Painting My Spirit Gold

My friend Nina described the ambiance of Valparaíso perfectly, “It’s like San Francisco (USA) and Cinque Terre (Italy) had a baby”.  Although I’ve never been to Cinque Terre, I’ve pined over plenty of pictures to completely understand what she meant.  Valparaíso has the coast and hills dotted with colorful buildings of Cinque Terre and the artsy, wander-able streets of San Francisco.

Much like Cartagena, Colombia, I don’t feel like I can do Valparaíso justice with a post filled with words. The best part of being there was simply walking around Cerro Alegre and taking in the colors, street art, and eclectic atmosphere. Many other bloggers have portrayed the sentiments that fill the city and have described it better than I can (to be truthful, I’m also feeling behind on my blog posts and still dealing with depression after Nina and Zach left).

In addition, the beloved and famous Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, was inspired and fell in love with this place.  He does a beautiful job better describing what I couldn’t say about this city in his poem: An English version to Ode to Valparaíso.  The Spanish version Oda a Valparaíso.

So once again, I have decided to let my photos do the talking.

I’m typically not one to appreciate graffiti found on underpasses of highways, lining sidewalks, or on building faces.  However, it was very different in Valparaíso. The street-art was captivating, thoughtful, full of color and very well done.  

Graffiti and Street Art that caught my eye: 

My personal favorite of course.

Something I do always appreciate is colorful buildings and views which Valparaíso has no shortage of: 

Right outside of our apartment. 

Even the stairs are worth taking photos of in Valpo:

And the best empanadas in Chile according to Dan from Le Pato (also see cover photo of cute Nina and creepy me): 

Photo Cred: Nina Kovack

Churros filled with Manjar (similar to Dulce de Leche) from a roadside stand: 

And a seal we named Simon (if you drive south of Valparaíso to the Punta de Angeles Lighthouse, there are cliffs where you can look over and see seal lions basking on rocks and in Simon’s case, swimming around): 

Photo Cred: Zach Kovack

All four of us absolutely loved Valparaíso (minus the two days of clouds we had).  We couldn’t stop talking about how interesting and beautiful the city is.  I really didn’t feel like two days was enough to take it all in but I’m so happy we were able to all experience it together.

Until next time, Valpo!  Thanks for the memories!