This city took us a day to warm up to, but once we did we loved it. The problem is when you first get into town you’re exposed to the mediocre part, which is just busy, noisy streets and people in a hurry. But once you get up into the hills you see an entirely different city, full of culture and peace. We almost left before we discovered this part of the city, but fortunately all the buses direct to Argentina that day were full.
As soon as you get into town forget the main plazas and port and just take an elevator up into the hills. You’ll start to see winding, crazy streets, lots of murals, and way better restaurants. We ate at one called Epif which was probably the best of our trip in South America. We also were walking by a puppet theater just as a show was starting, so we stopped in. It was weird. Aliens were after some peasant guy who just wanted to go home to his love after making his fortune, but the aliens kept finding him. Bizarro. We got lost a few times, but it always turned out to be a fun detour.
We also visited Viña del Mar which is close by. The city was pretty dull, but there was a park with a mini zoo in it that we walked through. It’s one of those zoos where you feel bad for the animals though.
From here it’s on to Argentina!