Hello, Chile

Gillian and I are currently sitting in our hotel room in Valparaíso, Chile overlooking the harbor and beyond that, the Pacific Ocean.  The hotel is bright red stucco with white trim, which complements the rest of this bright and colorful city.

But, of course, we are watching the soccer/futbol game that has the whole place dead quiet tonight.  Argentina, as I write this, is up 1-0 and if Chile doesn't win, I am glad we are leaving the city in a couple of days.  But, then again, if they win...maybe it's best to head out of town either way.

We just arrived late this afternoon via Los Angeles; Lima, Peru and finally into Santiago at about 3pm Chilean time...which happens to be an hour later, even, than Eastern time.  Believe it or not, Chile is east of New York.  What?  Then, we had a driver waiting for us to bring us to Valparaìso an hour and a half away.

Anyway, all of that is to say, we haven't been here long, so this is just a hello, get my feet wet with writing on this little blog again kind of post.

What I can tell you so far:  Chile is mountainous.  Gorgeous in a breathtaking way.  The Andes along the border with Argentina and Bolivia on the east and the Chilean Coast Range on the...coast.  There is a narrow valley between the two in this long, thin country.  On the drive here, we learned that Chile has some of the best soil for growing anything, has some of the best wine and also has the second most volcanoes in the world and many earthquakes...yikes.

Regarding that last part:  Ignorance was bliss.

Anyway, we were dropped off at our hotel, in Valparaìso and told we should just wander around the city (after a long lecture about not carrying our camera out in public and leaving anything we cared at all about in our hotel room...I was really missing ignorance at this point).

But, after freshening up, we headed out the door and started wandering, ducking into shops where Gillian tried out her Spanish (thank goodness for that), and talking about what we should do for dinner.  There were lots of other tourists like us, carrying hotel maps and snapping pictures.  Everyone seemed much less sinister than we had begun to think.  But, a little healthy fear is not so bad, I guess.

As we were headed toward our hotel earlier in the day, our driver had said, "You know why Valpo women have the best legs?"

We didn't.

BUT, We found out during our little jaunt this evening.  It is hillier and steeper here than San Francisco.  More hills and more cobblestone sharp curves that make Lombardi Street look tame.  It gave us an awesome stair climber workout whether we wanted it or not.

But, the other thing so far about this place is the cool graffiti.  I will put up some pictures, it is everywhere and tucked into corners and crevices everywhere surprising you with the color, the subject matter and the raw artistic power of it.

More to come tomorrow when we get a real tour.

Update:  Chile has lost the match, and even the announcers look ashen.

outside our hotel