SV Sine Timore: Valparaiso

Valparaiso, Chile

The bus last Tuesday, from La Serena to Valparaiso, was pretty uneventful. After leaving an hour and a half late, we somehow still got here on time around 8 PM. The highways in Chile are definitely the best we have seen in Central or South America.

Valparaiso is a very picturesque city, built on 42 steep hills surrounding a few blocks worth of flat land along the coast. Walking around this town is a sure way to stay in shape. There are about 15 funicular railways scattered around the city that can make short work of the hills, but anyone who knows Susanne will know that we would never take the easy way up - her "fitbit" has been super happy with her step count ever since we arrived here.

Great murals everywhere

On Wednesday we took a free walking tour, from the same company that we used in Santiago. This gave us a very good orientation of the city, which otherwise can be quite confusing when you first arrive. Our hotel is about halfway up one of the hills and we have a pretty good view of the harbour from our room. The only downside so far was that there is some major maintenance going on in the city and the water, for the entire city, was turned off for almost a full 24 hours just after we got here. Everything is OK now though.

Today we ventured a little further afield, taking the convenient metro system to the city of Vina del Mar, right next door. While Valparaiso is the cultural center, Vina del Mar is a much more commercial place, full of lots of stores and more conventional hotels and such - not really very touristy but a good place to do some shopping. It was very busy downtown, probably in part because Christmas is almost here.

While we were in Vina del Mar, we were able to walk to the nearby yacht club, where we checked out the facilities. Suffice it to say that we would not recommend this place for visiting yachts. The dock itself is subject to a huge amount of surge, with the boats constantly in motion, and there do not appear to be any spare slips anyway. Anchoring outside of the breakwater looks very exposed. The haulout facility uses a crane which would require unstepping the mast and I'm not sure how much weight it could handle, although some of the boats in the yard looked pretty substantial.

We will be staying here in Valparaiso until next Monday, the 22nd of December, at which time we will put our clever Christmas and New Year's plan into effect. We have managed to book a last-minute deal on a Holland American cruise ship, which will take us to several of the southern Chile and Argentina ports that we wanted to visit, as well as cruising in the reportedly spectacular fiords. As an added bonus, this boat also cruises to Antarctica and the Falklands, places that we had not really ever thought we would be going. After 20 days at sea, on January 11th, we should arrive at Buenos Aires in Argentina.

One ridiculous issue that has come up for us is that we do not have an appropriate wardrobe for the cruising lifestyle. I have had to buy some relatively cheap pants and a couple of shirts with collars, in order to be allowed to eat dinner in the dining room on the ship - Susanne has had similar challenges. We will be skipping the "formal" nights and probably keeping a generally low profile while onboard. Our very presence on the ship will probably bring it's class down a notch.