Wind Me and Grind Me Valparaíso

I really wish I could make the title of this blog a picture because I found this awesome painting with Valparaíso's name, and I think it would be a great title for this blog entry.

Valparaíso

 

The reason it is so perfect for the blog entry, you ask?  Simple, I found it wandering the curvy a swervey streets of a city covered in graffiti.  Beyond that, the city had so many colorful houses to go along with the colorful graffiti.  It is really a city full of color.  (And colorful characters that will rob you.)


Yesh and I spent much of the afternoon wandering around, taking pictures, and letting fate decide where we ended up.  Of the endless graffiti we saw, I think this was my favorite. 

Graffiti Girl

Some of the graffiti had a message.  Like this one.

The Pope

I think one of the coolest things about the graffiti is that it is actually good.  It is not just gangs marking their turf, but there is actually a lot of quality in most of it; it is actual art. 

When we left Santiago, it was really dreary out, but I told Yesh it was going to be like when we went to Cajon de Maipo and the sun would shine as soon as we go to Valparaíso.  I was right, which just made everything so much more colorful!  Besides the graffiti being so colorful, the houses were as well. 

This picture has a lot of browns in it, but you can see that there are some colorful houses.  You can also see how damn hilly it is.  For those of you from Iowa, think of an intensified Dubuque.  It's crazy.  And the streets are a hot mess of winding around.  The city was actually pretty big and well established before it every actually became a city, so there weren't any rules or planning for the streets. 


I have been trying to find a picture that demonstrates the rich/poor gap living side by side.  You know, those images you think of when you think of Chile.  Friends from back home have also been asking me to try to find pictures of this juxtaposition of income.  I kind of found one when I was in Valpo.

Colorful Homes of Valparaíso

You can see the house in the foreground is literally falling down.  And right next to it (across the street, behind the tree) is a nice blue house lookin' mighty fine in the sunshine.  When I see some of the houses here I can't believe some people live in them.  I am amazed. 

But then, I also see literal shacks made of cardboard and people sitting in open fields next to a fire with a blanket, and I am even more amazed.  It acts as a reminder that I am a very privileged person.  Even though I am really poor right now, I mean that in the sense that I have had to use a lot of my savings, and I still have a few thousand dollars worth of credit to fall back on.  I actually have a lot.  Like food and shelter.  Every time I leave the city, I go by these reminders. 

Despite the fact that I got robbed, I still liked it there, and I would go back.  There were interesting things to see around every corner, and there was so much character! 

Peace and Love

Current Tunes: My iTunes literally just switched from Norah Jones to Notorious BIG... Norah Jones was great to blog about Valpo to, and Biggie is great to think about supper and cook to.  Perfect.