Chile: A Maritime Nation at Heart

Welcome back to another installation of the blog! It's your host, Ian Rosenberg coming to you live from Valparaíso (or as the locals call it, Valpo), Chile, ready for a month of travel from the Pacific all the way to the Atlantic, cutting a cross section through the famous "Southern Cone" (Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay).

Because I saw an opportunity to frame this as a sort-of "sea to shining sea" type of trip—starting and ending on the opposite coasts of South America—it felt fitting to bypass Santiago, Chile's capital and the airport which I flew into, and head straight to the renowned coastal metro area of Valparaíso and Viña Del Mar. Despite its odd shape, Chile is immensely naturally diverse. In the north, you have the Atacama desert, and in the South, from Puerto Montt downwards, you've got the magnificent fjords and stunning subarctic landscapes and fauna. But amazingly, despite being only about 90 miles across from Valpo on the sea to the border with Argentina, there is still tremendous diversity east-to-west as well. On the coast, you have stunning seaside views, quiet and introverted seaside towns. The culture and cuisine comes from the region's fishermen, and the names of Plazas and major avenues come from naval admirals and commanders. Valpo thrives as Chile's foremost port, and its twin city, Viña Del Mar, is renowned for its beach resorts. In the center, between Valpo and Santiago, is rich wine country, which I'm planning to explore in the next few days, and then past Santiago, you begin to ascend into the Andes, as the landscapes build to the highest peak in the Americas, Mount Aconcagua.

I won't be able to explore much of then Chileno identity (don't worry, I'll be doing plenty to explore the Argentinian identity), but I can imagine that much of this country's identity, cuisine, culture, and history is built on its strong connection to the ocean. Thus, I find it once again fitting to begin my exploration of Chile not in its capital, but rather, in its cultural capital.

When I arrived in Valpo, I was, besides tired, feeling a mix of emotions and experiences. First, it seemed oddly familiar. Its Spanish colonial architecture and chaotic street market reminded me of the chaos of Iquitos's Mercado Belen, its steep hills and heavy graffiti reminded me of Tbilisi. And truthfully, this whole time, I have felt oddly familiar with the city and its layout. Though I've only been here for two days, I feel like I know it better than that. So here's my impressions.

First, the city is built on dozens of hills, with a flat area in the center. Most grander, Spanish-colonial or even German- or British-style buildings are in the central, flat area. There, the streets are gridded, there are large plazas with statues and palm trees, and the buildings are pastel-colored. It was very similar to my experience in Peru.

But as you walk away from this section, you'll hit one of the dozens of hills, or as they're called here, cerros. My hostel is on the "tourist hill" of Concepción. I think it would be hard to overstate just how much wandering this city means that you are doing dozens of flights of stairs every hour, both upwards and downwards. These hills are steep. For example, I was eating dinner tonight outside on the sidewalk, and this picture shows the angle that the sidewalk, and therefore, my table, was at.

But here in Valpo, that's normal. To make life easier, they've built a network of ascensores, or funiculars, here. Each hill has its ascensor, which, for the locals, costs CLP$200 (about 22¢ USD), whereas for a foreigner, it costs CLP$1000 (about USD$1.10). They're rickety little boxes which travel short distances horizontally, but long distances vertically. Often, the walk around an ascensor may take you twisting and turning until you finally get to the bottom. I rode one ascensor, but I didn't feel like giving over $1000 of my cash every time to ride one, so I mostly stuck to walking. I could see, though, as a local why it would be incredibly useful.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/d9016c_42dff5a2c9474c30aa5b350f88c765bc/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

I didn't explore deeper into the hills, as there are hills behind the other hills, but there's not much to do that far back as it's mostly local houses. Plus, Valpo is known to be, well, not the safest city around, so I figured I'd stick to the touristy parts for now instead of venturing miles away to a neighborhood tourists rarely go. That's all to say that there may be ascensores back there as well, but I'm unsure as to the extent of their placement and their utility. I will say, though, the drivers here are beasts. They'll be flying around corners and whipping down these hills at maybe a 30° incline as if it were a country road back in the US. They are incredible at keeping control of their vehicle. It still freaks me out though, every time I am walking up a hill and a car comes flying past me.

