Turns out the bus ride to Valparasio was definitely worth it! The streets wind into each other and there’s little stairways here and tunnels there. A total of 45 cerros (or hills) make up the area of Valparasio, and apparently every hill is a little community that know each other very well, so the higher hills are the problem areas, and we were warned not to go there as the poverty is very high and we “would get robbed”. In fact a few people said that so we stayed away from there of course 🙂
The streets are just amazing though. I loved it there as you could walk around for ages and find all kind of weird and wonderful graffitti and art over the area. We decided if it wasn’t for the colourful houses and interesting graffitti it wouldn’t be that amazing!
Anyway, enough talk about Valparasio… and more pictures!
NOTES: The streets are tagged and drawn on everywhere! So the idea behind the graffitti art is to stop people tagging and it works! Only in a few spots have the walls been tagged over the art (generally by kids). I was so mesmorised by the art, once I looked at my photos afterwards I realised that some of them had genitalia drawn right over them!
Valparasio was the richest area in Latin America during the Gold Rush in the 1940s. It got deserted for a while after the gold rush and the most expensive street in town is now the red light district!! There’s some buildings on that street that are unfinished! One was going to be built as a hotel and it sits there now (3 stories high) with a little old lady (grand daughter of the owners) living in one floor like a squatter.
Red Bull have a race that goes from to top of Valparasio to the bottom. It’s crazy! Look it up on YouTube.
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