Day 8: Day in Valparaiso

Today I spent the day in Valparaiso. First, I woke up after getting to sleep in a little bit, but I was very sore from the horseback riding. 

We ate breakfast then took the bus to the port of Valparaiso. From there, we took a cab up to La Sebastiana, one of Pablo Neruda's homes. I was surprised at how his home was just a part of the neighborhood, if you weren't looking you wouldn't even notice anything different. His backyard did have a great view of the city, though.  The visit to his home made me excited about visiting Isla Negra, one of his other homes. 

After this, we decided to wander around and walk down the hill. This was one of the best decisions we made today. Not only did we get to see some new neighborhoods that we hadn't seen before, we also got to see some amazing street art. Unlike in America, street apart is very common here, most buildings, no matter how nice, have some spray paint on them. As we were walking around we saw so many interesting and beautiful walls. These are just a few of them.  

It was cool to walk around the city without an exact plan or end location. I really enjoyed having some flexibility with our time. After we walked around for a little bit, we stopped for lunch. I didn't realize how much walking we did and how tired I was until I sat down! Soon enough though, we were back on our feet. We then walked down to the port of Valparaiso where we did some souviner shopping. I got an alpaca sweater, finally! 

We took the bus back toward Viña, but stopped at the flower clock to take some pictures. 

We then walked all the way back to the hotel for a small break before dinner. 

For dinner we decided to go to a Chilean restaurant. We ordered a roast, a type of pork, and tortilla, which is a potato pie, sort of, with ham and chorizo. Everything was delicious, and between five of us, we managed to eat pretty much everything. It was a great way to end a long day! By the time we got back to the hotel I was so tired and achy. We quickly planned out what we wanted to do the next day then all went to bed.