Wednesday, the 13th, I went on an all day tour to the ocean port city of Valporazo, it is a two hour drive considering am & pm rush hours.  We went thru three mountain valleys, including the central valley in which Santiago sits.  The first two valleys were reached via tunnels thru the coastal mountains and were very dry, and needed irrigation for anything to grow, but when we topped the creast of the last string of mountains we entered a forest of green trees of different kinds.  Now this area was still quite dry but the guide said that the humidity was high, and it did rain a little more than in the inner valleys, but as elsewhere, most rain came in the winter, May thru July, and of course it snowed at the same time in the Andes, and when it melts that is the source of almost all of the water from here to the ocean.   We went to the home of a Chilian poet, who had won a Nobel Prize, but it was the architecture of the building that was so unusual.  It took up very little square footage, with about two rooms per floor, but it rose about six floors to get the whole house put together.  Why such a weird design?  The terrain.  The hills-mountain comes down in fits and starts to within a couple of blocks from the ocean.  So houses, all buildings, except for the few blocks at the bottom, are built on extremely steep hillsides.  So thats why the constricted footprint of the houses.  Most are one, two stories or rarely three high, but this poet wanted something special so he imported an architect from Spain, who designed all three of the poet's homes, in fact the poet liked this house so much he named it after the architect.   And I must admit it is a beaut.  The views from the living-dining room, from his bed, and other areas of the house are supurb.  I'll have to add both of their names later when I get back to my room.  In this old hotel the internet only works on the second floor lobby and dinning room, and my backpack with the brochures is up in my 6th floor room, where there is no wifi.  We rode in the van and took in more of the city on cliff side roads, U-turn streets, viewing the buildings stacked almost atop one another, but smacked up next to each other, a few had gardens, and looking down the slopes it was hard to see how the buildings had access to get out to the streets.  The stairways connecting these homes to the public streets, "sidewalks", and dirt or brick paths were nerve wracking.  Can you imagine carrying groceries home, or moving in or out with mattresses, sofas or dining room hutches?

We saw a mauri/mori head from  Swiss clock donated to the city on one of it's anniversaries, and had lunch cliffside with pelicans flying around and perching on rocks just off shore.  I had lunch with a Chinese young lady, who had her suitcase aboard the van, because on the way back to Santiago, we dropped her off at the international airport, she was going home after the day tour.  We talked in depth about cultures, politics and economics... Truely enlightening.  This is the same airport I'll be heading to Saturday morning.  Well it's time for pictures.  Let's see how many  get to post, before I give up with the S l o w   d o w n l o a d I n g??????

The five pictures started downloading at 7:56 and it's now 8:43 so that is all the patience you will get from me right now considering my growling stomach.  The first three pics and the fifth on are intentional choices I made in downloading, the fourth one is the result of an unintentional finger flick, so intentional or an inadvertent finger flick you get to see it because of the download time and this blog isn't supposed to be a finished work of art, but my passing impressions about my "roundtheworldwithjoe" adventure.  Don't forget you can expand all the pictures on the blog for a better view if you are so inclined.  Nighty-nite, I'm off to dinner, a bit early for Latin standards, but I am hungry!  8:50 signoff.