Well… if we wake up in Concon you better believe that we will show off the sand dune, haha. Hopefully you don’t get tired of looking at it! [Update from 2024: the sand dunes are now closed and you are not allowed to enter the ecosystem as it recovers from so many visitors].

We again walk along the top and enjoy the views. It’s really breathtaking. So much sand, so many hills, and then the Pacific Ocean. Wow. But today we can’t stay up here too long, so we take a few pictures and then make our way back down the dune.

We again wait for the bus at the same stop as yesterday, but today we notice something that we love to highlight. The signs are accessible for blind people. We love when we see these kinds of things because it means that the city/municipality is thinking of all of its residents. 100% onboard with these initiatives. (Sadly this is the only bus stop we remember seeing this at).

We get on the bus and make sure to get a window seat. It’s worth it. And when going towards Viña you want to sit on the right side. The window lets you see Reñaca before going along the coast. The picture below is showing you Reñaca from above. You see the city area below, there is a gigantic Chilean flag on the hill in the distance, and you can just make out the Pacific Ocean. Such a pretty drive.

And then we are quickly in Viña del Mar around the big shopping centre. From there we have to meet with our travel friend for lunch, so we walk a bit (have to make sure to get our steps in!). From here we walk along Avenida Libertad where there are many, many small shops and cafes along this avenue. It is also a popular walking avenue because it goes straight from the shopping mall (where there are a lot of busses) to Plaza Vergara (central Viña, where there are also a lot of busses). Most busses that serve Viña del Mar would be stopping around either of these two places. (And it takes less than 30 minutes to walk between the two).

While walking you can also see a few non-commercial things. We will show you the two that caught our eye. First is a large Las Carmelitas church. We have no information beyond the name, but it was big and looked interesting so we took a picture. The other picture is of a Moai. You may recognize the Moais as the statues from Rapa Nui (also known as Easter Island in English). What is this Moai doing here in the middle of Viña? Well, Rapa Nui is actually a part of Chile, and it is even a part of the Region of Valparaiso (regions in Chile are the equivalent to what other countries would call states or provinces). So, it makes sense that this is here to show off a part of Chile that many people have never actually visited. It is also precisely here because there is a museum. Unfortunately, we were late to our meeting so we could not go in. So we ran off to be able to eat some lunch.

After lunch we went back to Valparaiso. This time we did not go through the “downtown” because we went by car. We were dropped off up in the hills of Valparaiso. We don’t know about you, but we think that it looks very pretty. Especially when you’re up here long enough to see the sun start setting off in the distance. (There is a difference of 4 hours in the below pictures).

But with that it was time to start heading back towards Concon because it was starting to get late. A bad thing about the hills of Valparaiso is that the public transport is not necessarily good across all of the hills. On this particular hill (La Planchada as you can see below) public transport was already not great.

We walked up the hill to try to get better bus access and while we waited for one to pass we took the opportunity to take some pictures with the local art. We always love some public art.

We eventually made it to the main road that runs across the hill and back down into the central part of Valparaiso but we didn’t have much luck. We waited and waited and no bus would come. At least we were able to take in the view. You can see the hills stretching out as far as the eye can see across Valparaiso with the Pacific Ocean being just out of sight towards the right of the picture. Beautiful.

We waited and waited and waited. Finally we saw a bus coming and we flagged it down! And it drove right by empty… it means that it is out of service. Eventually we decide to stop trying to save some money and decide to flag down a “shared cab” called a ‘colectivo’. Colectivos are cars that drive fixed routes with fixed prices and can fit up to 4 passengers. They are more expensive than the micros, but they can also be more comfortable and sometimes faster. Once we finally decide to flag one down we realize that they are all full. Obviously they would be if the busses are no longer running. Terrible news for us. Ha. We gamble a little bit and move away from the rest of the people waiting for a colectivo to take the below picture on the left. This indicates that we are in a Wanderers neighbourhood. We love seeing the football clubs well represented throughout Chile!

FINALLY a colectivo stops and takes us back towards the flat area of Valparaiso. The colectivo driver tells us that the busses stop running around 8 pm up on this hill, which means we missed them by about 40 minutes. Good thing we didn’t try waiting for a bus any longer, haha. We’re back in the “flat part” of Valparaiso in no time where we wait for the bus that will take us all the way back to Concon.

Although we showed you a bus stop earlier today, those aren’t always available. You can see above on the right how you need to stop busses in Valparaiso/Viña. You just stick your hand out and they stop wherever you are, no matter if you are at a bus stop or not. Pretty convenient. It’s a similar situation to get off the bus. You just pull the chord and the bus immediately stops, no matter if you are at a bus stop or not. We would say this is pretty convenient for us!

But, with that, there’s not much left to our day. We got on the bus and eventually made it back to where we are staying. Not too many pictures, but again we got to see Concon, Reñaca, Viña, and a tiny bit of Valparaiso. Now we need to rest to see what tomorrow will bring! Goodnight from Concon!