Valpo is also famous for its graffiti. I didn't take a city tour here, so I'm unfamiliar with the intended meaning of much of the graffiti, but from what I've gathered, some of it seems to be artistic, and some of it is certainly political. There are a lot of graffitis of Palestinian flags and hammers and sickles. As Valpo is the both the university city and the hub of Chile's younger art scene, it is fitting that symbols like this would be all around. Other graffitis are odd chimeras of animals (or even in the case of my hostel, a chimera of a duck and a ship!) or just colors all around. Some designs seem to be inspired by native Andean folk art. I've enjoyed walking around looking at the graffiti.

The city has its fair share of trash and less-artful graffiti as well, and walking around certainly doesn't give you an impression that you're in the most beautiful place on earth...

My first day in Valpo, after making my way to Cerro Concepción and checking into my hostel, I just wandered for a while. I grabbed some French toast and a latte at a trendy café, and I wandered until I met a friend, Milan. He's from Eindhoven in The Netherlands, and we're actually largely headed in the same direction. He's about a week ahead of me—he did Santiago before Valparaíso—so I'm still unsure if I'll run into him later in the trip, but we traded contact information just in case.

The two of us wandered around the hills, grabbed a coffee and the first of what I'm sure will be many empanadas, and headed to the National Maritime Museum. At the museum, we learned about the major players and major events in Chile's history, told through, primarily, a maritime lens. The museum focused on one naval battle in particular, of the Chilean ship Esmeralda versus the much better equipped Peruvian ship Huascár. Though the Esmeralda was defeated, Chilean national hero Arturo Prat boarded the Huascár, attempting to bring battle to the decks of the Huascár. He was killed in his attempt. Despite this loss, it instilled a fighting spirit in the Chilenos and they continued fighting until they defeated both Peru and Bolivia, gaining the valuable mining territory in the north. Historically, Peru had been the center of Spanish dominance in South America, and after both countries' independence, Peru remained better-off. This victory established Chile as a the dominant naval power of South Pacific.

Left: Huascár Model, Right: Esmeralda Model

I spent the rest of the day wandering alone, as Martin was heading to Santiago to catch his bus across the Andes to Mendoza the next morning. I made my way to a nice lookout by the port, and kept on going. My wanders culminated in a delicious fish dinner at the top of Cerro Concepción (not a huge area—I'd wandered past that restaurant a few times prior). I don't love fish, but I figured that when in Chile, you simply have to get the fish of the day. The guy at the restaurant told me what the fish was called, but frankly, I couldn't find it online. So what it was will remain a mystery, but I will say it was definitely the most I've ever enjoyed a fish filet.

I headed back to the hostel, where my French bunk-mate Théo and I chatted for about an hour (all in French), trading off advice about Argentina and Peru—as we'd both been to each other's next destination—as well as just talking about life. I am bummed he wasn't around for another day because I really enjoyed talking to him, but I guess it bodes well that I'll be able to make friends along the way.

Overall, I think I was quite overwhelmed by Valpo, and though it was beautiful, I found myself unable to wander as freely as I'd hoped for fear of crime. I am so glad I started here—it feels like Chile's foremost cultural and historic city, even if Santiago is the modern financial center.

---

But today, everything calmed down. Picture this:

Sitting on a dark gray rock formation jutting up about three feet above the large-grained, damp sand.

Looking out, you see the vast South Pacific in its winter glory. It's not inviting in the slightest, but it's also not scary. It is an impassable wall. It doesn't scream keep out, it just signals that the world ends here.

The fog makes the horizon indistinguishable from the dense cloud cover. The water just fades, miles out, into the sheet of light gray. A flock of birds flies low, just skirting the water's surface. To the left, a singular fishing boat looks like the last boat on Earth.

Each time the waves break against the rock formation in front of you, the salty spray fills the air, and you can just barely pick up that hint of salt from where you're sitting.

Now sit there for an hour, watching nothing change. This is Chile at its finest.

