Valparaiso

I hopped on a bus and two hours later I was in Valparaiso, maybe one of the most interesting cities in South America. Valparaiso is one of the few cities in Latin America not planned by the Spanish. The Spanish when they came, made all of their cities the same. In the center, you have your Plaza de Armas with a cathedral, a post office, barracks, govorner´s mansion, and then a grid like pattern extending from the center, very organized.

Nevertheless, Valparaiso started as a fishing village. As saltrite, the main ingredient in gunpowder was mined in the north and built up the Chilean economy, the city grew. The British, Germans, and Italians all came to Valparaiso and what happened was that they built their different parts of town haphazardly which gives Valparaiso it´s myriad maze of winding streets that go up and down the hills with no particular rhyme or reason.

Another neat feature about the city is that in the 19th century they built a series of elevators, now a UNESCO world heritage site, that go up and down the hills so you don´t have to walk. The elevators are really old, and only cost 120 pesos for a ride which is like 30 cents in dollars, or 17 euro cents (the dollar keeps falling which is making me depressed)...

While in Valparaiso we went to La Sabastiana, Neruda´s house that he didn´t spend much time in and the Naval history museum.

Also, during the weekend Chile the time fell back an hour for daylight savings time so when the US springs ahead for their's Chile and the US will match as far as timezones go...word to the wise...