Went for another walk around Valparaiso today, walked pretty much all the way from my hostel along Avenue Errasurriz, the main road that runs parallel to the water, until I got to the entrance to the ascensor Artilleria. The lift took me straight up to the naval museum and naval command. The view from this high up and this end of the city was absolutely stunning, you could see the whole city, also the Chilean armada was very close by in the harbour. It isn't as impressive as the photographs I have seen of the US navy in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii or the British navy's fleet in Portsmouth, England, but it was still very good. I walked along the top of the hill for a bit with no idea of where I was actually going I decided to turn back and go down the hill but this time along the steps next to the lift, they didn't run right next to the lift but snaked through the houses and hills. The lift itself was quite fun, but also very scary at the same time, it was a most basic of wooden carriages with several small windows and doors that didn't even look like they were closed. It was pulled up and lowered down the hill by big wheel and steel cable, it goes along rails obviously to keep it going in a relatively straight line. It is counterweighted by the carriage on the opposite side, when one is at the top, the other is at the bottom and vice-versa. It was really noisy, like the screeching of metal against metal and creaking of the wood and occasional pinging of the cable, it was very wobbly and kept on jolting, it felt as though the rope would snap at any moment and the carriage would go hurtling down the hill and smash on the ground like a ton of bricks. This lift was built in in 1983, has a 30° gradient, is 175m long and at the top has a height of 50m above sea level, so not the oldest, longest, steepest or highest but it probably had one of the most spectacular views as it was on the edge overlooking the harbour and faced the rest of the city. It was equally as scary as it was fun but was very enjoyable, the danger aspect of it made it slightly more interesting.
I managed to find the Lord Cochrane museum, it is literally behind the judicial building, the big blue palace on Sotomayor. Unfortunately for me it was closed, like everything I try and do seems to be. For me this didn't matter too much as I had no interest in actually going in it, it was just refreshing to be near to the top of the hill in the shade on this scorching day, I forgot to put my sun tan lotion on again so had to avoid the sun as much as I could. Turned out that it was open, I had just missed the door and hadn't noticed that it was open, I've just been shooed away by a person who works there because he says they are closing. Oh well, I got the ascensor Cordillia down the hill, this one was built in 1886 so was second oldest, has a 70° gradient making it by far the steepest, is only 60m long so is the shortest and is only 30m above sea level so is the lowest one too. To put it into perspective, the oldest is 1883, the longest is 177m, the same one is the highest at 80m above sea level. They are all very old and presumably just as rickety as each other. The Cordillia one looked much older but felt quite a bit more sturdy than the Artilleria one, but didn't exactly feel me with any more or less confidence.
I was going to go to the cemetery and the old jail but I could feel that my arms and legs might have started to burn again so I made the conscious decision to stay out of the sun as much as possible, I stupidly forgot my lotion at the hostel and didn't want to go back so early. I definitely didn't want to get burnt again though, that was horrendously uncomfortable last time.