A riot of vivid colour splashes across the hills to the misty horizon – greens, oranges, aqua, lilac, blues, hot pink and raw rusted tin houses beautifully patina’d all glow in the morning light.

Impossibly steep streets are just one car wide – tricky when these are two-way streets – more honking of horns, if a little less impatient, but driving here is not for the faint-hearted.

Charmingly dishevelled houses cling impossibly to the slopes of the cerros – steps, steps and more steps, thank goodness for the rickety ascensors I say.

Every nook and cranny strains for a view, through a narrow gap between buildings, a punched hole in a wall of corrugated iron or through a clouded old window that hangs precariously out over the port – it all looks like one giant colourful penguin colony edging ever closer to the waterline.