Valparaiso and guess who...

Today we came for a day trip to Valparaiso, the centre or the beginning of many of Isabel Allende´s stories - which I had to see no matter what!!

Well it has lived up to our expectations, the small houses on the hill are cute and there are tons of them all over the hills. In fact, thinking caefully, they very much look like the favelas in Rio, not that I would ever dare saying this to a local here... We spent our day on Cerro Concepcion and Cerro Bellavista, walking through the beautiful alleys and murales which are found everywhere on the upper part of town. We then spent some 3 hours in a nice little restaurant with a great view on the port and a very cheap set menu with wine, pisco sour, starter, second starter, main, dessert and god knows what else.

And while we are walking around what do I see? A poster saying that Inti Illimani are playing in the evening at 21.30!!! As I start sulking to the locals about the fact that we are going back to Santiago and that Inti Illimani are playing in the evening and does anybody know if they are on tour and where next - and nobody knows - I discover that Inti Illimani are actually Chileans and not Bolivians and that they have been exiled for ages under Pinochet and that one of them lives in Valparaiso and has a restaurant!! Ah! So next we go to check out the venue - and Gregory somehow manages to sneak inside and there he is, talking to the black member of the band!!!! They even took a picture together!!!! All this while I am waiting outside because the lady guarding the door is telling me that I cannot enter - so why did she let Gregory in? Because he is black!!!!!! Yes, yes, because he is black like one of the band and the reality is that there are no blacks here, so the nice lady must have thought he was a friend of his! We have only seen 4 other black people so far, one was earlier on today and Gregory and the guy shook hands at least SIX TIMES. While many women look at him and then react with a ´negrito bonito´ or simply a ´que bonito´!! The youngsters simply tend to cheer or smile. So it appears that he is a rarity and they find him cute, as well as young - most people seem to think he is 35. I have not so far dared asking how old they thought I am...I DON´T WANT TO KNOW!!!

Anyways, here are a couple of pics of Valparaiso

Murales