Valparaiso: My House is Made of Air and My Chair is Made of Clouds

Pablo Neruda said that. Valparaiso, wow, Valparaiso. It's sort of like Sausalito, maybe, fifty years ago, but no, it's 'way bigger than Sausalito, and it's got a working harbor not a plaything harbor. Valparaiso is a collection of hills linked together with secret stairways and winding lanes and funiculars leading down to the commercial district below. Every other building is either a bar or an art gallery or a coffee house and none of them are marked very well and, when you get inside, they all feel a little like Berkeley and a little like Paris, and they also feel like if they have another big earthquake everything is coming right down.






The funiculars are old and delapidated and an old lady sits at the bottom and collects either 100 pesos or 300 pesos to go up to the poorer or richer hill.




There are old sailors asleep on benches next to the monument to the martyrs of the Chilean Navy.



Every blank wall has a mural on it, every fence a lemon tree or bougainvillea spilling over it. Plotnik gets the sense he could live here, not for too long, but for long enough. Perfect climate, sense of profound boho and the beaches of Viña del Mar just up the way. And hour and a half from Santiago but 'way further away than that.

Oscar Squella won 25,000 Plotnik Bonus Points today for taking his whole day to drive Plot and Duck to and around Valpo. A night at Plotnik World Headquarters costs 1,000 Plotnik Bonus Points and comes with Breakfast.



What a great hotel the Ciudad de Vitoria is! And cheap! And accidental! Plot and Duck have taken to drinking their coffee in the room so they can brew and drink their own Saint Plotniko blend. They borrowed two coffee cups from the breakfast room upstairs, and now, every day when they come back to the room, the cups have been washed and set out like this:



They're gonna miss this place.