Chile
Santiago • Valparaiso
April 2019 • Santiago sprawls in a valley between two mountain ranges, the air usually hazy with urban exhaust. Valparaiso is perched on a cluster of vertiginous hills overlooking the Pacific, its air churned by cool ocean breezes. Chile's two largest cities are a lot like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Santiago has the stronger arts institutions; Valparaiso has the more vivid street canvas: murals, graffiti, brightly painted whatnot. Valparaiso is a leftist safe zone; Santiago—the beating financial heart of South America's most stable economy as well as home to a grueling museum about the Pinochet era—is where the gears grind the loudest. Most notable difference between the two cities and their California cousins: Santiago and Valparaiso are only an hour apart via bus.
