Valparaiso - South America's graffiti wonderland

Again, please forgive any awkward formatting, it offends us as much as we assume it offends you.

'Valparaiso, how absurd you are...you haven't combed your hair, you've never had time to get dressed, life has always surprised you.' These words were written by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who fell in love with and lived in Valparaiso during the mid 20th century. Before you ask, I am not particularly well-versed in Chilean poets, but instead have unashamedly borrowed these words straight from our trusty guide throughout this trip, Lonely Planet's South America on a shoestring. For me, Neruda's words capture the essence of this unique and eccentric city. Hopefully by the end of this post you'll be able to see why.

While researching Valparaiso prior to our visit, Jay and I noticed one of two trends: people either absolutely love the city, or can't stand it. And I can see why people might dislike it; parts of the city are quite dirty, dogdy, unnecessarily chaotic and uninspiring. Nevertheless, I belong to team 'I heart Valparaiso'. Before I explain why, I'll briefly outline the city's history to better contextualise it for you.

Even the stairs in Valpariso are beautifully decorated!

Historically Valparaiso was a key Chilean port up until the early 20th century, when a devastating earthquake and the opening of the Panama Canal changed its fate.

We were lucky enough to get these amazing views of Valparaiso from the 27th floor of our apartment block.

During the 1970s, when Chile was under the oppressive dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, political murals/graffiti work sprung up as a form of protest on the streets of Valparaiso. As Chile slowly democratised, the graffiti culture - which had until that point been anonymous and subversive - continued to thrive, so much so that the local government approved it as long as it remained creative and positively contributed to the aesthetic of the city. Thus the motley nature of 'Valpo' was, and has since, continued to be encouraged.

The top half of this mural is an example of political graffiti. The artist has compared current society to livestock for its tendency to blindly follow the orders of capitalist 'masters'.

As someone who self-identifies as being extremely directionally challenged, it was an incredibly fun city to get lost in. Because even if you did get lost, you'd be greeted with a plethora of whacky and fantastical murals to distract and enchant you.

The artist of the image in the foreground features quite prominently in Valpariso and uses Christian symbolism (such as serpents and nail wounds) to explore the themes of temptation and sacrifice.

This mural, which also happens to be somebody's front fence (!!), is made up entirely of individual dots - a technique that is incredibly difficult to achieve successfully with spray cans.

This mural can only be viewed wholly from the second floor of the apartment block we were standing under.

Just walking up and down the same streets seemed like a different adventure each time. Buildings that looked plain and ordinary from one angle had magnificent, psychedelic murals painted on them on their other side. I was constantly awed by the artists extraordinary skill and attention to detail, with some murals made up of individual dots, while others could only be viewed properly from particular angles. All of these combined factors made me feel a little like I was Alice who had jumped down a rabbit hole into a vivid and kalaedescopic wonderland.

An example of a psychedelic mural. How did they even get up there to complete it!?

These artists, whose work also features quite prominently in Valparaiso, were commissioned to complete this mural. They are a couple whose murals always include a male and female character to represent themselves. This mural also happens to be the largest one in Chile or South America - I can't remember which!

An example of a more realist style mural.

However Valparaiso made us work hard for the reward of viewing its artwork. The streets were incredibly steep and I often found myself out of breath after enthusiastically racing up a hill to see the next incredible mural. Nevertheless, the unexpected workout was definitely worth it!

One of the many beautiful, albeit super steep, streets of Valparaiso.

When we got tired of walking up hills we'd jump on one of the city's many funiculars to give ourselves a break. 

How we felt after walking up and down the steep streets of Valapariso.

If you're thinking 'Gosh, Julia sure sounds like she knows a lot about street art, I wonder if she's secretly been part of a graffiti crew for the past few years?', then I firstly thank you for thinking I could be bad-ass enough to be part of a graffiti crew. However, I have to confess that I did get some assistance with Valparaiso's street art knowledge thanks to the Street Art Walking Tour Jay and I did. Not only are we now well versed in street 'crew' lingo (OK, I still have a bit of practising to do), it also gave us an appreciation of the evolution, purpose and styles of graffiti artwork and culture which I've tried to describe in this post. I was particularly pleased to learn that a number of female artists are increasingly gaining street cred in Valaparaiso - boo yeah! So the tour is definitely one I'd recommend if you ever get the chance to visit this incredible city.

An example of a female graffiti artist's work.

Another example of a female graffiti artist's work.

