Our hostel in Valparaiso was a giant pink and green candy-box. It housed a gothic grotesque mix of predominantly faded rose tinted floral walpaper, artificial flowers, doilies and kitsch, gurning figurines, a cabinet of which was strategically placed in the breakfast room to suppress the guests´ appetites. Contributing to the aura of eeriness were the oversized creaking staircases and the fact that we were apparently the only two people who dared to stay the night. A well appointed roof terrace afforded magnificent views of the technicolour tenements below, the port and its contrastingly menacing and incongruous warships that littered the near waters. The guesthouse owners were an ancient, convivial, Spanish-only speaking, very eccentric couple. Propriety dictated that the chap had to offer us the twin room first, spying no obvious symbols of marriage. Sinners that we are, we took the double. ¨They want to get into the Twenty First Century¨, suggested Matthew, helpfully. Personally, I thought the decor had more chance of an update.
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