Valparaiso Pictures
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Valparaiso on a summer day, mid-December.

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Chile's main port Valparaiso is a very colourful contrast to Santiago, particularly the World Heritage Site hills of Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepcion, where brightly painted corrugated iron house walls compete with clever, skilled murals. That's not to say the whole city is a treat for the eyes, quite the reverse, there're plenty of hideous newer structures spoiling what should be grand vistas from the 42 hills that comprise the city and the port area just below the the best hills is especially crammed with rusting metal and dull concrete. Nevertheless, Valparaiso is unique, and makes Buenos Aires' Caminito look tiny and pathetically touristy - this is the real thing.

So what's the story behind the technicolour iron or zinc walls?
No one seems to know for sure but the corrugated iron certainly protects and beautifies the irregular adobe brick walls. The BugTheory is that an entrepreneur sent a shipload of iron sheet out after an earthquake for the usual roofing but locals found the iron also well suited for enhancing walls.

As for the colours, the pressed iron of the early years would certainly have required paint and being a port, visiting ships would have had left-overs after painting the insides and outsides of the vessels. Naturally ship paint would be extremely weatherproof and often brightly coloured - deck metal needs to be clearly visible in poor weather conditions. Crewmen sell off a few litres of bright, weatherproof paint here and there, and so begins Valparaiso's technicolour future...

And the murals? Maybe being raised in a multicoloured neighbourhood does things to one's head that demands anarchic, external artistic expression? Alternative theories on the Bug's desk by Monday morning please.

Another curiosity of Valparaiso is the large number of ascensores [funicular lifts] to help you up the city's 42 hills, but otherwise the city is about strolling the hills rather than visiting specific sights, though there are some grand structures around too.

For beaches travellers just need to hop onto the new metro and head for the large and calm though unexciting resort of Viña del Mar, 15 minutes down the line, but the beaches are hardly useable outside January and February.

Valparaiso Photos © Loader