Algorrobo, El Quisco and Isla Negra

This weekend we went down to the coast to a group of costal towns between San Antonio and Valparaiso. It’s a bit like the stretch from Newport Beach to San Clemente; a more or less continuous development of beach communities, shops, hotels, restaurants, etc,. The idea was to have a little vacation and to look at houses. One option for when A sells the house here is to buy one on the coast and maintain an apartment in Santiago for visiting family.

We stayed at an interesting 1930s era hostal, Residencia Vera, in Algorrobo.

Not much to look at on the outside, but inside are two rows of rooms with a patio in-between, a pleasant breakfast room and an ocean-front terrace at the end.

One of the best reasons for visiting the coast is to eat seafood and we were not disappointed. For our first meal on Saturday I had the Chilean classic, congrio frito. Congrio is an eel like, succulent, white fleshed fish; clearly the best fish in Chilean waters, wonderful fried and firm enough for stews or chowders. Alejandra had grilled renetta and we shared ensalada chilena y papas fritas. The restaurant was very crowded and the service was poor, but from then on the crowds thinned out (March is the very end of the tourist season) and things improved greatly.

On Sunday we drove around the area looking at houses. We want something with an ocean view, preferably within a block or so of the coast, but high enough that tsunamis are not a constant worry. Algorrobo turned out not to be promising with only houses adjacent to beaches that are crowded in summer or houses on the hills above with only a distant and partial ocean view. And, of course, Algorrobo is home to hideous apartment towers with the world’s largest swimming pool.

But El Quisco was better. We saw several houses of interest in the $115,000 to 180,000 US range. On the map below, #1 is a fishermen’s wharf and #2 is the only house we actually got to tour. It is high enough to be out of immediate danger from minor tsunamis, has a pretty good view of the wharf area, the beach to the north, and the open sea. But it is likely to have a lot of tourist traffic in summer.

#2 house – 4 bdrm, 2 bath, $160K US

Summer en El Quisco

#3 is immediately on the coast, overlooking a street and rocky beach (below). The penguin murals would have to go and the deck is probably only 20-25 feet above the high tide level…. not great in case of tsunamis. (The Japanese quake caused tsunamis of around 2 m on parts of the Chilean coast, the Chilean tsunami wave height was up to 10 meters, and the Japanese one was up to almost 40 meters…. no where on the coast is actually safe.) But a tremendous view an only about $115K US.

#4 is on the same street as #3 and almost as close to the sea with the same view. Alejandra liked it much better than #3, but it is still in tsunami range.

View from 3 & 4

#5 is at the top of the hill and generally out of tsunami range… unless there’s one like they had in Japan. Good view of the wharf area and bay, not much tourist traffic. $160k.

And finally, Alejandra likes this vacant lot in Mirasol, north of Algorrobo on the cliff above the sea with a good view and only one row of houses in front, on the cliff edge. The lot, at $120k US, is large enough for two houses and building a house of about 1300 sq feet would cost around $65-70K US, for a total of around $200k US. The other half lot might be sold later.

Here’s where it is… beach access to the little beach at the north is via a steep 300 m trail.

On Sunday we went to Pablo Neruda’s beach house-museum in Isla Negra. He had extravagantly romantic taste and filled the house (and his others as well) with ship’s figure heads, statues, and collections of everything from butterflies to whiskey bottles.

No photos are allowed inside (but here’s one through a window) and there are more at the Pablo Neruda foundation web site.

There is now an attached restaurant, which turned out to be very good and not excessively expensive. We had machas (razor clams) a la parmesana followed by caldillo de congrio, perhaps the best dish in the Chilean cuisine, and the subject of one of Neruda’s poems. You can read it here, and it’s also on the wall behind us. It was delicious. (Celina, nice shirt, eh?)

And on Monday we visited Las Cruces, south of Isla Negra, where we found this great old hotel where we’ll stay next time, and had lunch… shrimp and cheese empanadas followed by paila marina (Chilean seafood soup/stew) for me and roast chicken for A.

Hotel Villa Trouville