We awoke a little after 8:00 a.m. this morning. Considering that Mr. FB had not slept on the MIA-SCL flight, the rest was welcome. We dressed and went downstairs to the Travesía Restaurant for the breakfast buffet that was included in our rate. Even though the food was plentiful and delicious - especially the croissants and pastries - the real attraction was the view.
On our way back to the room, we asked the concierge to make a reservation for us to visit Pablo Neruda's home in Isla Negra on Sunday. He was not able to complete the reservation yet, because the museum did not open until 10. He promised to call as soon as the museum opened and answered a few other questions we had about our Saturday activities.
We went back to our room for a few minutes, and received a call from the concierge a few minutes after 10:00 a.m. confirming our reservation for the tour at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday. We then walked to Estacion Miramar to take the metro to Valparaiso. The ride was pleasant, most of it with a view of the Pacific, and relatively quick. We took the train all the way to the end of the line at Estacion Puerto, because we read that there was an information kiosk there. We did not find one, but we admired the Naval Command Building:
before walking along Av. Blanco. Blanco had a certain, ummm, aroma to it. Maybe it was the fish or something else, but we decided we would walk back a different way. After a few minutes, we arrived at Plaza Aduana, where we rode the Ascensor Artillería up Cerra Artilleria:
The ascensor itself was an attraction: about 100 years old and scaling the steep hill. The ascensor was rickety, but paying 300 pesos for a rickety ride up the side of a steep hill beats walking it! After the two-minute journey, we walked around Paseo 21 de Mayo, dodging postcard salespeople and admiring views of the port and surrounding hills. Then we walked up a set of steps to the Naval and Maritime Museum. The museum had room after room of artifacts from War of the Pacific. Before I started planning this trip, I knew nothing about this war, but a little background made names like Bernardo O'Higgins, Arturo Prat, and Thomas Cochrane meaningful. The model of the Esmarelda was especially interesting.
We descended the hill, again via the ascensor, and walked back toward Plaza Sotomayor, this time via Av. Errázuriz. When I looked right at one of the intersections, I saw a sign for a restaurant called Los Porteños. I had seen a nice review in my
Lonely Planet guide, and Samantha Brown had also visited it on a trip to Coastal Chile. Being a seafood lover, I talked Mr. FB into stopping there for lunch. After all, it was 1:00 p.m.!
As we approached, a lady tried to persuade us to go to her restaurant instead, with no luck. A man greeted us at the door, shook my hand, and pointed us to a table. Soon after, a waitress brought a basket of bread, dishes of mayonnaise and hot salsa, a bowl of lemon halves, and two shots of pisco sour
to our table. We had to wait a few minutes until the gentleman at the next table finished with the menu before we could see what was available. It was all in Spanish, to our delight, because I knew what I wanted: machas a la parmesana (clams with parmesan cheese). Mr. FB ordered the merluza frita con papas fritas. Within ten minutes, our dishes were served, and it took another ten minutes before my clams cooled enough to be eaten:
It was worth the wait! My spouse's fish was also delicious, and it was served with the biggest bowl of fried potatoes I had ever seen. We ate as much as we could, paid, and left.
As we walked back to Plaza Sotomayor, we stopped at an intersection and I heard Mr. FB yell a four-letter word. I looked over, and he said, "That $#%* just tried to pickpocket me!" I saw a man walking in the other direction as though nothing had happened. However, this convinced us that it was time to head back to Viña and relax for a few minutes before driving up north.
About an hour later, we took our car and headed through Viña through the beach communities of Reñaca and Con Cón, each of which was packed with holiday visitors. We had hoped to see penguins at one of the beaches in Con Cón, but no luck. So we decided to drive farther north to Cachagua. We also wanted to visit Horcon to see the former hippie colony. However, none of the road signs referred to either, but we quickly realized that if the road went to Papudo, it went through (or near) Horcon and Cachagua.
When we saw a sign for Quintero, we figured it would go to Horcon as well. Unfortunately, there was no bridge connecting the two cities on the Pacific. However, we did have a nice drive around Quintero before returning to the main road. We decided to skip Horcon, hoping to see some penguins at Cachagua. Eventually, we found Cachagua (a GPS really would have come in handy, Alamo!), parked our car, and walked down the steep bluff to the beach. Unfortunately, we never saw any penguins, but we did see one of the most beautiful beaches either of us has ever seen:
We walked around for nearly an hour and enjoyed a Diet Coke before climbing back up the bluff to our car. By this time, it was about 7:30 p.m. and time to head back to Viña. The drive was easy until we approached Con Cón. We inched along through a traffic backup that lasted for about 30 minutes, basically out in the middle of nowhere. We never determined why traffic was backed up, figuring that the stop sign at the railroad crossing slowed up everyone? However, we did admire the setting sun, which was accentuated by all of the fires in the region.
Instead of driving back through the beach communities, we decided to take Camino Internacional to Viña. Amazingly, we were able to navigate our way through Viña much more easily today, and made it back to the hotel by 9:45 p.m. We decided that a room service dinner was a good idea and placed our order. While we waited, we looked at the fire and smoke in the hills from our room:
Our dinner arrived within 30 minutes, and was beautifully presented and nicely prepared. Hearing the waves crash while we ate was a great way to end the day. It would have been even better without the psychotic seagull who patrols the area next to our balcony, more about him later! For now, we have another day of exploring to look forward to, this time south of Viña.