Valparaiso for New Year (TS)

We were up at 6.30am and on the bus to Valparaiso by 8.00. It was packed with local people and travellers heading to the coast for new year. The journey inevitably took us through the mountains descending very rapidly to the beach resort. The beginning of the 2 hour journey was through dry dusty land. Through the second half we were surrounded by miles of vineyards where the air was fresher and cooler, a pleasure to breath. Noel referred to the Lonely Planet gude to see if we could get a tour of the vineyards. Whilst it is possible there is no wine-tasting and no cheap wine so we thought ´sod that for a game of soldiers.´
Valparaiso used to be a bustling port town as it sits in a huge natural bay. However with the building of the Panama Canal and the change in mineral distribution, the town has become quite run down.

On the positive side- the hills above and behind downtown are connected to the lower level by steep footpaths and hillside ascensors (lifts built from 1883-1916). Many of the buildings are beautifully coloured and there is a maze of cobbled streets with irregular intersections.
On the other hand - many buildings now look quite tatty, there are many touts in the streets and most back streets smell of wee.

We checked into our hostel and received a very warm welcome from our Chillean hostess Patricia. She advised us of events including the fact that we had arrived on the last day of the local carnival. She also told us where it was less safe to go.

We took an ascensor into the hills and walked around soaking up the atmosphere. We walked Past Pablo Nerudas house (Chillean Poet and Nobel peace prize winner). Despite the graffiti and state of some of the buildings it was easy to see how inspiring the beautiful views would have been for him.

Later we walked through one of the many plazas where the final carnival celebrations were kicking off. Folk in traditional dress were dancing with locals comandeered from the audience. The dance involved opposite sex couples waving handkerchiefs at each other in a flirtatious way. The town was positively buzzing and was rammed with locals, tourists and many street sellers with their tat.

(At this point, I must note that an alarming amount of yellow pants were being sold from the stalls, either Chilleans cannot get enough of yellow pants or there is another reason they are everywhere!)


New Years Eve

Valparaiso is famous for its fireworks display over the harbour, it seems that everybody flees Santiago to come to the beach for a few days. We were advised to get a comfortable spot to watch the fireworks by 9.00pm ( they started at 12.00). The options were the beach or the mountains, so we opted for the beach. It soon got very busy with families, couples and groups of friends with drinks, food, fireworks and confetti (chaiya we think). An eight year old Chillean girl called Camilla soon befriended us. Initailly we thought she was trying to sell us sparklers (there are so many touts here that you often walk up the street saying no gracías). Then we clicked that she was trying to include us in her families celebrations. We felt terrible at our initial response to her, but how do you ever know? There does seem to be a cultural difference - the Chilleans are very warm and helpful and feel like they need to look after you. On the other hand scams and theft do exist. We mulled this over as the evening went by.

The fireworks at midnight were spectacular. Straight afterwards a Chillean couple standing next to us offered some of their champagne. Automatically we politely declined, but then felt very guilty. Once again we had rejected the offer of friendship. We decided to go over and speak to them. They turned out to be a lovely couple from Santiago who ahd been married for 17 years and had one child. The wife Consuelo, had a sister who had married a brit and now lives in Bristol, so she spoke good english. Although her husband did not speak much english (which made me feel really ignorant for not speaking spanish) we were soon chatting away. The four of us went to a club together where there was music and dancing.

I was very merry at this point and was soon up and dancing. I discovered a fun game of jumping on balloons that were floating on the dancefloor. As they burst everybody in the club cheered which led to more bursting and more cheering. We had a really good time and are so grateful to our new friends for their hospitality. We hope to stay in touch.

New Years day was spent nursing a massive hangover because of too much pisco. The next day we took ourselves on the Metro to Vina Del Mar. This is a more upmarket beach resort where apparently the wealthy from the city have second homes. In my opinion it lacked the charm of Valparaiso.

We are currently waiting for a twice weekly bus to San Pedro de Atacama (in the desert) which leaves tomorrow, our bus journey is 22 hours long! Last night we went to see King Kong with spanish subtitles. We both enjoyed it but I found it a bit scary as did the locals by the sounds of the gasps and screams!

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