A LOVE LETTER TO VALPARAÍSO
- Vanessa Caldas
- 15 de jun. de 2025
- 4 min de leitura
Atualizado: 6 de jul. de 2025
In you, I found a home, I found love, I found adventure, and I found myself too. You are much more than a jewel; you are the entire treasure.
When I found out that I would be spending New Year's Eve in Chile, I tried to find a good place to do it, and I came across Valparaíso in my research. I have rarely listened to my intuition so clearly. "Something great waits for you there."
That’s what I felt, intuition, but I disguised the feeling by telling everyone that it was one of the most famous New Year's Eves in the world. The fireworks last longer than Copacabana, you know?! That was my advertising, but I had no idea what was going to happen beyond that. I only knew that, in life, we have to do what our intuition tells us, without all the questioning. My problem has always been questioning too much, but this time it wasn't like that.
The plan was to spend seven days there, but on the first day I was already blown away! I made friends, laughed a lot, I kissed, I drank, I smoked, and I even saw the fireworks being tested. It was quite a welcome! From then on, it was all about exploring the city's hills, appreciating the landscapes, and being enchanted by the colorful paths until I found myself being guided to the port, where I made more friends and won a boat trip to see Valparaíso Bay from another angle.
It was one of the most enchanting images of my life, appreciating that beautiful landscape while being rocked by the swaying waves of the Pacific, listening to stories about the city, and seeing sea lions. It's impossible not to fall in love, I believe that even the coldest heart would have warmed a bit there. In the end, I received another invitation, this time to spend New Year's Eve watching the fireworks at sea. I accepted, and it was one of the best moments of my life. It turns out it's really worth listening to your intuition...
Valparaíso is called the Jewel of the Pacific. It was there that I discovered this ocean, which was new to me. From the crossings of my ancestors, who came from other continents, to my own paths coming from the North to South America, the Atlantic Ocean has always been that one thing that connected everything, but now I was on the sands of an unknown.
In nature, when the oceans meet, they do not mix. They have been through different paths, passed through different worlds. The density, the salinity; nothing is the same except for the fact that they are both water. It takes a while for the oceans to mix, to understand each other, to become something new, or the continuance of what they were before...
An ocean that we call Pacific, but needs tsunami signs everywhere, escape routes, and emergency alerts on cell phones. How can something called peace contain so much danger?
There are walls, ports, and destroyed buildings all along the coast, making up the landscape that mixes old and new architecture, debris, the ocean, and many boats. Some of them shipwrecks. Pacific... I believe that this ocean has had other names, and they were certainly nothing like this one.
I looked at the signs and felt butterflies in my stomach. If something happens to me here... Alone in a foreign country where I barely speak the language and barely have enough money to live through the month, now I have to worry about tsunamis?
My new reality was waking up every day without knowing if what was going to take over me was an ocean of emotions or a real ocean, so I learned to find some new detail to fall in love with in every corner I visited, appreciating and holding on to all the memories.
Each sunset took my breath away and restored a little of the hope lost in times gone by. Music everywhere, a stage set up in the city center with free concerts, good beaches, cheap drinks, lots of fish, lots of seagulls, and people who like to party. On top of it all, I had a summer love affair with a tour guide who took me to several places... If there was any shadow of a doubt, I'll say it here: I felt at home!
On one side of the bay, the Playa Ancha translates to big beach, but in reality, starts with a very small one, and on the other side, in Viña del Mar, right in the background of any photo or drawing of Valparaíso, you’ll see those eccentric mountains of sand. The famous Dunes of Concón.
Sand, it seems to make you dirty while it's cleansing you... This sand was so magical that I had to bring some home. They say: “D. Pedro II walked the streets of Paris in his exile, always with a velvet bag in his pocket with a little sand from Copacabana beach. He was buried with it...” That is what they will say about me and my little bag of sand from the Dunes of Concón.
A huge sea of sand untouched by time and, strangely, also by the winds. Strong winds that almost knocked us over on the steep and crazy climb to the top... Every now and then, a shout: – Hold my backpack! – Wait, I'm going to take off my sneakers now... I stumbled here, slipped there, and a few minutes later, I was on top of the world.
Where time seems to freeze and where seagulls spread their wings and are carried by the wind, without a care in the world. There I flew too.
And then continued my journey...
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