Valparaiso

 By the day we left Santiago, we were already aware of a slightly heartbreaking fact: there was going to be no hitching.

Truth be told, the outskirts of the city are huge and can get dodgy, and we already knew that in Chile proper hitchhiking is always on the higway. Turns out that getting all the way to the highway by bus was pretty much the same as getting to Valparaiso all the way by bus. So we did.

We took the bus with one of our hostel's mates, and then parted ways because we had booked different hostels.

Stina and Apollo (the Random Backpacks) sit at the bus terminal in
Santiago with their new mate, Adam's backpack.

Barry the hippo enjoys bus traveling like nobody else

On arrival, the first thing Chey and I did was taking the local bus "O" and finding our hostel, which was up a steep "cerro" (the city is all made of "cerros", which are hills, covered in houses), and a whole bunch of stairs.

We finally found the address we had been given, exhausted and sweaty, only to find a note on the door saying something along the lines of "Dear travelers, congratulations! you almost found it. Now walk up a last set of stairs to the actuall hostel's address". Signed by Kent (can't wait to tell you all about Kent).

That last set of stairs was so worth it when we finally got settled in into a beautiful double room (for the price of a dorm!) and saw the view from the terrace of what was to become our favorite hostel in the whole trip.

The view.

There's a thing about Valparaiso, and I find it hard to explain. Pablo Neruda, the wonderful Nobel laureate Chilenian poet, was madly in love with the city and wrote things about it way better than anything I could ever write with my meh English. Many other writers and bohemians shared that love, so if you want to read something fancier on the city be my (and google's) guest!

I basically grew up fed with all this beautiful images of a myriad of colorful houses seemingly falling into the ocean, a labyrinth of stairs, and a mysterious mist coming from the port. I was definitely not ready for the insanely amazing street art everywhere and the cats.

Because it wasn't enough with the beauty, the atmosphere and the mystery. The most beautiful city in Chile also has cats. Cats everywhere.

Anything else? Ah, yes: the day we arrived was also Valentines day. But let me tell you all about our very special Valentines night in the next post.