Friday: Woke up early to catch a 10am bus to Valparaiso with two of my American friends. We had a loose idea of things we wanted to see/do, but also were all very happy to get swayed by any interesting things we saw along the way…
As soon as we arrived in Valpo-which was unfortunately overcast and drizzly, but hey, it’s a port city-our growling stomachs decided which item on our to do list would come first: a seafood lunch!
I had read an article raving about a)the seafood at this huge central market by the oceanfront, and b) a “marisqueria sin nombre” that was supposed to be at the top of some rickety stairs in the back of the market. I guess I inherited my dad’s penchant for divey, jewel-in-the-rough restuarants because as soon as I read this review I knew I had to check it out. Well it turns out there are at least a dozen divey looking restaurants with as few as four tables stashed on the upper floor of the market and after touring all of them twice, we failed to find one that either literally had no name, or was called, “Marisqueria sin nombre”, so we settled for one that had a nice view and was also recommended in my friend’s Lonely Planet. For those who are interested, we ate: an entire delish lightly breaded whitefish, a monster salad with the required beets and avocados buried underneath a mound of lettuce, mashed potatoes and potatoe salad, and a soda, for just about $5 US.
The next item on our list was Pablo Neruda’s house, called La Sebastiana. After a bit of transportation finagling, we found ourselves on the top of one of Valpo’s many signature hills, with a breath-taking view of the Ocean. Although Neruda has three houses scattered around Chile, this was the first one I had visited and it was fantastic. He had an obsession with the ocean, and all his houses are heavily nautical themed, all the way down to designing houses that from the outside look like boats! His had at least six floors, each with fabulous artwork, furniture and trinkets from all over the world. The house is now a museum with a really great audio tour that lets you linger in each room to admire all of Neruda’s crazy décor and gaze out of each window, because EVERY ROOM HAS AN OCEAN VIEW. Yeah. For real.
After that, we rewarded our taste of culture with a taste of, well, culture, by eating onces, aka stopping at a bakery/deli and buying bread, meat, cheese and cookies for less than $1 US each. Gotta love Chile.
Since the sun was starting to set, our plan to visit the nearby cemeteries (ok, confession: this was not on my to-do list, but my friends were very excited about it since they’d seen the cemeteries from afar the last time we were in Valpo and apparently they looked really cool-Chileans to like to heavily decorate their loved ones’ graves, with flowers, umbrellas, presents, gardens, and more) was thankfully postponed. Instead, we decided to revisit the Natural History museum we had passed earlier when we were trying to find the special taxis that take you up to Neruda’s house…we never found the taxis…however, when we got to the huge old neocolonial building that houses the museum, we realized they were about to close. The sign advertising hours of operation and admission prices was inside the doorway, and the museum lobby was empty. However, for some reason I decided to pop in anyway, and we hesitantly snuck into the first room. Emboldened by the fact that no one saw or cared that we had entered the first exhibit, we proceeded to tour at least half of the museum, which was fantastic. They have amazing animal specimens, including some really creepy Siamese twins(Siamese cow babies, Siamese pigs, Siamese snakes AND SIAMESE HUMAN BABIES!!! I couldn’t really look at them for long, but since they were born in 1913 and are apparently one fo the major attractions for this museum, lots of other people could). Finally when the lights started to shut off and we were feeling creeped out by the prospect of specimens coming alive, ala Night at the Museum, an old man curator found us and said, “closed” and we quickly obliged.
After watching the sun set, yes it had peaked out of the clouds just to give a beautiful silvery aqua glow to the water, we sped-walked a bit in order to prepare for our dinner plans.
One of the most traditional foods to eat in Valparaiso is Chorillana, a sort of casserole looking dish made with a layer of French fries, topped with grilled onions and egg, covered in chopped steak. Many a Chilean had recommended we try chorillana at a restaurant called J Cruz, and it turned out to be quit a trip. Hidden behind a long and incredibly sketchy alley, lined with graffiti and urine, was this small, totally trashed door covered in carvings and penmarks with faux-stained glass. Fearing a little for our lives, we entered and were greeted with the smell of meat and the hiss of oil frying in massive cast iron pans. The chorillana was delicious, the old men playing accordion adorable, and the surprising amount of antiques scattered around the restaurant quite intriguing. A fellow diner who has been eating chorillana there for 18 years told us that the owner was an antique dealer who keeps the glass display cases dingy on purpose in order to give the illusion that the contents are mere knick-knacks, when, according to him, just one of the silver carvings on the wall is worth over $40,000 US…. I wasn’t quite buying it, but regardless, the theme of the restaurant was definitely things-are-not-what-they-seem.
Finally, we hoped on a 9pm bus, and caught the last metro in Santiago back to our houses.
