Mmm Valparaiso

Expectations are funny things, especially when they aren't met. We left Pucon feeling a bit virtuous, we were going to night bus ten hours to Santiago, then take the first bus to Mendoza, saving a night s accommodation and time. Good plan, unless the pass across the Andes is closed. So we got the bus from Santiago to Valparaiso, touted as a quaint hilltop place of steep streets and funiculars (or ascensors) overlooking the twinkling ocean. I can't blame a town for not looking its best when the weather is hideous, especially a seaside town. It bucketed like nothing else. But, give me Cinque Terre any day.

We were lucky our hostel man was so lovely and helpful, pointed us in the direction of restaurants we would never have known about, but for me Valparaiso is going to be about the dog that followed me for 5kms and incited other dogs, and jumping at shadows at every alley way.

However, I don't want to be negative so some cool things - the poet Pablo ummm n's house (name to be completed when I google). So whimsical and what a life he must have lived in the 50s, what a cool bar and view he had. The central mercado is certainly no Borough market, but the meal we had there was some pretty good seafood for a pocket full of pounds.

The story of Brit Thomas Cochrane helping the Chileans at sea is fascinating, and even more so how they prepared his 'house' (that he never lived in) for the Queen's visit.

We rode a couple of the famous ascensions,I liked El Peral and the story that goes with it (I don't give a pear what it is called, the mayor said in the end).

I didn't bottom out however why Neil Armstrong takes his place alongside Magellan and Copernicus in the stained glass window map of the world in the Maritime Museum.

So other travellers we have met proclaimed Valpo amazing, awesome- for us it was wrong time, wrong weather, but our hostel guy did his best to help us and we gave it our best shot. I did like my chocolate caliente at cafe con letras a lot.