Valparaiso

Sunday July 19
We field tripped to Valparaiso, the first port on the Pacific. It was a booming port city until the Panama Canal was built. Now it barely survives on tourism, universities, and some exports. We got a tour by Vale's friend who grew up in Valaparaiso and she wanted to show us two different sides of the city aka the social divisions. The social divisions are extremely evident. The poorer you are, the higher up on the hills you live. And you don't cross neighborhood lines ever. And there are hundreds of people live on the streets with the hundreds of stray dogs.

We started our tour on a boat to get a view of the city from the water. All of the houses and buildings are crammed onto hills and it looks like favelas or a shantytown from the water. When you get up close and walk around the streets it looks a little different-in some neighborhoods- but there is great street art and beautiful architecture. As we were getting pulled into shore everyone on the boat hears this "CRACK" noise and we look up and a man hit another man over the head with a 2 x 4 piece of wood. ha ha no big deal. This guys is literally gushing blood and people are screaming and yelling and it was all because the guy wanted to pull the boat in. Welcome to Valaparaiso!

The next surprise moment was the man who brought his pet llama right behind the group scaring the crap out of me. 1000 pesos for a picture of the llama hahah.

Later on we saw a dog fight too.

Anyway, We got to go up into one of the elevators that brings you up the hill side. there are only about 30 working elevators in this city of about 256,000 people. Therefore locals walk up hills and stairs. We happened to get this experience when the second elevator we wanted to go on was broken. Awesome. 239,234,309 stairs later we made it to the top. I guess the view was worth it, but seriously we were huffing and puffing. Even "gimpy" our three legged stray dog mascot for the day made it up before us. the other half of the group rode the bus to the top of the hill to see Pablo Neruda's third house. Obviously i made the wrong decision haha.

The day was extremely eye opening. we ended it by stopping off for a beer before we got on the bus for the ride home so we would all pass out. And we did.

p.s. I climbed to the 11th floor when we got home because the line for the elevator was too long. I almost passed out by the 8th floor....too many stairs for one day.

Monday July 20
Our lecture was in Barrio Nunoa and it was the first time that we went there. Therefore we got EXTREMELY lost getting to the universidad de chile. I'm talking like we re-traced our steps, got on the wrong bus, rode the metro one stop from home, walked in a circle, etc etc. fun way to start the morning is all I can say, especially when I have a sore throat, runny nose, and on the verge of a fever. All I wanted to do was go back to bed. Our lecture was all about tripartism, unions, and the difficulty in getting things done in the chilean political system. Afterwards we had a nice lunch somewhere around something in nunoa. Still, not a clue about that neighborhood haha.