Buenos Aires - Part Dos

Please excuse any awkward formatting, the blogger app doesn't like us or the iPad...

One aspect of travel that is often glossed over in our instantaneous pleasure seeking world of social media gloats are the un-sexy tasks all travellers must undertake. Washing being one of the more challenging tasks during travelling. In BA, there was a laundromat across the street from us. Feeling fortunate and with a large bag of dirty clothes, we headed there and started a game of charades as we tried to make ourselves understood. The particular climax of said game was when the shop attendant asked for a name. Now as a disclaimer to my spoilt lingua franca English speaking friends, the letter 'J' in Spanish is mostly pronounced more like our 'H'. So, wanting to be understood when asked for a name, Julia responsed with "Hulia"; to which the shop attendant looked perplexed and promptly corrected, "Julia?" Sheepishly Julia acknowledged that 'Julia' and not 'Hulia' was in fact her actual name. Meanwhile I stood in the background in the grips of hilarity witnessing a stranger correcting someone else's own name. Much laughs were subsequently had. 

The best handwritten Julia picture I could find without going to the extreme effort of writing it myself

Argentina has a curious history with their currency, pesos or amusingly coded as ARS. Whilst I won't bore you with historical details, suffice to say that certain peculiarities still exist. There's a widely held consensus that the pesos is over valued and undergoing hyperinflation. The practical realities and most amusing aspects of this as a tourist are two fold. Firstly, one can only withdraw roughly $160 AUD a day. Now of course this is mostly fine but you can imagine it being frustrating at times for regular citizens. Secondly, even with such restrictions banks regularly run out of money to dispense. We encountered this problem after trying to take out money from numerous banks only to be told by a local in the most sincere and nonchalant way, "there has been a public holiday so the banks have run out of money." How silly of us for not making that obvious* connection. 

Literally** what we were faced with 

Finally on the topic of money let me regale you with an amusing anecdote. We walked into a bank to use an atm. Fortunately there was nobody in the queue (I haven't yet mentioned that Argentinians absolutely love to queue) so naturally we went and stood at the front of the queue. That was until the security guard who was standing there alone became agitated at us. Nervous we'd done something wrong, it slowly dawned on us that he was a security guard from somewhere else patiently queuing to take his own money out!!! Really, what are the chances? We laughed and chuckled at this fluke encounter for days afterwards. 

The disgruntled security guard 

As a podiatrist one habit that I can't shake is my tendency to observe people's gait and footwear. Amusingly for me, and Julia too, Argentinian women are in the grip of an awful obsessions with obnoxiously thick soled (wedges) footwear. From thongs and sandals to joggers and dress shoes. I'll let you decide on the fashion credentials of these but needless to say that I hope they don't catch on in Australia; just awful! To top the shoe fashion show off, crocs***, which really should only be used indoors and out of sight of the general public, were ubiquitous also. Adding to the disharmony of my podiatric frustrations.

You decide, yay or nay? 

 

If there is one memory that is forever etched in my mind from BA it's the sheer number of dogs and the sheer number of professionals dog walkers who simultaneously walk upwards of 6 dogs at a time; resembling Santa and his reindeers. Unlike the gifts Santa and his reindeers leave behind, unfortunately with such a handful of leashes the professional walkers don't have a spare hand to pickup the copious amount of dog shit that is subsequently left for smart phone absorbed pedestrians to stand in on the street. 

Who's walking who? 

Finally, on the recommendation of some expat locals, we took the plunge and bought tickets to a postmodern theatre show called Fuerza Bruta or 'Brute Force'. It's a show like no other where the whole performance involved interactions with the audience. The set is fluid and described as '360 degrees' as it changes constantly from the roof to the walls to the stage et cetera. The audience gets showered in water, glitter and confetti to name a few. It's toured the world and I'm hoping it ends up in Australia too. Just wow. Here is a teaser: http://youtu.be/taBAtxasWto

Jay on the right and Julia on the left  

They lowered a swimming pool on top of us containing performers in it

They erected a tent over us and performers entered through the phallic shaped centre 

*not obvious 

**not literally

***I confess to owning a pair but use them following the strict guidelines I laid out 

Buenos Aires - Part Uno

Please excuse any awkward formatting, the blogger app doesn't like us or the iPad...

Buenos Aires (BA), or literally translated as 'good airs', is a city whose reputation precedes it. It's cultural commodities include tango, football, steak, wine and Lionel Messi. It's also a city I've been curious to discover for much of my adult life. 

