to Valpo like a week ago, and invited us to come to a music festival that his roommate was playing in. We thought a music festival in Chile would be a really cool experience, so we agreed to meet him later. Turns out this ¨music festival¨ was really just his buddy playing a set in a bar. False advertising. We still had a good time though. I went to a cool free art museum the following day which many landscapes of the port at the height of it´s success. And the girls and I went on a boat tour around the coast. My final day there we went out to Con Con to go to the beach. It was a super nice view and we got some delicious seafood. Valpo was really cool and had a great vibe, so when I return to Santiago after Patagonia, I may go back for a day or 2 as it´s only a couple hours by bus from Santiago. Also, I had wanted to go to Pablo Neruda´s house, but the workers are on strike, so hopefully the labour dispute will be solved by the time I go back.
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