On Sunday, Gunnar Wolf and I were taken on a sightseeing trip around Valparaíso and Viña del Mar (gallery). The two cities are right at the coast of the pacific ocean and since there are many hills you get nice views all around the city. First we went to Pablo Neruda's house La Sebastiana. Pablo Neruda was a Chilean writer and poet who won the Nobel prize. He's also known for his unusual and interesting houses (of which he has three in Chile). The tour through the house was really a great experience. Neruda liked many things I'm interested in, such as stained glass and stone mosaics, and seeing his house made me really jealous. Afterwards, we went to the harbour for some food and later we went to a cliff overlooking the pacific.
After we were done with Valparaíso, we went to Concon to climb up the sand
dunes. I also saw what I think was my first scorpion. You were able to
rent sand boards to go down the hill and I foolishly decided that I had to
try this. Actually, it turned out that it wasn't too hard; the major
problem is that sand accumulates on the board and so it gets too heavy to
move. Going down the sand dune was really fun but unfortunately going up
again was bloody exhausting.
Afterwards, we went back to the coast and sat on a rock for a while. The sun was beginning to go down and since a ship was just arriving, we decided to go back to Valparaíso (where the port is located). We couldn't actually go to the ship but the harbour at sunset was a really nice view. In summary, a nice trip; I wish I could stay here…