Valparaiso

5th to 7th April:
The twelve hour bus journey up to Valparaiso from Pucon was very smooth. Large comfortable reclining leather chairs an plenty of leg room. If only we could fly so comfortably. My only bother, an itchy ankle - must have picked up a few mozzie bites before we left. We arrived in the colourful working harbour of Valparaiso by 9am or so, checked the map and trudged across town to our new hostel. Casa Verse Limon Hostal was perched on the hill that leads up to the Unesco protected neighbourhood of Cerro Alegre and technically outside the area of funky colourful houses (although we found our street to be just as colourful and lined with great street art everywhere that was absent in the designated areas). We spent the next couple of days taking it pretty easy, venturing out and scoping out this colourful scene, trying out local eateries and riding the local funiculars which crawl up and down the steeper hills of the town. You can't help but feel very vulnerable in these contraptions but I experienced nor heard of any incidents - not that I was asking too much. One of the highlights was heading down to the markets to enjoy a delicious battered hake and rice on good Friday - not religious but I think that the thing to do right? On Saturday I headed down to attempt to see where they landed the fish but it seemed that tourism had taken over during Semana Santa (Latino Easter) and all the local boats were taking people for scenic trips around the harbour. Not too concerned with this I headed back to the hostel to find Jane and head over to grab out bus out of town.
Oh, one thing that I forgot to mention was that the "Mozzie" bites I felt on the bus must have been something us altogether different as my ankle flared up pretty badly and the bites turned into a number of incredibly itchy blisters. In total we counted some 30 odd bites. Spider under sock maybe?