So this morning I arrived back in Chile, and it feels better than I expected it would to be back.  It took me a while to get through immigration and out of the airport, then to the bus station, and then here to Valparaíso, but once I got here I checked into a really pleasant hostel and spent the afternoon walking around the hills and the downtown.

There is something enchanting about the electric trolleybuses, the pedestrian alleys and stairways that wind seemingly without direction around the hills, the multi-colored houses, the endless murals crowding each other for space, the smell of piss in the streets and stepping in green dogshit in the middle of the sidewalk.  So, it’s not perfect, but that’s Valparaíso.

Even though it wasn’t that long ago that I left this place it really feels as if I’m discovering the city for the first time in my real life after dreaming about it for nights on end.  I had forgotten how much I love it.  After five months living here that weren’t always easy I feel like this Valparaí­so still has a lot of secrets and surprises waiting to unfold for me.

Beyond these fanciful expectations I’m certain that if I do end up living here in a few months my experiences will be radically different from before, given both that, even though they run into each other, Valparaío is so much different from Viña del Mar where I lived before and that I have a much better command of Spanish now than I did before.

(So I left the charger for my camera in the States and to save the batteries I’m not taking any pictures until I get to Buenos Aires.  With any luck though my mother will be kind enough to send it and it should arrive soon.  I’ll have many more opportunities to photograph Valparaí­so.)