Palace of the Argentine National Congress

Thus, we boarded another Emirates flight from Rio and bid the unfortunately crappy weather adios. I was eagerly anticipating the flight for two distinct reasons. Firstly, I wanted to see whether my pants would be victim to another dose of red wine. Secondly, I had it under good authority that upon landing in BA Argentinians erupt into mass applause. 

Fortunately, my pants enjoyed the journey sans a lap full of vino and amusingly I can confirm that upon landing Argentianians do applaud vociferously. But there was another amusing aspect to the flight: the surprising popularity of the duty free trolley. I'm sure you can all recall memories of the tired and rickety duty free trolley clunking its solitary way down the aisle as you privately think to yourself, "who actually buys any of that stuff?". For Argentinians the thought is quite the opposite, more like "why wouldn't you buy anything?" Fortunately for us the cart conducted most of its commerce nearby and we sat, both perplexed and amused, enjoying the show as what felt like the majority of the flight heckled and hassled their way over to the cart for expensive perfumes and hard liquor. 

The passengers in our plane on landing*

But the air travel amusement didn't quite end there. We'd been forewarned of the sometimes dubious taxi drivers in BA. Arriving at night we were subsequently and understandably alert and especially eager to seek out an official, airport-sanctioned taxi service. Fortunately for us but unfortunately for our budget this meant stupidly committing to a chauffeur driven car with all the hallmarks of a VIP limousine sans the white gloves and security detail. Suffice to safe it was a comfortable and safe journey to our apartment. 

The chauffeur driven car we stupidly committed to*

Arriving in the lovely suburb of Palermo, we were glad to have a hot shower and somewhere to sit other than on the bed, two things unfortunately lacking from our Rio stay. I'm a big fan of arriving at destinations at night as the morning offers a wonderful surprise as your senses adjust and imbibe the new and foreign surrounds. We slept in and as good Melbournians do, headed off for brunch. Or so we thought. Argentines do everything hours later than us Australians. So a 1030 brunch actually means an empty cafe with staff still wiping the sleep from their eyes. The contrast of two well rested tourists and bleary eyed local staff didn't matter to us as we enjoyed one of the best brunches of recent memory. Including house-made yoghurt. Why hasn't this caught on in Melbourne yet? 

Fantastic brunch! Why hasn't house-made yoghurt caught on in Melbourne yet?

Such an excellent meal proved to be merely an introduction to the excellent quality and standard of food that was to come. Despite Argentineans being notoriously carnivorous, vegetarian options were aplenty. After one delicious meal after another our commonly used and particularly articulate phrase became, "vegetarianism must be a thing here."  

One thing we've really committed to during this trip has been checking out the local art scene. BA has a plethora of excellent and impressive art museums but enough from me, what's the saying about pictures and 1000 words?

Notice how the canvas extends beyond the wall 

An interactive exhibit which required us to make our way through various rooms and claustrophobic spaces 

We did an excellent walking tour with a guide who was an impassioned design student with an amusing penchant for the world 'allegory'. This meant some fantastic insight into the stories that various forms of architecture can tell the keen observer. Not only chronological iterations of architectural styles and trends but particularly economic ones too. For example, the more ornate buildings were mostly constructed during times of economic prosperity while the converse is true of the duller and more mundane structures which were constructed during economic downturns. 

An example of the different architectural styles. Notice the higher and more ornate buildings across the street from the more utlititarian and mundane buildings? What would the economic implications of this difference be?

*Not the actual passengers 

*Not the actual car 

To be continued! 

Hola Rio!

Rio de Janeiro. The city of glorious sunshine, stunning blue-sky days and expansive, pristine beaches. A city where the favourite pastime of the locals - also known as cariocas - is heading down to the beach and spending all hours of the day and night soaking up the sunshine and just hanging out. A city that Jay and I couldn't wait to get amongst for these very reasons. 

The colourful streets of Rio.

This is precisely how we spent our first full day in Rio. Excited by the prospect of spending a few mindless hours relaxing in the sun, we donned on our bathers to spend the afternoon lapping it up at Copacabana beach. And what a stunning setting it was! Aside from the glittering blue waters and striking mountainous terrain lining the horizon, it was a fantastic place for people-watching. People of all colours and sizes graced the beach-front, from buff men working out on the exercise equipment lining the boardwalk, to beachside vendors selling everything from sunglasses to skewered prawns to cocktails, to g-string-clad women sun-baking on the beach. 

