sean|goes|to|chile: valpo

as far as cities go, valparaíso takes the cake in chile for being the most stunning, the most contrary to stock bs south american tourism, the most dynamic, and quite possibly the most ideal place to live for a vigorous 20-something looking to savor the fruits of life. some chileans know this, the city is chocked-full of artists, musicians, students, and, at least last weekend, american tourists. i think the latter is more of a rare occurrence - and really easy to spot... we're much louder than most people - and by no means did it get in the way of enjoying the city. surprisingly, a fair number of chileans are inexplicably unimpressed by valparaíso, preferring the weaksauce beach "charm" of the city's neighbor viña del mar - think preferring miami (viña del mar) to san francisco (valparaíso), but smaller scale - i know, absolutely ludicrous. i've been to valparaíso or "valpo" as it's known here twice now and it's only getting better. the city is pretty much an open air museum with interminable exhibits that are even better because they're homemade (see above post - "art of valpo"). as far as i can tell, the murals and graffiti that litter every paseo and street are endorsed by the powers that be, which only makes the city that much more enchanting - nothing is ever painted over and you'll never encounter a sign banning artistic expression, if anything, you're more likely to find some signage pointing you to the next mecca of homegrown street art. even the garbage cans are evocative.

what adds to all this inherent magic of valpo is the structure of the city itself. valpo was and remains a port town. before the opening of the panama canal, it was the primary port in south america. as people flocked to the city, they just kept building houses around the port with no real development plan whatsoever. so what remains today is a relatively organized central shopping/business district, known as ""el plan" or "the plan" as chris farley would crack, surrounded by a slew of colorful-house ridden cerros (hills) that climb away from the pacific. the construction of houses developed on these cerros with little to no cohesive thought and for better or worse (better for toursits, worse for inhabitants?), the city is an unadulterated mess of a maze. if you are on one cerro and need to get to another, chances are you need to descend back to a main street in "el plan" and then climb up the cerro you desire. at the same time, every hill in the city rewards one with an absolutely staggering view of valpo and its neighboring cities. if you're too lazy you can always take one of the city's many historic ascensores (funicular - yellow guy in bottom right of the subsequent collage) up or down for a 100 pesos (a quarter).

as with any chilean city with proximity to the ocean, valpo is also a great place to get your seafood on. walking past the city's central market, one is granted a free-admission to some serious head-chopping, belly-gutting, bone-picking, mollusk shell-beating action from valpo's finest seafood vendors. there's always the option to go sit down somewhere and avoid all the carnage too, which we opted to do after taking in the carnage. two of these guys are abalones, the ones with the mayo on 'em. i'd never tried abalone before, and was pretty ignorant as to what they were. so i wiki'd that ish and found out there's some serious black market abalone trading going on between south africa and certain asian nations. write your senator. also, if you live in california, you can only have 3 abalones on you at any given time. and you thought this blog was a waste of your time.

valpo is also home to a fair number of former-chilean dignitaries. the first democratically elected socialist president, salvador allende and his "kinda a dick" dictator/murderer successor augusto pinochet were both born in valparaíso. also, the nobel prize winner and all around pimp-daddy C poet pablo neruda also made valpo home. neruda is a universally adored hero of this country and perhaps even the continent. his poetry isn't great latin american poetry, it's just brilliant poetry. the man had three main houses in chile, all of which are now open to the public in the form of museums. his house in valpo, named la sebastiana after it's intended builder who died before he could complete it, is probably the best looking architecturally and totally fits the beyond-quirky nature of its ex-inhabitant neruda.

neruda's sphere of influence wasn't limited to his verse, the man was a influential socialist, diplomat, and for a fleeting moment, near-president. with the requisite traveling such a position called for, neruda had the opportunity to collect massive amounts of random shit, which fill his houses/museums to this day. i'm talking about model wooden horses from french carousels, embalmed exotic birds, chinese tapestries, colonial-era maps of the americas, bowsprits, and submarine windows. without doubt, in valparaíso the man found a city that perfectly corresponded to his many eccentricities.