Region de Valparaiso

Valparaiso

Now we started travelling and went back to our backpacker life. This time we took the bus (“Turbus”) to Valparaiso. When we arrived there, we met our next host Patricio from Maitencillo. We wanted to explore the harbour, that’s why we made a boat trip through the whole port and could see huge container ships and very nice old sailing vessels from every country in South America. Because of this special cultural days, we also could visit these old sailing boats. It was a great experience to see how big sailing boats can be and how complicated it must be for the skipper to know which rope has which function. The sailing boat we have been on the Whitsunday Island was much smaller. After this exciting part at the port, Patricio showed us some nice views in Valparaiso. This town has many hills and it must be exhausting to walk up and down. That’s why there are elevators like our mountain trains (cable cars). Most of them were under construction, but a very old one made of wood, took us up to the Cerro Arilleria, from where we enjoyed a nice view of the port. Before we drove to Patricio’s home in Maitencillo, we showed Lisa all the nice colourful houses and ate traditional Empanadas for lunch. Patricio lives in an old house. This house is in a perfect location and has a terrace, from where we could see the sea. Sadly, he must leave his house in around two years, because the owner of this land will build some bigger and more modern houses to sell apartments at this place. This evening we cooked Lasagne together with Patricio and we learned a lot about the nature of Chile. Patricio is an environment activist and tries to keep the nature save from the government plans of building coal fabrics. It was very interesting to hear these stories from him, because all of us had not a lot of knowledge about this topic.

Maitencillo

The next day, Patricio was our tourguide again and he showed us the beautiful coast and nice beaches around Maitencillo. We made a nice coastal walk and enjoyed the sun. He also showed us the place, where he tries to build a new home for a sea otter (Chungungo) which cannot live without humans anymore. We also went to Cachagua and walked there along the beach to see the Island of Cachagua. After spending some time watching over to the island, we could see a penguin. One single penguin was sunbathing on a stone. Perfect on time, we went back to Patricio’s house, to enjoy the sunset on his terrace with BBQ and good wine. We really enjoyed this evening with him and his friend Roberto and had many nice talks. As he is such a super cool guy, we easily could have stayed at his place a couple of days more, but because we wanted to see so many more things on our way up to Lima, we decided to continue travelling. That’s why we took the bus to La Serena the next day.