Touring Valparaiso–the city of street art (Viña del Mar)

At the Aribnb apartment there was two rooms, of which we were renting one of them. A younger couple came and rented the other room for the weekend. They knew the area and offered to show us Valparaiso, which is a port city north of Santiago. With a lot of other things on our mind we haven’t had the time to do any research about Chile, so we said “yes” and took a day off to visit Valparaiso. Later we learned that Valparaiso is known for its poets and painters, and has some of the best street art in Latin America.

Meet our guides and our new friends

We spend half a day walking a maze of steep, sinuous streets, alleys and stairways

Enjoying all the street art

The possibilities of taking funny pictures are endless

We also rode the ascensores (funicolars or kind of elevator), which was built between 1883 and 1916. The oldest elevator is Ascensor Concepción and originally it ran on steam power.

Finding a post office in Valparaiso – the first one in a long time (the last post office I went to was in May in Mexico City). I finally got to send postcards back home and to friends in the United States, even though they were running out of international stamps for the postcards. It took a lot of licking before they were ready to put into the mailbox.