Headless Cross

We are now in Valparaíso, about two hours from Santiago. Being one of the most important seaports in Chile, this city has a real Mediterranean feel. The houses are painted thousands of different colors, and frankly, it feels totally different from Santiago. There are wild animals as well as graffiti everywhere in the streets. And like many other cities in Chile, Valparaíso is prone to earthquakes; we felt three really small ones in one day! Also, the city is surrounded by hills – where most people live. Our hostel (Hostal Luna Sonorisa – killer place with a great breakfast!) is located on one of these hills, which takes 20 minutes of walking upwards to reach. After we finish this city, our legs are going to be made of steel!

One of the escalators we can take to get home...

François with the view outside our hostel. The road kind of disapears behind him because it is so steep

A view of the city from one of the hills (Alemania street) - You can see the bay in the background.

Another view of the city on a nicer day.

A street of Valparaiso at night

And like I mentioned, this place is plagued with tons of graffiti everywhere, some that are pretty funny:

Hehe

Now, this one just gets me... Come on, doing a Metallica graffiti and writing... Load? I should have written another one with "Celtic Frost - Cold Lake" beside it haha

And like I mentioned, there are tons and tons of homeless animals here, some of them you just want to take with you back to your home! Some dog followed us for about an hour on the first day we were in this town.

Alice, the dogs photos are for you!!!

Some cute mutt in his home

Two dogs, passing time on the stairs

Cute dog washing itself in the park

This dog was begging for some food for a good 30 minutes! Haha

A really adorable cat, on the side of the street

A black cat, photo taken on the way to the cemetery...

Keeping it warm

A two-headed calf. Ok, this was taken at some museum hahaha

So this week, we also visited the Valparaíso cemetery, located on another hill. It was a pain in the ass to get there! I guess they want to give the eventual zombies a hard time… or something.

Valparaíso cemetery

Valparaíso cemetery

Open grave...

Cheap-ass grave

Creepy gate thing with spider web

Mausoleum with tons of crosses and opened grave

Zombie BBQ in the cemetery!

And in relation to the cemetery, we went to a small museum in Viña del Mar (a small city right next to Valparaiso) and I finally got to see a Chilean mummy! Check it out:

Arghhh!! 20-year old female, dead about 2000 years ago...

And some cool Ecuadorian shrunken heads… these were heads of the enemies, shrunken to trap their souls forever, so they don’t come back and haunt the killer… really creepy stuff:

Shrunken head

Shrunken head

Shrunken head with a feathered hat??

François standing in front of a real Easter Island sculpture

And we also went to eat some Chorrillana (some kind of greasy fries topped with beef, onions and eggs) at the most famous place here, J. Cruz – which was pretty overpriced, but still worth it for the beautiful interior decoration:

J. Cruz restaurant

J. Cruz restaurant

Chorrillana! We took the onions and eggs on the side, but usually they are on top of the beef. Really killer and artery clogging, but nothing compared to poutine!

And to finish, here is an extremely funny ad for…

Children's leash!!! Never lose your child again!!!! Look at the sad face this little girl has... hahaha

So that’s all for today! Tonight we are off to play our second concert in Chile, with Condenados, Bad Joke, Metal Grave and Marchafunebre… should be really killer. Come to the sabbat!

Our gig tonight - at the Valparaiso Rock bar