11/30: Valparaíso, Chile: The Fabulous Open-Air Museum, Pablo Neruda's Home & Shoeless Steven!

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Yesterday we'd had such fun looking back up Valparaíso's 'piano steps,' we walked back there first thing so I could take this photo of Steven on them with no one else around.

I sure hoped this home, located halfway over a cliff, wouldn't topple over if the cliff gives way.

In the middle of Plaza Anibal Pinto was the Neptune Fountain, a war trophy that was stolen from the Peruvians in 1879. Unfortunately, the fountain in this case was a sculpture as no water was forthcoming! The plaza was a gritty area of Valpo with many homeless people and dogs and their poop everywhere. Other places this trip, we've had to hop over iguanas; here we had to dodge dog droppings.

A view of the Paseo Atkinson high on the hill where we'd strolled yesterday afternoon during the walking tour:

We enjoyed stopping by the many vendors' stalls that dotted the city while taking our own 'walking tour' of the city.

The monument honored Lord Thomas Cochrane, a Scottish naval officer revered in Chile for his role in the independence war against Spain.

The beautiful arch celebrated Britain's links with Valparaíso from 1810-1910. 

There were very attractive colonial buildings for long stretches of one of the city's main streets.

The Library:

I was saddened by the wanton desecration of so many monuments due to all the graffiti.

Our 'goal' had been the Cathedral on Plaza Victoria. Though it had been a pleasant walk, we discovered after walking around the massive church it was closed. 

The flowers bordering the Cathedral provided a welcome splash of color, though.

General Augusto Pinochet, the brutal dictator who ruled Chile for 17 years beginning in 1973, was born in Valpo and spent his childhood near the plaza. It was a beautiful day to wander through the large park and admire its many statues, four of which were dedicated to each season.

We didn't realize before we got there that the Ascensor Espíritu Santo or Holy Spirit funicular was closed so we had to walk up what felt like a gazillion steps to the top of the hill to the Bellavista neighborhood. We sure hoped that its Museo a Cielo Abierto or Open Sky Museum would be worth seeing.

How I loved the gaily painted homes and beautiful mosaic benches outside some of them. I wished we could have sat down on one as we needed a breather from the climb and especially before ascending even more steps.

The overhead sign proclaimed the unusual 'museum' which was a collection of murals painted on the sides of houses, some of them by well-known artists.

One of the most fascinating tours we've ever taken was a 'street art tour' in Bogotá earlier in the trip. I wished we had a similarly excellent guide help us understand some of these stunning murals.

Another lovely church greeted us en route to our next destination in the neighborhood, La Sebastiana, one of the homes of 1971 Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. His house, now a museum, was a tribute to Pablo Neruda who was born in 1904 in Parral, Chile. At the age of 13, he published his first poems. 

Looked like Papa Noel or Santa Claus would be making a stop at this home soon!

Although Neruda used this home relatively little, we were curious to see if we agreed with other visitors who found this one the most attractive of his four homes. A friend told Neruda in 1959 he'd discovered a home he might like on La Florida Hill from which Neruda could see all of Valparaíso. Neruda himself designed and decorated the house that he named La Sebastiana after a Spanish schooner. The 'birth' of his new home on September 18, 1961, coincided with the date of Chilean Independence. 

I had no way of knowing when I took this photo of the mosaic map of Patagonia on the stairway that Steven and I would be contemplating a journey of that southern region of Chile and Argentina and also a cruise to the Antarctica in November of 2019! The several links between our previous and future trips have been more than a tad spooky lately. I came across just yesterday a postcard I had bought at the wonderful Sharjah Art Museum in the UAE a couple of years ago that was of a painting of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, which we'll see in late November this year!

Neruda liked to spend New Year's Eve at this home so he could enjoy the fireworks on the bay below his home.

The view from his dining room reminded me of his quote, "Eating alone was like eating in a tomb!" He always thought water tasted better if it were in red or green glasses. 

In all his homes, only he could stand behind the bar!

Even though we had a read a lot about Neruda when visiting La Chascona, his Santiago abode, I hadn't known that Pablo Neruda was his pen name. His real name was Neflato Ricardo Reyes Basoalto but the pen name later became his legal name. His poetry is considered by many the soul of Chile. Above his bed was a Coptic tapestry from Ethiopia that told the story of the Queen of Sheba.

Neruda was a great collector who said, 'If you want something badly enough, you better barter quickly for it." These glass doors entered into another bedroom.

Neruda loved the views of the bay from his study as he saw himself as a 'dry land navigator' according to the audio guide we rented.

I was severely limited in the photos I could take throughout the home; thus this one in the study of a 'Jesuit table' with another visitor's legs in the background! The inscription read JAS which stood for 'Jesus Saves Man.'

