Aneya & Lauren: Valparaiso.

Lauren pretending to be happy in front of the fountain

Me, wishing those people would move.

View from the hills
The hills of Valparaiso
Now wouldn't those stairs be a good workout!
Lauren, happy after her glass of wine.
Me, always happy to be drinking.

Lots of fresh produce, but also....
SO. MUCH. FISH. Too much, really.
At the beginning of the day...little did she know what was to come.....

Lauren: So, Valparaiso didn't exactly live up to our expectations. We were hoping for good music, and well we weren't quite sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn't what we were hoping.

Aneya: Ummm. Ya. Valparaiso was....interesting. Maybe our expectations were too high, maybe we'd been spoiled by the clean, beautiful streets of Santiago. In any case, I was expecting a charming little port town, celebrating it's bicentennial with a lovely little festival. That's not quite what happened.

Lauren: My first impression of Valparaiso was of this dog, laying right at the entrance of the city. Some part of its mouth was broken, and its mouth wouldn't close. Whatever happened this dog's face wasn't clear, but his face definitely met with a violent fate. It was so sad to see. After seeing this, I was really just appalled, horrified, and sad, so Aneya decided it was lunch time. She was nice about staying positive. ... and really wanted a sandwich.

Aneya: So when the bus dropped us off- Hold on. Let me back it up. We took a bus from Santiago, which was just lovely. It was modern, clean, and there was plenty of leg room. So the trip started off on a positive note. When we got to Valparaiso the first thing we saw was what appeared to be a street fair. Upon later inspection we found out it was basically one big garage sale, with the most random, dirty, ugly items you've ever seen. Let's just say we weren't impressed. That's when we decided to get lunch. Lauren had been traumatized by the sight of a sick dog, and I felt bad, so I found us a restaurant and got her a nice big glass of wine. This helped immensely.

Lauren: The streets were really dirty, the music was bad and loud. For some reason, there was a startling amount of amputees in this city. It was so sad to see. Sick people, sick animals, dirty streets. It was really overwhelming. And we trekked the entire city almost entirely by foot, so we were hot, tired, and scared (because men were really aggressive and forward).

And there were these two men moving a small motor in a shopping cart through the carnival! It was so so crazy.

Aneya: Afterwards, we decided to try and find Pablo Neruda's second house, located on one of the many hills of Valparaiso. It was FAR up that damn hill, we finally hitched a ride with a bus and eventually ended up at the "San Sebastian", his amazing, five story home. Neruda's house was totally quirky and had stunning views of the water. Afterwards, we got a ride on a bus back down the giant hill, which I was thankful for.

Lauren: But the bus driver kept changing the fare. First it was 100 pesos. Then 260. Then 600 pesos. I mean, we were going farther and farther, but still. The price was increasing exponentially. As soon as we were at the bottom of the hill we were off that bus!

Aneya: By now I could tell that Lauren was not feeling this city whatsoever. She said she felt "unsettled" by some of the streets, which, I will admit, were graffiti-filled, dirty and filled with strange looking people. Those charming little houses stacked on one another now looked ugly and worn down. The city was hosting a festival, and it was packed to the brim with people, each one more bizarre than the next. Men hollered at us as we walked (mostly nice things, like hermosa! or pretty ladies! But still, you don't have to get so close!) and I personally felt like I could be attacked at any moment by one of the many Goth freaks lurking the corners.

Lauren: I couldn't stop thinking about those sick, emaciated dogs that were everywhere. And the people! I've never seen so many amputees in any one area. I couldn't believe it. It was heartbreaking. I seriously couldn't handle it.

The dogs too were much more aggressive than dogs in Santiago. One tiny, skinny dog ran into my legs and almost tripped me after a larger dog started barking at her/him.

Aneya: We got lost and ended up walking around in a circle for what felt like hours. By this time, Lauren looked like she was about to burst, she was so fed up with this place. I wasn't as revolted as she was, it kind of reminded me of the seedier areas of Marseille, which I know well. It's a port town, after all. But she had had enough. So we decided to get back to the bus, if we could find it. Which we couldn't. By now a horrible sound was blaring from the streets (someone attempting- and failing- to sing) and sick dogs, amputees, and every other wierdo had decided to come out of the woodworks. It was like something out of a horror movie. Lauren still had a sense of humor about it. Sort of.

Lauren: At some point I began laughing hysterically, but more out of how ridiculous this whole day was. It was scary, sad, dirty (we were filthy by the end of the day), and I really had not anticipated a day like this. I mean, any time I've gone to a festival, I've walked around a lot, been really dirty at the end of the day, but this was truly unbelievable. Maybe because it was a festival, and everyone was just loosing their minds, acting crazy and getting in our faces and the streets were understandably dirtier, but that still doesn't explain all the sick people and animals (a quick Google search yielded no explanation).

Aneya: So we finally made it to the bus station, which was like something out of a war zone, packed with people yelling at each other, it was complete chaos. We tried to get on our bus, but were denied. Por que? We went over to the desk and were informed that there were NO buses leaving Valparaiso that day. At all. I wanted to cry right then and there. You can only imagine how Lauren was feeling. She was about to lose it, I could see it in her eyes. We went to three different kiosks and each told us the same thing. Then, miracle of miracles, a sweet girl, seeing the look of terror in our eyes, took pity on us, and helped us score two tickets out of there. We were beyond relieved. I ended up running after the bus like a crazy woman (which, it turns out, was empty) to make damn sure they'd let us on. And they did. And that was the end of that. Oh Valparaiso, how you disappointed thee.