So much to see and do here so we're taking in as much as we can. Missed a few blog days so will try to catch up quickly...
The New Year's fireworks were amazing.
Earlier in the day we bused to the port, arrived alive, always a ginger Gravol induced trip, handy to keep a few in your pocket for the jostling and hairpin turns at exhorbitant speeds. You just never know what youll see on the bus, or anywhere for that matter, that just has to make you smile. Like the guy who jumps on the bus with an old broken down Styrofoam cooler yelling "Helado, helado, helado" (icecream), is hailed by a young man at the back, who takes a bottle of water, the salesman gives him the water, gets the bus driver to make change for him, and bails to get on the next bus, all in the 20 seconds the bus is stopped (they never actually stop, they roll). He's followed by the roaming musician who strums for a bit, sings, asks for tips and bails as well...all in a day's work. Transportation is the cheapest form of entertainment. Seriously, folks, I'm here all week. Try the fish...
We wandered through the fish market, which was fun...with a freshly broken toe, the widest shoes I own(ed) was a pair of Crocs, you know, with holes, which makes it extra fun to slop through the fish runoff. The upside is, we headed to the beach where I made a beeline for the water to de-fish while Rainer slurped in some ceviche de reiñete. (Raw rayfish). Pretty good. An errant fish head landed in front of us on the beach, dropped from the skies by an overly talkative pelican...who had just lost his his snack...one nose dive he'll never get back.
We watched seals as we had a late lunch at the beach - shrimp, and seafood soup. The beaches were jam packed with families and couples enjoying the sun and running after umbrellas carried off In the breeze. A perfect day for a group of bass-like drummers pounding out rythms, which was a precursor to the all night (and I mean ALL night, or at least until 7 am) party. They were pretty good, at least for the first 5 hours, after that they lost some je ne sais quoi. We didn't sit there all that time, but you could hear them from everywhere, including our happy apartment in Cerro Alegre (Pleasant Hill), because the whole city is like a bowl sending the echoes up the hills. It's pretty awesome. Add hundreds of dogs barking, Latino music, the clutter of cutlery on plates, people singing at the top of their lungs from balconies, rooftops, and that's New Year's Eve in a nutshell, until the fireworks, and then all night. This town knows how to party! It's all about the bass, no treble. Couldn't resist.
We took the train back from the beach, made dinner at our place and headed back down the hill to join the throngs of over-exuberant, mainly young'uns, a few in kilts no less, drinking with reckless abandon, side-stepping the steady stream of urine flowing downhill, beer cans, champagne bottles, confetti and ever popular Silly String! Go figure. The tradition is to sing Un Año Mas (one more year) very hour although it may be more frequent than that, like never-ending. This, and to eat twelve grapes at midnight, one for every hour on the clock and every month.
We worked our way upstream, literally, as the pee flowed downhill from various nooks and crannies including some women relieving themselves, under the false impression that they were maintaining some sort of decorum while crouching behind another's ill-placed jacket. We arrived just before midnight, poured a glass of fine Chilean vino and took our position at our window where we could take it ALL in from our perfect vantage point. We could see the entire bay from Valparaíso to Concón and beyond as the fuegos artificielles began all along the coastline. Impressive, loud and awesome! We even found a version of Un Año Mas on YouTube for effect. Dogs barked, car alarms all went off all over the city from the impact of the fireworks, there was song and dancing in the streets until about 7 or 8 am when there was a strange semi-silence....it's never quite silent. Even the little dog on the roof was tired and flaked out on his perch. We ate our grapes.
As we dozed off we left the windows open for full effect.
As we awoke, we swear there was a maple leaf in the sky!
Un Año Mas!
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