After leaving Puerto Montt, we had another day at sea and then arrived early in the morning of Jan 10, 2013 at the very busy port of Valparaiso, Chile.   We had such a great trip that it was sad it was ending, and we would have to disembark from the Veendam for the last time that morning.  However, we still had the unique city of Valparaiso to explore that day.  So we left the ship about 8:00 AM.  The ship's crew were all very busy getting people off and getting ready for the next passengers to get on board  that afternoon to do the reverse cruise of what we had just done.  First we went to the bus station and got our tickets to go to Santiago and to the airport late that afternoon.  Stored our luggage at the bus station, so we would not have to haul it all over the city while we were touring around.  Then we proceeded to walk a lot to the main square and to several parks, etc.  We went up and down the ancient funiculars that are still operating in Valparaiso.  There are about 12 of them still in use.  The part of the city close to the ocean is on flatter ground, but then the steep mountainsides go up high with housing on all different levels.  So we took the funiculars to get to different levels.  Much of the housing is painted in bright colors, making it a very colorful city.  Some areas have a lot of murals and graffiti, etc.  But it is all  very interesting to see.  We also rode buses and trolleys up and down the steep and flat streets.  We  strolled through an outdoor market lining one long street with little areas with tools, plumbing supplies, books, clothing, appliances, produce markets, flower markets, meat markets and fish markets, etc.  When we finished exploring, we went to the bus station and got our reserved seats on the bus to Santiago.  There is a lot of farm land, vineyards, corn, etc. between Valparaiso and Santiago.  It is about 1 1/2 hour bus ride.  Then we got on another bus to go out to the airport for our night flight from Santiago to Los Angeles.  As it turned out, we were flying LAN airlines (a Peru airline) and they told us we would be on a different plane than we had been booked on originally, so had to select new seats.  So the plane was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.  It was actually nice to be on a new plane.  However, there was no leg room in economy where we were.  So it was rather tight for a 12 1/2 hour flight!  Not a dream!  But we did survive.
Went through immigration and customs in Los Angeles and then got on a smaller CRJ200, with lots of leg room and flew to Portland.