Chilean Holiday: Valparaíso

Stories / December 16, 2016

Words & Pictures: Fabian Merino

In the final part of Fabian’s trip north in Chile, he takes some time off the bike to explore Valparaíso on foot before heading out for, you guessed it, more harsh climbing. Read on for the second part of Viña del Mar: days 3 & 4 in Valpraíso.

Day 3 – Valparaíso

Waking up knowing you could take a day off after a few days of hard riding is a good feeling, especially if you can spend it at your favorite cities in the world. Valparaíso is full of happiness, colorful buildings, nice people, music playing everywhere, it feels like you are walking through a poem especially when you start walking up the hills.

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Lots of steep cobbled narrow roads that go straight up towards the hills with stairs and alleyways that take you to a very unique part of the city that isn’t visible unless you take your time to walk through it.
Drank coffee and ate some home made cookies that I bought at a small cafe while I was exploring, I’ve never been to Italy but it looked really similar from all of the photos I’ve seen.

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After walking up and down the streets all morning I went to a pretty popular bar called Cinzano, 119 years old, located in the heart of Valparaíso, sat on the bar and asked the bartender to bring me the most popular drink he had and brought me a glass of Borgoña (wine with fermented fruit) and it was delicious, also ordered a Pisco Sour and had to stop because my tolerance after riding so much had changed drastically and was feeling a little tipsy.

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Stopped at the famous flower clock on the way back in Viña del Mar and walked along the coast to the main beach, it was a lovely day off of the bike, not so much of a rest day with all the walking but still.

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Day 4 – Valparaíso route

Woke up pretty tired but still wanted to go out and explore. I saw on the map a good climb in Valparaíso that was on a route built for trucks to get to the highway from the port without causing a massive traffic jam every single day so I headed that way, another cat 2 climb.

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While riding through Valparaíso stopped and looked at some cobbled climbs that looked extremely hard (up to 30%) and just starred at them thinking that if I went that way I would probably crash and get lost, although I did ride up one cobbled steep road and turned around and it was very dangerous and stupid.

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I made my way towards the climb and it was beautiful! It went along the coast and the view was amazing, everything was perfect and stress free until I got to the tunnels…

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Ok so, picture a road built for trucks and all you can see driving by is exactly that until you see a tunnel with a sing outside that says “No bikes” and no other way to go through, thankfully? there was a narrow sidewalk that went on my side that I hopped on and made it through 3 of these tunnels while massive trucks drove past me making the loudest noise ever inside, it was terrifying.

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Just to add up to it, when I got to the top and kept going towards the highway that would connect me to Viña I noticed a lot of construction going on and the WHOLE way was under construction, I didn’t notice that I could ride on the brand new road because you couldn’t do that in Canada without cops chasing you but I was in Chile so I did and the construction workers did not give a single fuccccc about it while I went by them, I even asked and they were almost offended that I asked.

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The way back was sweet, crazy descent that took you to the ocean, stopped at a castle on the way back to the hostel and got my stuff ready. Definitely the best trip and best riding I’ve ever done and I will definitely be back for more, hopefully with a friend from Victoria.

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For the Strava file of Fabian’s truck dodging ride:

Fabian in Valparaíso