This leads to a significant gap between the rich and the poor. There's hardly a middle class. As a result there are no go areas for tourists between 06:00 p.m. and 09:00 a.m. During the day it's usually harmless.
So, why did I tell that? Right, the murals. They are intended to upgrade certain areas to make them more attractive for tourists and thus do something against the poverty there... At least that's what I understood because the tour was only in Spanish...
So I'll let the pictures do the talking. Most of them are about the district or current problems. We also saw some artists in the progress.
On our tour we passed from Cerro Barón via Cerro Lecheros to Cerro Polanco. The area between Lecheros and Polanco is one of the hot spots for drugs. Here it's not wise to show up during "business hours"... Also some of the housing is really bad in this area.
Just zoom in a little...
What I was missing was the "real" street art though. So here are a picture or two from the day before.
Often times inhabitants ask an artist to paint the walls. However, they usually don't have much money so they pay for the paint and when the artwork is finished they host a party.
On my tour through Valpo I've seen a lot of burnt out buildings. There are two reasons for that. In the parts that are part of the Unesco World Heritage (Centro, Cerro Alegre und Cerro Concepción) the buildings must remain in their original state. As a result if a building is burnt out they try to keep the remaining walls in takt. Then they are restored and inside a new building is errected. In the other parts people simply don't have the money to build a new house.
Viña, in contrast to Valpo, is really boring and staight-laced and consists almost only of highrise buildings. Ok, there are a few cerros as well. In exchange the crime rate is low in comparison. Still there is a posting next to the building door advising everybody to keep the doors closed at all times as apartments were or are burglarized.
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