Chile: giving talks and more transportation fun

I'm coming to the midpoint in my time at Chile, and it's a trip that really keeps me moving around.  After settling in with my friend in her apartment in Viña del Mar, overlooking the Pacific Ocean (with a few photos in the previous post), we started getting busy with giving talks and touring the area. 

For example, I got to take this lovely double-decker bus from Viña del Mar to Santiago.

It's not a tour bus; it's an intercity bus -- very comfy.

Inside, the seats are plush and recline; it's the same style of bus that I took in Panama from Penonomé to Panama (city).  One difference is that in these buses, there are displays showing the speed the bus is going, and signs noting that if the driver goes too fast, you can report him. No dangerous driving is allowed!

100 km/hr is the max speed, and our driver was at this
max a bunch, but didn't go over it.

The reason for going to Santiago was to give a talk at USACH: the Universidad de Santiago en Chile.  

Here I am! I gave the talk.

And when that was over, we bused back to a city called Valparaíso, close to Viña del Mar, to explore.  This is a port city, and so after taking an electric trolley from the terminal to the port, we took a boat tour of the port. 

We were having a blast.

It was neat to see boats in the port that had come from Panama. I kept telling other people, "that's where I was before I came to Chile!"

From the water, you can see the steep hills rising out of the ocean.  The city of Valparaíso is built on these steep hills, and so our next activity was to go up and down these hills. 

At the top of one of these hills, we stopped in a museum with an amazing tapestry. In the middle of this tapestry was a picture of cows, and I had to take pictures, because, well, cows.  

I love how even though we're looking at the collection of
cows from above, we look at each individual cow from the side.

Here's a bit more of the tapestry.  It goes on and on; 
it was really fascinating.

So how, you wonder, do you go up and down the hills?  One way is through "ascensores" (ascenders?), little paired trams that are built into the side of the mountain.  It costs 100-300 pesos (like 10-30 cents), depending on which one you use.  

In the tram at the bottom. 

In the tram at the top.

The wheel at the top for the cable that pulls the trams.

Inside the tram; it's about the size of an elevator.

Of course, another option for climbing and descending these hills is via stairs.  There are a lot of staircases, all over the city.

There's a lot of art and graffiti.

The stairs in some neighborhoods become a source of local pride and color; I loved climbing these rainbow stairs.  In the buildings alongside the stairs there were house, art galleries, and restaurants.

Happy stairs.

This set of stairs below, I especially loved. 

I'll show them from the side first, . . .

. . . and then from the front.  It looks like a vertical wall;
it's wild to see someone climbing the stairs
because they look like they're climbing a wall.

Here's a bit of a close-up. 

There are more talks and more tours coming up in the next week. I'm not bored, that's for sure!