Año Nuevo in Valparaiso

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As I stolled down a shadowy side street in El Plan, I wrinkled my nose and tried to work out exactly what was causing the acrid smell in the air. Walking past a footbridge and receiving a particularly strong nosefull, I realized that it was the whiff of stale urine. If I had not been to Valparaiso before, the unpleasantness of the smell, together with the stray dogs lurching accross the roads and the general feeling of grime, may have left me wondering what all the fuss was about. However, I was aware that Valparaiso's central business and shopping district was not the reason the town was name a Unesco World Heritage site in 2003 but that the real magic lay in the bohemian cerros (hills) which rise above the city.

So, trying hard to breath through my mouth, I happily sauntered along the seafront past the old customs houses and shipping headquarters which once must have been imposing, glamerous places but which now sit dejectedly, hollowed out with smashed windows and faded paintwork, reminding passers by of Valparaiso's struggle after the loss of shipping revenues.

For 10p, I was able to leave the grittiness of the harbour below me and took a creaking ascensor up to Cerro Concepcion where the graffiti splashed walls and colourful houses gleamed under a summer sun even more brightly than I had remembered. I had come to the 'pearl of the Pacific' for the New Years celebrations, which used to draw Pablo Neruda to his house on Cerro Bellavista and are now famous throughout Latin America. The celebrations are famous for the hundreds of fireworks which are released from military ships placed at intervals around the bay. The spectacle, which I'm sure must take up a large percentage of Valparaiso's annual budget, attracts thousands to the city to marvel at the display and after a wonderfully long supper at Filou de Monpellier, accompanied by several glasses of wine and champagne, I stumbled out at 11.45pm to find a look out.

I soon found an excellent place, overlooking the whole bay. Unfortunatly everybody else in Valparaiso had found the same place and the square and the stairs leading down from it were tightly packed. I saw a slightly less crowded area to one side and fought my way towards it, only realizing at the last moment that it was less popular because of the spiky cast iron fence surrounding it. However, as I was now attracting wrath from an ancient Chilean woman who had bought a deck chair and had clearly settled in since sunrise and whose view I was obscuring, I had no choice but to launch myself accross the fence. I had just enough time to recover my balance and marvel at the view before the countdown began and I saw in the New Year being covered in Champagne and hearing crys of "Pinochet's dead. Happy New Year."

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