Dogs Rule!

Street dogs are on every street here in Valparasio! They are friendly, mostly sleeping in the sun, taking care of their flea-filled bodies. This hillside city might be also the graffiti capital of the world with many artistic murals filling walls and doors in every direction. Some of this artificial landscapes include black silhouettes of DOGS! This corner near our hostel has more dogs than most; one of the artists here features painting of dogs in action~ playing guitars, riding motorcycles, drinking coffee at the cafe, painting murals of other dogs... They are fun and inexpensive and would make a wonderful souvenir, but alas, we have NO space for anything until we use up some of the medications and insect repellents that we brought, so no dogs for us!
Keith has made a couple small purchases including a 4" X 6" Chilean flag, we hope to gather one from each country we visit.



Yesterday we took the light rail train five miles to Vina del Mar, home to the yacht club, casino, Sheraton Hotel, castles and palaces. More money is apparent here, it is an upscale tourist site in true summertime! We walked for miles up hills and down as dark clouds filled the Pacific horizon. Luckily not a drop fell until we sat down on the train to return to Valparasio!



We visited three castles built at the beginning of the 20th century, one was built right on the rocky seaside. It was exciting watching the tide come on the castle's terrace which is open to the public as an exhibition space.



One of the three palaces we visited was surrounded by a expansive and well groomed park full of trees and flowers from around the world, most of which were nicely labeled. One of many gardeners at work stopped to speak with us picking the fragrant flowers from a tree for each of us, a kind gesture. He was happy to have the work, which he obviously enjoyed, but was disgusted that after he left each afternoon students came and trampled the grassy areas and flower beds playing soccer while families left garbage after their picnics.



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The day ended with hard rain pounding on the glassed-in roof of the three storied open space as we shared our green salad topped with chicken breast straight from the oven, YUM! Our dinner 'guests' included the Chilean innkeeper, Claudia, two travelers from Holland and a young man from Germany who just started working here in the hostel. The discussion was lively and multilingual, those mostly in spanish so that Claudia could participate. English was the second language in use, but not for our sakes, but because the europeans seemed more comfortable using this one of the varied second languages. Language is an amazing human invention!