I read that the five-story home of the Chilean poet and diplomat is something of a pilgrimage for Chileans. The interior, decorated with eclectic objects, was filled with lots of narrow stairways; this one with the ship's ropes was the most intriguing to me. I felt he home was preserved so well as if Neruda himself might walk in while we were there and ask us to stay for drinks and dinner!

After admiring the garden's luscious flowers, we left La Sebastiana about 1 to walk all the way back to town; downhill was so much easier and faster!

Valpo's piano steps are pretty well known but I hadn't seen any reference to these even more attractive 'sunflower steps' so close to Neruda's home. I couldn't begin to fathom how difficult these would have been to paint and maintain.

I don't think we've seen before murals that began on a sidewalk and then crept up the side of a home - what fun!

The murals in the exciting 'open-air museum' made our journey so much more enjoyable.

So, so glad we were going down and not up this time!

Did you happen to notice the roofs in the photos of the city from Neruda's home? So many homes had corrugated roofs and walls.

Normally in a museum, visitors see signs or plaques indicating who the artist was and the painting's title. This was the first one where we saw any such sign in the very unusual open-air museum. It said the preceding mural was painted by Institute of Art students from the University of Chile at Valparaíso in 1992.

Another view of the Cathedral that was sadly still closed.

Since it was still early, we hopped on the metro to Viña del Mar, a coastal resort city northwest of Valpo that was well known for having a pretty beach and a lovely flower clock.

We were entertained on the 20 minute journey by a shoeless singer who sang several plaintive Spanish ballads. Little did we know that Steven would be returning later, also shoeless!

The walk from the metro stop to the beach took far longer than the metro ride but it was a gorgeous sunny day so we didn't mind a bit.

While Steven played a game on his kindle, I watched this fellow and others performing all sorts of acrobatic acts in and from the sling they had hung from the roof. What a relaxing way to spend a good hour or so sitting at the beach and watching families enjoy themselves in the surf just a few feet away. 

We had both taken off our shoes to feel the warm sand beneath our toes. Steven put his prescription glasses, watch and suntan lotion in his hiking shoes he had bought for the trip down by his feet, not giving them a moment's thought. That was, until we were ready to leave and noticed someone had walked off with his shoes and everything in them! We talked to a lifeguard who said he wasn't too surprised and that we needed to keep a constant eye on our belongings. He generously offered to give Steven his sandals but he declined.

We were both flabbergasted the thief had been so brazen since we were both right there beside the shoes and wide awake the whole time. As my brother, Paul, said when I told him what had happened, '"Obviously you weren't careful enough!" He was right, of course. We were just relieved it had happened near the end of the trip when we didn't have any significant hiking left. We figured whoever took his shoes, etc., must have needed everything well more than Steven did, too! I felt sorry for Steven traipsing back barefoot through downtown Viña del Mar as it was a hot day and the sidewalks must have been very uncomfortable for him.

I was concerned that Steven might not be allowed on the metro back to Valparaíso without shoes but luckily that wasn't an issue.

Once we got back to town, we spent some time looking for any shop by the port that might sell sandals or some sort of footwear Steven could wear but there was none to be found. I was able to find some postcards, though, which didn't appear to be sold anywhere else. Count yourself lucky if you got one of the hard-to-get postcards from Valpo while Steven was wandering around shoeless!

Muelle Prat which translates to Prat Dock was actually a wharf with steps leading to the water. It would have been a great place to enjoy the port buzz and watch ships anchored in the harbor but we had to leave as we were on a mission: to find footwear for Steven.

As we began walking several blocks through some very gritty parts of Valpo looking for a shoe store, it was ironical that a couple of locals gestured we needed to exercise great caution there by holding our backpacks in front and hiding my camera without even noticing Steven had no shoes! A few minutes later, three youngish 'city monitors' stopped us and asked, in English, to tell them of our experience in their city, again not looking at Steven's feet!

We had been warned many times about safety in South America and I had had a very unpleasant experience immediately on arrival in Ecuador but we counted ourselves lucky that, once again, this situation could have been far worse than a short-lived inconvenience. 

When we mentioned what had happened, the city ambassadors became very concerned and told us to immediately get off the street because of the filthy, doggy-do sidewalks and get a tram. We didn't and were just relieved when I finally saw a shop that sold flip flops that would at least suffice until we got back to the hotel where he had a pair of river shoes. He also had an extra pair of glasses there, too.

Though some of the city's poorer neighborhoods and part of downtown got to us because of the incredible stench, filth and graffiti, Valparaíso still holds a very special place in my heart. I cherish my memories of the stunning murals, its lovely views from the paseos, the quirky funiculars and yes, even the endless stairs on the city's 42 hills!

Next post: Our third and final stay in Santiago!

Posted on May 2nd, 2018, from Littleton, Colorado.