Jessica, who is from Santiago, was still on vacation whilst we were there but decided to come to Valparaiso with us!

Valparaiso is a frenetic port city built on hillsides with a maze of steep streets, alleys and 'escaleras' (stairways) piled high with colourful, crumbling mansions . There are 15 rattling ‘ascensores’ (funiculars) built between 1883 and 1916 that crank you up into the hills. Bright public street-art adorns the city. In the late 1800s, Valparaiso was the stopover for foreign vessels including whalers, and the export point of Chilean wheat destined for the California gold rush. The opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 saw the city’s decline. Today its main purpose is tourism and as a cruise-ship stop-off due to its award of Unesco World Heritage status. The city has also housed Chile’s government since 1990 – an unsuccessful attempt to control population growth in Santiago.

Impressed with the ‘Free’ Walking Tour in Santiago, we joined another in Valparaiso. This walk took us up into the hills where we walked along steep cobbled streets lined by traditional 19th-century houses with painted colourful corrugated-iron facades, and good views across the port. Around the corner from our hostel was Plaza Sotomayor, dominated by the palatial, blue Naval Command Building .

In the afternoon we visited the beautiful Isla Negra (not an island). Built by the poet Pablo Neruda in the 1950s, this was his favourite house. The layout of his home is long and thin reflecting the outline of Chile, and many of its features resemble a ship. It is spectacularly set on a windswept ocean headland and some of Neruda’s best work was written here. The poet was obsessed with the sea, but scared of the water. He placed a boat in the gardens of his house and would happily sit in it with an aperitif, looking out to sea, imagining he was sailing! The house includes extraordinary collections of ships in bottles, nautical instruments, wood carvings and shells. Pablo Neruda was a hoarder! The poet is now buried in this location – he died of cancer days after the 1973 military coup. Some say the idealist Neruda died of a broken heart as his country fell under General Pinochet’s dictatorship. Wandering around his home, we were mesmerised by the place and its setting – it was simply wonderful.

Onward bus to Talca, 7hrs.