Valparaiso, Chile

Valparaiso is an important sea port located in a bay on the Pacific Coast of Chile. It is most known for its world famous street art and steep hills overlooking the water. We decided to spend a couple days in this colorful artist haven over New Years Eve. While the largest NYE fireworks display in South America is what brought us into the city, we are so glad that we had set aside some time to get to know the real Valparaiso first. The vibrant colors and bustling neighborhoods had us hooked from our first day in town.

The first thing that captures your attention about Valparaiso is the street art. The walls, houses, doors, and stairways all over the city are covered in beautiful and intricate murals of art. Graffiti tagging is very popular in most South American cities and Valparaiso has tons of graffiti tagging as well. What sets Valparaiso apart is that the murals are respected by other graffiti artists. If a wall has clearly been the work of a dedicated artist, it will be left alone by the other graffiti artists. This was originally an artist courtesy but once homeowners and businesses realized that they could keep their homes and shops free of graffiti by commissioning street art, the city exploded in murals and paintings. The city even commissions some artists although technically graffiti is still illegal, so they can’t be too complicit. The vibrant colors really lit up the city and you could find incredible murals on popular streets but also hidden in back alleys cutting across the tops of hills. We joined the Tours-4-Tips free walking tour that focused on street art and the artist culture in the city so we were able to enjoy some of the best murals in the city, particularly in Cerro Concepcion where there is a long alley filled with beautiful street art called Pasaje Galvez Arte Callejero. 

After street art, the next thing you notice about Valparaiso is all the hills, or cerros. The city has 43 different neighborhoods which are usually named for the hill that it sits on. Valparaiso is shaped basically like a stadium that has been cut in half with the water as the field, so each hillside has an incredible view of not only the ocean but the rest of town itself. We stayed in an Airbnb in Cerro Alegra. Our neighborhood is one of the more popular for cafes and restaurants so we really enjoyed our walks down the hill to the city center and the water. The walk downhill is interesting and fun to look around at all the homes built on the steep hillsides, but the way home is spent huffing and puffing while climbing the hills back up! The hills are so steep that the city installed 22 funiculars, basically slightly angled elevators that go up the steepest hills. The funiculars, or ascensors, are named for the neighborhood they take you to. Today only 8 are in operation but the city is trying to restore any that can be salvaged. We were able to take Ascensor Peral up from the main plaza by the water to Plaza Yugoslavia on one tour, and another Ascensor down from a hilltop to the lower part of town for dinner. Both were crazy steep but well worth saving yourself the steep climb up or down. Other than that we told ourselves the hills were our training for our backpacking in Patagonia that was coming up soon and so we usually made ourselves walk the whole way back to our Airbnb (Ron Howard voice: it did not help).

The hills and neighborhoods gave Valparaiso such a unique character; they provided great views of the bay on nearly every walk we did and also a good look at the interesting and creative architecture required for homes to be built on the steep hillsides. The city also has done a great job repurposing some buildings, most impressively the old prison! We learned that this prison was a place the previous dictatorship used to house political prisoners. Once the dictatorship fell the prison was abandoned for a long time. Soon some of the more brave local bands and artists would use the building as event spaces. After a the community petitioned the city to repurpose the prison as an artist commune and now artists can apply for residences, host workshops and art shows, and it has a memorial dedicated to the political prisoners who were wrongly imprisoned.

On one of our free walking tours they led us to a steep alleyway called Pasaje Bavestrello where someone’s house was located in the middle section of the hillside. There we discovered the real star of Valparaiso: Alfajores. These are shortbread cookies that have a dulce-de-leche filling (a sweet toffee similar to a chocolatey-caramel) that are dipped in melted chocolate. I promise y’all that if each of you guesses how many Alfajores we ate in 3 days in Valpo no one would ever assume we ate as many as we did. They were wonderful and we haven’t found any as good as them since. 

Valparaiso is the main city in the area but there are also other towns and suburbs nearby on the coast that offer different vibes. Viña Del Mar is a city slightly off the water where a lot of locals live while the actual coastline is full of beach resorts and hotels. This is actually the closest real beach to Valparaiso (Valpo is more of a sea port city) so it is a common spot for both tourists and locals. Viña Del Mar also has a flower clock (a big clock on the hillside made of flowers), a large park, and even a Maoi Head from Easter Island in a local museum. The Moai Head is one of the few heads away from Easter Island in the world. Well, it wasn't really in the museum but rather outside on the lawn with no plaques or information cards so, we have no idea why it's there. We were able to take the local bus from Valparaiso to Viña and walked through the city seeing the sites. 

Further up the coast is a popular beach-town called Concon. Concon has two big landmarks to see: the Playa La Boca (a huge beach that is known for its great surfing) and the Dunas de Concon (huge sand dunes located on the coast). We first headed to the beach but quickly learned we may have picked the wrong day to go. Not only were we going on New Year's Day so everyone was off of work but it was also the only warm, sunny day in the last 4 days so it felt like everyone took advantage of the good weather and was at the beach. Our bus was packed and we even had to backtrack to an earlier stop to beat the crowds and find a bus that had room for us. Then we sat in traffic as we passed another beach town on the way, Renaca, and then again when we found the Playa La Boca beach traffic. We ended up getting “asked” to get off the bus and had to walk the last couple of blocks to the beach. 

The beach was packed and full of people, dogs, horses, and vendors. We walked along the beach for a while away from the crowds taking in the sun and the breeze. We made it up to our ankles in the water before running back to shore, it was so cold! We left the beach and found a nice restaurant up on the cliffs that overlooked the beach, Restaurante Secreto. We had some drinks, french fries, ice cream, and played cards while enjoying the afternoon. 

We then headed to the sand dunes to watch the sunset. The dunes are HUGE and right off the main road. We had to climb up ~100 feet of sand to get to the top of the dunes. As we sat enjoying the sunset we learned the sand dunes aren't actually from the beach! They were formed from sediments brought in from large rivers during the melting of the last ice age. The sand was super fine and light and turned a beautiful color during the sunset. We were blown away by the size and scale of the dunes and we're really glad we ventured out of Valparaiso to see them.

The New Years fireworks celebration was the main reason we visited Valpo and we couldn't wait to enjoy them on the patio of our Airbnb for NYE. Unfortunately we found out on NYEE (New Years Eve Eve) that their fireworks show was canceled. What we heard, but did not confirm, was that the city bought fireworks for the 2020 show before Covid shut everything down. They have been planning to use those whenever they opened back up. Of course, the city didn’t realize that the fireworks had an expiration date and had already expired. They only learned this 2 weeks ago and the military made them test some fireworks in the middle of nowhere. After the test they decided to cancel the show (how bad must the test have gone??). So, no official fireworks display on NYE. Luckily for us the locals still rallied and there were many fireworks going off up in the hills all evening. We ended up enjoying our NYE at home with plenty of snacks, local cervezas, and the College Football Playoffs on ESPN Deportes and still enjoyed ringing in the new year on our patio overlooking Valparaiso. 

Valparaiso was one of the more unique and interesting places we have visited so far in our trip and we really enjoyed it. The beautiful street art and murals provided a surprise around every corner; it really was a joy just walking around the different neighborhoods and taking in the sights. We were glad we got to spend enough time in Valparaiso to really take it all in and nest in one place for a bit rather than moving around constantly. Up next, Patagonia!