Valparaiso, the seaport of Chile near the capital, Santiago, is a place that really hard to explain as the city is beautiful but at the same time very ugly. When the bus approached the city area, the whole mountain was full of buildings which locals crazily built on the high cliff with small columns supporting the whole structure. At the city center which built on the ground next to the sea, the city gave me a sense of bygone prosperity with many nice buildings since most of them were not in a good shape of preservation. I walked around the city center and did not find anything that worth to mention, except that the cost of living here is a bit cheaper than in the capital.

Then I went to see the upper area of the city. I used a century old funicular instead of climbing the steep streets and ladders. The funicular itself is really interesting, and there are many in this city, strangely that the price to use them are different and the most popular among the tourists are the most expensive. The upper town are really a different city, full of small houses built in many styles and brightly painted, very lovely to see. Most of the buildings are built from rusting galvanized sheet that really gave a sense of poverty, but actually the livelihood is quite good. There are many small streets and stairs linking each level of the city which are unbelievable for theirs existing and the view from these small paths are really great and provide more opportunity to see locals. When I arrived South America in Quito, I thought that city is crazy for how they built streets on steep hill, but at Valparaiso is even more bizarre, some road is so steep that they have to turn the road into garden as driving on such steep road is too dangerous. Since the city is already packed with many small houses and very vibrant with rainbow of colors, the city also promoted artists to paint graffiti on the wall everywhere they wanted especially in Cerro Concepción, and the result is the chaos of colors which in my opinion too much to be in the level of acceptable and made the city dirty and ugly.

As I said this city is really hard to explain, while many tourists I met love how unpretentious of the city is with unplanned city layout and massive messy electricity wire along the street, I found that this kind of thing can be found in many developing countries especially in Asia. Maybe the most surprised is after saw how well organized of developed country in Santiago, Valparaiso is very different that hardly believe that these two cities are really near less than one hour. I really like the way local adopted unfriendly landscape and bravely built the whole city with harmoniously result that make Valparaiso really is a must see, but for those countless crazy graffiti and murals which in my opinion exceed the tolerant level and already destroy the city charm. The city is really safe but every local I met warned me to be careful from pickpocket. Friendliness and food of Valparaiso are also great to remark and that made Valparaiso to be a really fine World Heritage Site of Chile.