Farewell to Valparaiso

On my last day in Valparaiso, which I have thoroughly enjoyed, I saw even more murals and back streets, as well as making a little sense of some of the everyday life here. I took a second Tours 4 Tips tour, which was very enjoyable again.

My day started with a giant street market, which I had noticed being set up the previous evening.

It was a bit like a farmer’s market together with a swap meet all rolled into one and went for about 200 m along the big median strip on Avenida Argentina. Here are a few snaps to give a flavour of it:

I am intrigued overseas to find eggs sold in groups of 10 instead of dozens; I’m not sure why we in Australia continue to cling to duodecimal measures for some things. The large strawberries were very large, as you can see. I had learned that the Spanish word for strawberries was frescias, but that’s just the little ones; the larger ones are called frutillas! It was interesting too to see the spuds cut open to check the quality. Everything was pretty cheap, as you would expect.

I took advantage of being nearby an ascension to check the views of Valparaiso again – in better light than before. There are great views from this end of town:

Walking along the streets is interesting, with lots of low-scale footpath commerce happening. The people selling on the streets are mostly pretty poor themselves, but can undercut the larger supermarkets a bit by bulk buying. That explains the toilet paper thing: they will sell individual rolls to people, where the supermarket sells them in big clumps, and for some people, the cost is too high. The last here was taking her young child along for the ride, as you can see.

Even eggs get sold on the footpaths. The yellow bottles are for gas deliveries; gas is widely used for cooking and there are lots of gas deliveries going on all the time.

I popped up to the Cultural Centre (which used to be a prison, and was used for all sorts of awful things during the Dictatorship). there was some community dancing going on, which was nice. The snapshot below also shows some of the antique trolley buses still used (on the Plano – the flat part of town – only, of course); I have enjoyed a few leisurely rides in these.

I also visited the cemeteries, recommended by our Tours 4 Tips guide yesterday. It kept reminding me of the wonderful scenes in Dead Poet’s Society, in which Robin Williams observed that all the famous people in the school were now dead: “pushing up daisies”. He exhorted the pupils to carpe diem – seize the day – which I have taken as great advice ever since, and I know that Carla (my older daughter) has been moved by the advice as well. You really do only live once …

Looking at the graves, some ore elaborate than others, I was struck that many of them only recorded the days on which people died. What a shame; far better to remember people’s whole lives, not just the end of their lives, I think. One of the biggest memorials is for the local fire fighters, who are still all volunteers, who are easily the most respected of official forces I was told (more so than Police, army, navy, etc). In a town with many fires, as well as earthquakes, that’s not surprising. These people can be relied upon to help.

A few more random snaps: my lunch of cerviches (a lovely fish dish), among other things was delicious. I continue to see great street art (and pavement art!) and continue to enjoy the ups and downs of the ascensores.

Our Tour guide today was from Canada (which proves you can do a great job, even if you’re not a local), but has been living in Valparaiso for more than a year now. She was a very good Wally! We saw lots more street art and I learned that a major reason for the murals is to avoid having your property tagged (as there are codes amongst street artists). here are a few more snaps of the many things that caught my eye.

I was surprised (well, not too surprised by now!) to see that even the garbage trucks are decorated here! One of the murals looked like a Banksy, but I think it was just a copy or she would have said otherwise:

I also saw many lovely things that were not street art, such as the beautiful property with a view at the top of this blog and the lovely crochet work in the art centre. Here is also another picture of the lovely yellow house:

My last meal in Valparaiso was roughing it in a local pub, where everyone was watching the football. I enjoyed a beer and a ham sandwich, but the four people in the booth next to me had two of these enormous chorrilanos, a popular dish. I had tried to eat one of these myself in Santiago, and failed miserably; I think four people did a better job!