Valparaiso and a quick mention of Santiago

Since there isn´t too much to report on from the last week below is an excerpt (possibly slightly over-written) from the journal...

As I write this, sitting on one of many steps that cloth a large portion of Valparaiso´s hills, I can gaze through the fog and smog and blaring 90´s pop music to capture a blurily visible 8-sided straight-edge cutout of the Pacific pasted between color-clad row houses on the horizon. In the foreground are colors and wires. Lots of overhead wires that jut out to attach to anything, and maze their way above the coble streets and dirt roads acting almost like chains. One of many components keeping complete "beauty" from entering this city, but also successfully managing to lock-in authenticity from above.

Authenticity well deserved as a port city I can view in minature fashion on my free glossy 4-color tour bus company map with a half-halo of freshly inked black "X´s" indicating barrios to avoid. However, everywhere I´ve gone there has been colors climbing the hills and no black smears yet, in this brighter, more extreme and much poorer replica in a sense of San Francisco.

A few days ago I was in Santiago which the best description I can think of is "a big non-descript city" (I´ve never been a city person though). The highlight of my time there was when I opted not to pay $1.25 for a train ride to the top of a mountain in the middle of the city and instead walked up the road. After 20 mins or so I started talking to a passing biker and over the next 4 kms he slowed his peddle and I quicked my pace, and we both talked horribly in the other´s language about many things (some of which I still don´t know). At the top I was met with a fine, yet smog filled view of the sprawling city and surrounding mountains and of course verbal exhaustion.

Next up:
I´ll be staying in Valparaiso for the next week, and hope to piece many of the vocabulary words I´ve been learning from traveling and reading kids books together... through formal Spanish classes and in discussions with the Chilian family I will be living with for at least 6 days. Should be interesting to escape the comfort of English tounged companionship found at almost every hostel. It also wll be interested to see how bright the city´s colors appear at the end of the week.