Last Days of Valpo...

Thoughts
So, we're back on the ship and a day at sea, (the icecream lady was thrilled to see us), so I have all this time on my hands to recap the last few days in Valpo.

We really enjoyed our stay in Valparaíso and neighbouring cities and towns. We used the transit system to the max, from the oldest trolleys running to the ascensores, collectivos, taxis, micro buses, coaches and LRT. With few exceptions, transit works like a charm and is cheap by our standards. It's also privatized, with the exception of trolleys. Even the LRT, which is subsidized, is partly private.

Great, generous people, warm weather, beautiful vistas, a funky town with good and lesser points (graffiti, an over abundance of dogs and cats and all that entails), but overall a great place to hang your hat for a month. Never judge a book by its cover, (some places you might never normally venture into may turn out to be the most interesting or have impeccable cuisine).

We made friends st Brecon's Restaurant, a sports bar we dropped into  after a recommendation on our 3-hour tour one day and since we were looking for updates on NFL scores, it was a good fit.

We introduced them to jello shooters. They liked them so much the first time, they requested strawberry flavour, so we obliged. One photo of Guillaume (MacKay!) and his wife Coco, enjoying their shots. Chile will never be the same.

Our two airbnb apartments were perfect for us. Attached a few more shots of the house/apt we stayed in and Rainer saying bye to the grounds keeper Aristides.

The Game
The second filtheist bar I've ever frequented (in my career as a person) has to be the dive we stopped in to catch our now second favourite rivals, the Santiago Wanderers and Universidad de Chile, in a game of fútbol. The game was being played at our stadium but we were warned by more than one local to stay away from the place so we heeded their sage advice and thought we'd catch it on a big screen where we figured there would be locals at least, to create the ambience we'd surely be missing.

We arrived just as the game was under way. The joint's named Keops, like the Egyptian pyramid, and apart from a few hieroglyphs on one wall, there was no connection whatsoever. It was 6:30 PM on a sunny afternoon as we made our way into the dark, single-lightbulb lit room, to a square scratched up, dirty old card-table with the barely recognizable remnant of a beer logo on it. To be fair, we did have the choice of a booth if we preferred, but the scuffed, ripped, major-chunks-missing-exposing-the-filthy-foam-beneath, black Naugahide didn't quite cut it for me, and I was wearing a skirt and didn't want to risk a rash of sorts, or be caught off-guard by an over-eager cucarraccha scattering over my bare leg in a panic as I had just sat on his colony. On the plus side, the chairs were a cheap red plastic, so even if never wiped, which was highly probable, would be less life-threatening, in theory. The floor was just cement, swept once or twice, the walls, once painted a dark wine and burnt orange colour, in keeping with the theme. Incense burned to mask the damp.

We ordered a litre bottle of Escudo to share and took in the game, careful at first not to cheer for one local favourite over the other in the event we were in one-horse territory. Once safe, we cheered for the Wanderers, who eventually were victorious - a better played game than at the stadium.  We ordered a second beer.

As in most bar stops, one eventually has to make room for more suds, so I reluctantly hit the 'washroom'. Yikes! Short story long, let's just say there was no toilet seat, no toilet paper, no paper towel, the tank was a painted black box, the floor I tried not to study. I asked Rainer if he saw the flash go off as I cranked out a photo for the scrapbook, dripped dry, (c'mon, men do it all the time), broke out my Purell and wandered back to finish the beer. I joked that I was feeling peckish and would love to see the food menu...they didn't serve food, a wise choice. I'm no princess but this was up there atop the grime list...and I've witnessed my share.

Photos include our ship docked in harbour, taken from our house the morning of the 18th, back on board for the NFL Superbowl semis.