We’re staying at a little hostel in Valparaiso, Javier the host is great.  A young man who came to stay at the hostel and liked it so much he bought the place, he’s made it a place of low cost and great character.  Its tucked into a tiny corner on a hilly street, two and a half stories high and wrapped around a tiny courtyard. Its simple, very basic, but cheerful and friendly.

 Casa "Los Gaviotines" (  a resting place for small fluttering seagulls,  Terns) is on a cobblestoned street up the hill behind the Navy offices in downtown Valparaiso, the buses stop just down the hill ( I get the impression that they're all driven by trainee racing car drivers on their last stage of training before trying out for Destruction Derby Stock car racing).  You can walk there from the bus in 10 mins or so and its within easy walk of the harbour and the many excursion boats.

FOR BOOKINGS  javiermilesi@gmail.com 

As you walk in through the door, rooms on both sides but you walk through the cool and darkened corridor into a brightly painted little courtyard, kitchen and rec room with computer on your right, heads and showers at the far end and rooms all around. Compact, but a happy place.

The courtyard from upstairs, my own room to the right.  

Casa "Los Gaviotines"  Is highly recommended if you don’t mind basic but clean and fending for yourself.  Breakfast is available, make it yourself but there is a wide variety of foods there.   Good place, just up the road to the left and behind the offices of the Armada de Chile. 

Thats Howard working down there, sometimes the interconnectedness of our modern world is a disadvantage when you're trying to get away from it all.

You’ll recognise it by the street art, that by the way is a real art form here in Chile, they’ve taken graffiti to a whole new level here and it adds much to to therwise plain and sometimes run down buildings.

I like it.  Great place so far in spite of warnings to keep our possessions close and safe, cheap, and full of cheerful helpful people.

Today we’re doing some filming, and then it will be back on the bus to Santiago.

As a by the way, and no she was too far away to get a photo, when I was young, pre teen that is, my dad took me aboard the four masted Barquentine “Esmeralda” when she visited New Zealand.  She’s berthed on the Navy berth here in Valparaiso, looking very good from the little distance we saw her from. A real credit to the Armada de Chile.