Visiting Valparaiso, Chile

 One and a half hours by bus from Santiago is the port city of Valparaiso. Not only is it an important port city for the country, but it is rich with color, art, and hills! The city is actually built on 45 different hills. There is almost no flat land except right along the water. On a clear day you see hill after hill of houses into the distance. And, they are painted every color imaginable. And, there are murals everywhere. Here you will see photos of some of the murals we passed, as well as some of the homes - colorful or not. The city has been designated an UNESCO World Heritage site and the it receives money to fix up the hundreds of aging Victorian homes and public buildings. They have a long way to go, but a lot of progress has been made. This is an artist heaven - enjoy! PS - double click on the pictures to see them larger.

This home is for sale....an old Victorian with a beautiful frame. It just needs some love.

The houses and buildjust pile one upon the other.

This was the Yugoslavia house or something like that. It was in really good shape and it was currently being worked on too.

A Presbyterian church

Painted trash cans? Or are they grills on the other side but used at trash cans at least for today? One will never know.

It was cloudy so a little hard to catch the whole flavor of things. If you click on these pics you'll see them better.

I love my cat photos! This one is awesome! She hopped down to say hi after her photo shoot.

Rich made a new buddy. She has the prettiest green eyes.

Too cool to look at the camera.

So our friends took us to this famous local restaurant and museum. It was a trip! Hard to describe.

These are our friends Cata (Cherith exchanges Spanish/English with her every week - free Spanish lessons) and Alex. They live in our building and are a wonderful couple of new friends.

Overlooking the harbor....with is wasn't cloudy so you could see more.

Shipping crates - a livelihood here.

This back alley actually is leading us to one of the "ascensors". These are short cable cars that carry people up and down the 45 hills of the city. They are literally regulary used transportation so you don't have to hike up and down the hills to get around.

We're at the bottom and in minutes will be up there at the top.

This guy sang for us at the restaraunt/museum as they called it. All the stuff on the walls is the museum stuff.