Valparaiso, Chile By Night

Here are three more photos of Valparaiso, this time at night, and taken from a house just a little further down Cerro Alegre than the photos in the previous post.

This will most likely be the last post 'til after the weekend as I need a rest. But i've got a rant coming on so stay tuned if you want to see the dark side of Corrugated City (it's not all photos of fluffy kitty-kats in Valparaiso, you know).

Valparaiso Photos

Here are three photos I took from a house on Calle Higuera, just over on Cerro Alegre. Pretty cool views of the port, the coast and the city. The house is for sale.

The port and to the left, Cerro Artilleria, where the Museo Naval y Maritimo is.


Looking towards Viña.


Looking over towards Cerro Concepcion. And my house.

Please Help Make Me Happy.

If you scroll down the page, on the bottom right hand side of your screen you'll see a little blue box. This magical box allows you to write a review about Corrugated City and give me a rating out of five (count 'em) stars.

Please feel free to use this service to let me know how i'm doing. One thing: I ask, nay urge you to only write nice things about me. If i get any nasty comments, it's highly likely i'll throw a hissy fit and NEVER POST AGAIN. Which is probably what you want if you're writing a bad review. So you'll win. Hmmm...perhaps i should have thought this through a bit more.

To put you in a good mood before you review me, here's another photo of a cute, fluffy kitty-kat.

A few of my favourite photos from the past 9 months of blogging

I reckon you can guess what this post is about. Click to enlarge the photos. They're in no particular order. Enjoy!

Update: I've decided to label the photos now. I couldn't be bothered before but I'm sitting in front of the computer waiting for a phone call so I've got nothing better to do.

Cute sea-lions down in the port.


The moment I realised our house renovations would be bigger than first thought.


Pisco Soured.


I like the wavy cloud in this photo.



After Valparaiso Cerro Abajo, the police now think it's great fun to ride their dirt bikes down the many stairs in Valparaiso.


A volcano. I'm pretty sure it's Osorno.


At a quite lovely restaurant in Pichilemu. Can't remember the name of it though.



Tonto Guerrero.


El Ateneo in Buenos Aires.

View of Valparaiso from waaaaay up in the hills.


Valparaiso's 'delightful and charming' firetrap cabling.


An old man walking down past La Matriz church. I really like this photo.



Sunset from Reñaca.


A photo taken from the new promenade that snakes up around town and past Playa Ancha.


The best churrasco in Chile from Domino in Santiago Centro.


Late afternoon in the Bauhaus wonderland of the Hotel Antumalal in Pucon.


The curvy route up to the Argentine border on the way to Mendoza.


The gets-bigger-every-time-you-see-it Art Nouveau monster Palacio Barburizza.


I always thought this was the case.


Another view of Valparaiso from high in the hills.


The Atacama desert.


I like the car in this photo-it gives a really good idea of the distance and size of the place.


My favourite statue from Cementerio Numero 1.


A cute little church in the middle of the Atacama.


A really windy afternoon at the Hotel Antumalal.

Chilean Government: Stubborn

I'm not going to go into great detail about who Douglas Tompkins is. Suffice to say he's a filthy rich US businessman who bought a massive chunk of Chilean Patagonia a few years back and then turned it into a private eco-reserve. The Chilean government then realised he'd bought pretty much from the coast to the Andean border, thereby cutting off overland access to further south. This caused quite some uproar amongst Chileans, who thought the filthy gringo had ulterior motives (apparently he's buying up sources of fresh water all over South America so he can hold the world to ransom when water starts to run out blah blah blah).

Anyway, Chile wants to continue the Carretera Austral through the park, connecting Puerto Montt with Chaiten eventually. So they presented a plan. Tompkins also presented a plan.

Now, if you were the leader of a third-world developing nation like Chile, you'd think you'd just jump at the chance to do a better project, cheaper. Instead, the government has taken 2 years to study the idea of doing further studies to decide which project to go ahead with. Click on the image below to see the differences in Tompkins' project and that of MOP (Ministerio de Obras Publicas). Then decide which one you'd go for.

Pasaje Bavestrello-More Graffiti

A veritable goldmine of street art is to be found in the Pasaje Bavestrello...i walked up the other day and there was a load more new stuff that had appeared over the last week or so.

Renovations...so close...

We're so close to finishing the house-it's the last details that take so damn long unfortunately. Anyway, the floors are being polished, the paint is being painted and the bathrooms are almost all completely tiled. Sometime next week we're going to have a massive clear-out of all the materials, scaffolding etc so i'll be able to take some proper photos and post them then.

Despite the fact that we're desperate to finish and move in upstairs, we're going to miss the everyday work of renovations as it's something we both really enjoy. So it's lucky that our company, that specialises in real estate in Valparaiso and Chile has bought a beautiful, but slightly crumbly, property 2 minutes walk away from us that we're going to convert into two large luxury loft apartments in Valparaiso. With sea views and parking. And the location is incredible.

It's going to be the best quality Valparaiso renovacion patrimonial project Valparaiso's seen and we're really kind of excited about being able to do it. Almost all of these loft projects that Valparaiso has seen have been really, really poor quality. The finished apartments are almost all small, cheap and crappy. Not places anyone would want to spend more than a few days at a time. We're going to do a high quality job and create apartments where people could actually live. The idea is to help attract people to spend more time here and not just use the apartments as mere holiday homes. More details in a couple of weeks...

In the meantime, here are three photos of the outside of our house from before, during and after...

Nightfall on Cerro Concepcion

Valparaiso Earthquake and Tsunami-Fun and Frolics in the Port.

A while ago, National Geographic produced a documentary about what would happen if Valparaiso were to be hit by a 9.5 scale, Subduction Earthquake. Here's a couple of minutes of the video. It's quite entertaining. Of course, i'm not worried-my house is completely renovated and it's shaped like a ship so we'll just sail off into the sunset if the waters make it up here :)

Firefighters in Mourning

Last night was the funeral and memorial for Gabriel Lara Espinoza, the 25 year old fireman who died in the fire on Cerro La Cruz last Tuesday night. He was a member of the 4th Fire Brigade here in Valparaiso. In an emotional display of solidarity for their fallen comrade, the crews of 34 brigades from the central zone of the country, along with members of the police, army, lifeboats, navy and Red Cross attended the service. Over 3000 people in total filled Plaza Sotomayor and then paraded through the city centre.

My camera doesn't take very good night shots so sorry about the quality...

Childish Humour at the Expense of the Dead

Two unfortunate names:

Cabezon means 'big head'.




Cock means...well...you know.


But this is a much cooler name...translating (very) roughly as ´Hardcore partier from the loins of the mute bloke´. Nice.


We´ll be back with more serious posts soon. Maybe.