Sept 25 was a long travel day. We took a bus from Mendoza, Argentina at 9:30am and arrived in Valparaíso, Chile at 8pm 😡!! The border crossing took about 3 hours which was a bit frustrating, but luckily we had some shows and podcasts downloaded to keep us occupied. After we checked into our hostel, we grabbed dinner at a burger joint called Restaurante Brecons. The restaurant was pretty empty, so we ended up having some beers with our waiter who recommended a few things for us to do during our stay in Valparaíso.
On Sept 26 we woke up and had a quick breakfast at the hostel. Breakfast included a strange looking, but delicious, fruit which we later learned is called a pepino. After breakfast we ran along the water and then trekked up the hill to La Sebastiana Museo de Pablo Neruda. The museum was informative and the views were beautiful!
We were starving after the museum, so we decided to head down back towards our hostel and find food on the way. Luckily enough, right across the street from our hostel, we found an empanada joint with over 80 varieties! We would definitely be coming back..!
At 3pm we went on the free walking tour with Caitlin and Andrew (who we met on the vineyard tour in Mendoza). On the tour we saw a lot of street art and learned about the port and the history of the city.
At the end of our tour, the guide recommended a restaurant called Almacén Nacional where we later met Caitlin and Andrew for dinner. We split many bottles of wine, had a 3 course meal inclusive of the seafood of the day, and ended up spending over 4 hours at dinner!
Based on our evening, we were a little slowmoving the morning of Sept 27. That being said, all four of us surprisingly made it to our 10am tour. This tour was different than the tour from the day before because it focused more on the history and culture of the city. Again, after the tour, we all went back to get empanadas!
After lunch, we said goodbye to Caitlin and Andrew (they’re off to Santiago) and we went back to the hostel to figure out how to rearrange our itinerary to get to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile and Uyuni, Bolivia!
Melanie & Cody 