Day 83 January 31st 2007, The Assassin Poet - Valparaiso

Now I have certainly seen it all, workmen directing you towards art galleries. Whilst walking round the town today looking pretty lost a workman in a fluorescent vest and hardhat stopped us and recommended we visited a small art gallery just across the road. Talk about culture.

Valparaiso has to be one of the coolest places I have ever visited. The town although a real patchwork of buildings is neither scruffy or rundown, the people are very friendly and without out fail every time we pull out a map someone shouts out to us where to go without us even asking or them knowing what we are looking for.

One of the big attractions in this city is the house of the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, real name Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto. Also a diplomat, a candidate for the Presidency of Chile, Neruda was even exiled for a period. In 1940 he even helped in the failed assassination of the Russian Politician Leon Trotsky.

After helping one of his co conspirators gain a Chilean visa he was much criticised for his actions, he dismissed the criticism as "sensationalist politico-literary harassment", whatever that is. Not quite your regular William Shakespeare type poet. Because of his political activity he was long overlooked but eventually awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

His house in Valparaiso "La Sebastina" is described as the city within the house, many oddly shaped rooms interconnected by passages and stairways. Each room totally unique. The pictures to the right are from a couple of the rooms.

In danger of culture overload we headed to the beach for lunch and checked out the Chilean National dish of Curantos, this is basically a mix of unidentified shell fish, a lamb shop and some chicken thrown in for good measure.

A sort of I don't know what I'm going to cook so I shall cook everything sort of meal. This feast took some sleeping off on the beach and here two firsts occurred, I managed to wake myself up with my own snoring and I lost track of what day of the week it is, I can tell you the date for sure but not the day. I only know when its Sunday as everything is damn closed.

Whilst at the beach we found Diego Maradona working as a car park attendant, his little hut named the hand of God.

Its a Dog's life

Highlights: The Poets house