Valparaiso, Chile - Blogabond

The 24 hour bus wasn't actually too bad and we made it into Valaparaiso on time. The bus station is quite a way out of town so we all bundled into a taxi, a feat (five of us and five large bags into a normal sized car) that we were beginning to perfect by now, and made our way to a street that we had been told was full with hostels and pubs! The reccomendation was a good one and we quickly found a very nice hostel with big rooms and a free breakfast, always an appreciated travellers bonus.
Despite being such a nice place, both the hostel, and in fact the rest of the city seemd surprisingly empty of people, especially other travellers. I began to feel quite glad that I had come with the boys, as I'm sure I would have felt quite lonely if I'd been on my own.
The first afternoon we walked down to the waterfront which was definitely the busiest part of the city and there was plenty of hustle and bustle to watch in the sunshine. The city is built up on a hillside so from down by the dock it looked pretty spectacular in the afternoon light, especially as the houses and building are all painted in multicolours, giving the whole hillside a sweet shop feel. As the sun was lowering we decided take one of the city's many funiculars up to the top if the hill and found a nice cafe to sit and watch the sun go down over the water.
Unfortately I began to feel very ill that evening and so whilst the boys went out I lay in front of the hostel telly feeling sorry for myself, unfortunately something that due to the ongoing sickness I did for most of the next day. I was pretty annoyed with the situation but then thought that in fact I have not really had a day off due to illness yet so I've been doing pretty well so far! It was actually sort of useful as it gave me a good excuse to stay in and upload all my photos since a good few weeks back, so a good job done.
The day afterwards though I was feeling on fine form again and we spent a lot of the day walking round the city taking photos. It was our last night in Valparaiso so we decided to have a night on the town which turned out to be great fun with lots of dancing, which I hadn't done in a while so I had a fantastic night!
The next afternoon we all took a bus to Santiago where the boys planned to spend two nights, but I only had time to spend one. What a night though......I won a pub quiz for the first time! It had been organised by the hostel so we decided to have a go and ended up winning two bottles of wine! It was actually a blissful evening as the hostel has loads of gas fires like the one we used to have in the kitcehen at home in winter so I took my portion of the white wine and toasted my toes infront of the fire watching a movie......total heaven!