Day 24 ~ Valparaiso, Chile

February 2, 2022

“Someday, somewhere — anywhere, unfailingly, you’ll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.” ~ Pablo Neruda, Nobel prize-winning Chilean poet

Today, we find ourselves still tied up at the port of Valparaiso (AKA Paradise Valley in Spanish). This city sprawls over 40-some hills, the brightly colored houses seemingly stacked on top of each other as the narrow lanes rise from sea level to the crests of the heights. 

We took the included Viking tour this morning and found it engaging and an excellent excursion. Our guide, Christian, was born in Valparaiso, but lived in Philadelphia from the ages of 7 through high school. He's been back in his native Chile since 1989, and was a fount of information about the customs, history and delightful quirks of this land. For instance, after he led us out of the bus and down and back up a steep grade, he joked that this was the reason Chileans had great legs! 

He also explained that the practice of painting houses bright colors came from the sea. When ships were in port for repairs, they'd be repainted and there was always left over paint. If someone wanted to paint their house, they'd visit the shipyard to see what was available. (I'm having trouble figuring out what ships use this shade of pink!)

The city has had its share of disasters. In 1906, a major earthquake demolished a good share of the place. Then the wealthy families who'd lost their homes decided to move up the coast to Vina del Mar to rebuild their palatial estates, leaving the poorer residents to rebuild as best as they could. These ingenius survivors built houses of wood and adobe covered with corrugated metal. Then later, when the Panama Canal open, that blessing to the rest of the world was a "man-made disaster" that nearly broke Valparaiso again. Instead of servicing ships that had rounded the Horn, they were left far off the global shipping routes and scrambling to find a way to fill the economic gap. 

We visited Vina del Mar and I'll let the DH's montage show you the actual castles in that community. I was more interested in the Fonck Museum. It's a small, but jam-packed trove of the early history of Chile and its 1200 mile distant south pacific possession--Easter Island.  Be sure to check the DH's photos for the picture of an actual moai from Rapa Nui (Easter Island's true name). According to Laura, the docent who instructed us, the moai represented actual people and they were not worshiped. It was sometimes a way for one clan to assert dominance over another if they toppled a rival's moai instead of actual warring. There are also three real shrunken heads in the museum, which the DH morbidly included in his montage, so evidently the islanders didn't always take a less violent path. 

(Gee, I wonder how the first conversation about that topic went.
"What do you wanna do today?"
"Oh I dunno. I'm tired of carving this big giant head. What say we figure out how to shrink someone's head instead?") 

Back to sea tomorrow. More soon...