Today I and headed out to see Pablo Neruda's house and to explore the less-intimidating side of the Chilean coast. From what I'd seen on Geoguessr before this trip, I got the impression that the Chilean coast is rough, brooding, and harshly beautiful. It's not rough and brooding, nor harsh in the same way Valparíso is rough or harsh. It's not about the people, it's about the landscape. The coast is rocky and unforgiving, looking out into the foggy abyss of the vast South Pacific. And boy did I find that exact mood today. I took a bus to Isla Negra, a small town where Neruda used to write. On the way in, I saw the hill of Valpo clear out into the hills of wine country, and then, small towns began to pop up as we neared the coast again. This time, they were not intimidating. They were charming and welcoming. Isla Negra is exactly like this. It is built on moderately-hilly terrain. So, a strict street grid is impossible, but, (also as I've seen in Geoguessr to be a common) the typical South American town grid pattern is clearly recognizable in some form. I didn't head into town first, instead, heading straight to the coast to see Neruda's house and his beach.

The house museum was booked for the day for a school event, so I couldn't go inside, but I still wandered around and headed to the beach Neruda's house faced. Neruda, for those unfamiliar, is one of Chile's most renowned writers. He was inspired by the beauty of his country to write poems about love and loss. The beach was stunning. I passed an hour there without even realizing it, not once checking my phone (except to take a few photos). This is where I experienced that hour I described at the start of this post, in awe of the End of the World.

After fully taking in Neruda's beach, I headed back into town, where I wandered the residential streets, admiring the beauty of each house and enjoyed that the only noises I heard where the laughter and joy of the kids at the local elementary school, of course, named after Pablo Neruda.

I took a bus to the next town over, El Quisco, as it had looked interesting on my way over. Some middle schoolers got on the bus after me, and they were being incredibly rowdy and funny the whole time. Of course, they were engaging in the typical 2026 brainrot memery (screaming six-seven out the bus window), but also, were old-school rough housing, pushing, and yelling on the bus. They apologized to me, but I was thoroughly entertained. They were surprised to see a foreigner on their bus—I was certainly one of very few to have recently interacted with this El Quisco-area minibus system—but they enjoyed asking me what I thought about Chile. They were proud to know that I had enjoyed it so far.

I was planning on getting off at the south end of the El Quisco beach, closer to town, but I didn't realize I had to request a stop. Embrassingly, the students told me how to request a stop, and I ended up about a half a mile from where I'd intended.

Crossing the beach and heading back into town, I soaked up the atmosphere, enjoying the calmness and the cool air, looking out at the dark green plants, the gray clouds, and the colorful buildings. I felt so relaxed, especially after being so on edge in Valpo just yesterday. It was freeing. Again, not hostile, not impassable, but rather, just solitary. Not a lonesome kind of solitary, but also not a joyous kind of solitary. Maybe more of a pensive, introspective form of solitary-ness. It, frankly, was perfect for a solo trip. There wasn't much to do, so I enjoyed walking around without my AirPods, just admiring the scenery around me and letting my thoughts wander.

Eventually, I headed back into Valpo, where I walked through the town below and back up to Cerro Concepción. I grabbed some sushi for dinner, which counts as authentic because Pacific South America has their own way of doing sushi. I got a hand roll, which is not the same as a Japanese hand roll. These are fried, long sticks of sushi. They're not cut, and you just dip them in soy sauce and take a bite, almost like a chicken tender. I also got a poke bowl to go along with it.

Today was such a different vibe than yesterday, and I appreciated it immensely. Truly, though I didn't have much fun in a traditional sense, I so greatly enjoyed having an entire day to understand a vibe. It was a day about beauty and about soaking up the feeling of rural, coastal Chile. That feeling, I think, underpins the majority of the country.

Though I decided not to visit the real end of the world, Patagonia and the fjords, in the middle of winter, I still got a glimpse of, what I feel, is the magic of the far south (even without the majestic fjords). Even if the landscapes were less dramatic, I still felt this overwhelming feeling that this is the end of the world. That past here, there is nothing. Nothing to look to. This is a corner of the world with no escape, and though it's isolated, it's not lonely. Community exists. Children laugh and rough-house, and people have real neighbors they can trust. Here, at the extreme end of the world, any community, any distraction from this powerful, gray seascape goes a long way.