Corrugated City

Monday 18 January 2010

New Year Valparaiso 2010



First post in ages, I know but I've been busy recently having been to France and England for Christmas, back to Santa Cruz for a day then back up to Valparaiso for new year. And then I spent 2 weeks solid finishing off all the little details in my new house in Santa Cruz (updated photos on Colchaguino are coming soon if anyone out there is remotely interested).

Anyway, I spent my third new year in Valpo with this one being the Bicentennial celebrations. I was expecting more this year than before but the display was 3 minutes shorter than in previous years and the finale wasn't as long or loud. On the plus side, there were far more fireworks around the bay up to Con Con than before and it was all syncronised. Very impressive. And we got the second full moon of the month- a blue one no less- to make things even prettier...

Not so impressive were the Amazon sized rivers of urine running down the streets, the thousands of broken bottles and piles of vomit everywhere. Perhaps the council should think about spending some of the fireworks budget on portaloos and high-pressure water hoses to clean the streets the next day. The aftermath really is disgusting and doesn't give a particularly great impression to tourists...Just a thought...








4 comments:

jipzeecab said...

For an additional flavor of what this post was all about check out Chilean U-tube artist "Catsusy" who filmed the Valparaiso New Years fireworks celebration in two parts...of course you can't sense the beer and urine underfoot. Great post.

timeshare relief said...

Nice photos, very impressive, thanks for sharing this, thanks for the glimpse on how colorful they celebrate New Year.

TG said...

Hi,
I found out about your blog from a forum you had commented on. I am applying to be an English teacher in Chile, and they are asking us to request which region and city of the country we want to live in. I don't know that much about Chile and am trying to gain all I can from reading up on it. The regions are the great north, the small
north, the central valley, south, patagonia.
I 'm an American who lives in Southern California, but I'm originally from Sri Lanka. I'd like to be somewhere a little different from So-Cal. I definitely don't want to live in Santiago. I'd ideally like a town or small city feel. I'm a pretty outdoorsy person. I like hiking and exploring and all that stuff.
I was initially drawn to Patagonia since I've never lived anywhere like that, and thought it would be quite different and beautiful. But, I will be there from April until November, and I don't want to be stuck inside for 8 months. I like cultural things like museums and galleries too, but I'm okay with doing without it for a few months. I'd like a more town like feel I think. I won't have too much money since this is a more volunteer program, but I'd still like to travel to Argentina and Peru and all over Chile itself.
Sorry for such a long post, but I was just wondering if you have any suggestions.
Thanks.

Matt said...

Suggestions...to be honest, not really. Patagonia in winter is miserable, although some people like it. Try looking at Crissa's blog, she's in Punta Arenas...

http://web.me.com/crissa.stephens/Site/Life_on_the_Strait/Life_on_the_Strait.html

Other cities...La Serena is nice and might be worth a shot. Valpo and Vina are cool, especially for a short term stay. Arica, maybe? Never been but I've heard it's ok, although boring after a while.

The Lakes' Region is amazing but might be crappy in Winter (avoid Temuco like the plague, it's Chile's most god-awful city and has choking wood-smoke smog in winter).

You're coming at the very worst time of year unfortunately!