Valapriso, Viña del Mar, Reñacca: 15 - 16 Mar

Mar 15:

After checking out the posters in the bus terminal, and realising that it wuld be better to be closer to the terminal than the centre of town since I was only going to be staying for a night, I walk to the nearby "El Rincon Marino" on San Ignacio 454. It turned out to be one of the best and cheapest hostels I´ve stayed in. I even had a non-bunk bed which means way more sleep.

I walked around the arty student town of Valpariso that night. The town is built on a narrow (300m) coastal plain hosting the town centre and docks, which then rises almost vertically a 100m to the rest of the town. To get from the lower to the higgledy-piggledy upper part of town, there are tens of scenic acsensors or furniculars (one angled train carriage pulled up a railway).


Mar 16:

Got up really early to catch a bus to the famous ritzy holiday town of Viña Del Mar. It´s a more quiet leafy green town than Valpariso, but certainly not as hip and happening as I was led to believe. It does have a huge ritzy shopping centre better than most S.A. ones, and the beach is pretty nice---Natal colours with Cape Town water temperatures.

North of the town is the party town of Reñacca, which, at four in the afternoon, is like a party beach town with a hangover. Huge black/grey pelicans fishing in the sea though.

Walked back passed the famous flower clock, and tried to catch the train back to Valpo, but the stations were miles apart, and the busses cheaper, so caught a bus. And then had a pleasant walk back from the far side of town back to the bus station to bok the third last seat out of town to La Serena leaving just before midnight.


Eventually, after walking around