Ipanema - another stunning beach of Rio. Little did we know that this was about all the sunshine we'd get during our visit.

Unfortunately for Jay and I we were only privy to a small amount of indulging. Barely an hour later, gusty, cold winds replaced the warm sunshine, and we had no choice but to pack up our umbrellas and chairs to seek shelter from the ensuing storm. It turns out the weather gods stubbornly thought this was how they'd treat us for the rest of the trip, as four more rainy days of weather followed. But I'll get to more of that in a moment.

Where's everyone gone!?

Driving into Rio from the airport (after a 30+ hour journey from Melbourne where, I must add, an air hostess split red wine all over Jay's jeans within the first few hours of the trip), I couldn't help but notice the inevitable chaotic buzz that pulsates densely populated cities such as Rio. Traffic was a-shambles, with cars cutting each other off and driving scarily close to one another; people were standing in the middle of the freeway selling snacks and beverages to any driver willing to purchase their goods; and the freeway itself was bordered by the infamous favelas (slums) that speckle many of the inner, hilly regions of Rio. Huge mountains loomed over the city, making a beautiful contrast with the strikingly picturesque coastline. We drove past Cristo Redentor, the infamous Art Deco statue of Christ that towers over the city, not realising that this would be the clearest view of the statue we'd have all trip despite it looming 700m high above the city.

Some favelas on the outskirts of Rio.

Which leads me back to discussing the weather we experienced in Rio. Prior to our arrival I had seen that the forecast was rainy for most of the days during our stay. But there's a certain form of naive optimism that comes with being a traveller, where you assume that everything will be OK because you're away on holidays and things will just work out. Sometimes this naive optimism can be a good thing because you end up being a lot more patient in situations where you may otherwise lose your cool, like when you can't work out which bus to take to your next destination. Unfortunately this optimism can also blind you from making pragmatic decisions in the face of blatant, contradictory-to-what-you-were-hoping-for facts, such as weather forecasts. And it is because of this naive optimism that I insisted we visit Cristo Redentor despite knowing, and being told, that there was no visibility on top of the mountain. At least we weren't the only people who did this!

Yes that's us in front of Cristo Redentor despite the poor visibility!

Despite the setbacks with the weather, we still got a fantastic flavour for Rio. It forced us to check out neighbourhoods and sites we mightn't have visited otherwise. It also led us to meeting Diogo, a carioca we befriended who showed us around Rio and gave us a great insight into local life. So we've left Rio with a sense that we scratched the surface of this incredibly dynamic and exciting city and hope that we'll get the chance to visit it again one day with hopefully a bit more sunshine!

Jay at the infamous Maracana stadium.

Other points:

- Food: Surprisingly we were able to find some veg options, though we quickly learnt that the lack of meat is heavily substituted with copious amounts of cheese. Don't get me wrong, we've been super happy to find veg options because we'd been led to believe it would be near impossible, it's just that large amounts of dairy is not so appetising for us when we don't eat much in our normal day-to-day lives. 

- Transport: Buses are the main way to get around in Rio, and boy are there plenty to service the city. I've never seen so many buses on city roads before! Getting on them is an experience in itself too, where, once you've punched your ticket, you have to get through a clunky, narrow rotating gate-way which can prove to be challenging for anyone who is more than your average weight. And the ride itself is incredibly bumpy and rough, where you're likely to get injured if you don't secure a seat ASAP.

I was hoping to get a better example of the large amount of buses in Rio, which I didn't get. So just imagine this picture with 4X the amount of buses on it at the one time, and you'll hopefully get the picture.

- Language: Portuguese has been a super tricky language for us to learn, particularly when we'd mainly been focusing on Spanish in the lead-up to the trip. But one of my favourite pastimes when visiting non-English speaking countries is to ask someone a question (such as how much something costs) in the local language, only to have no idea what their response means because they've also answered you in their language. The ensuing confusion of then communicating I have no idea what the person has said is quite comical, and I'm looking forward to being continually amused by this throughout the trip.

- Jay-walking is completely acceptable.

At Estrada Selaron, steps that Chilean artist Jorge Selaron created from broken tiles and mirrors as a tribute to Brazil. Sadly his body was found dead at the bottom of the steps in 2013, presumably from setting fire to himself. In retrospect perhaps we shouldn't have been so smiley in this picture.