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...

New Year Valparaiso 2009

So I'm back after an absence of almost a month. I'm sure you're missed me.

I got back just before new year. I had a great time in England, catching up with friends and family-the usual kind of stuff. Lots of eating, drinking and the like.

I had a bit of a nightmare when Lan lost my bag on the flight back (after cancelling my original flight and sending me on an awful journey London-Madrid-Lima-Santiago). They then spent three entire days lying to me about when I'd get the bag back and where it was. I won't bore you with the details but I was extremely pissed off to say the very least and I'm expecting some serious compensation...

Anyway, New Year here in Valparaiso was spectacular. I had a party at my house which went off extremely well except for when a piece of my staircase fell off and hit a friend on the head and leg around 2am. A rather large step that had worked its way loose. Not good. Fortunately, it turned out not to be too serious but at the time it was pretty scary. I felt bad enough to have to kick everyone out just as the party was really getting going. And (if you know me this will give you an idea of how awful I was feeling), I ended up looking after the friend's 2 and half year old devil child all night. Said friend is now sporting several nasty looking bruises but thankfully they will disappear. The scars of looking after the baby may take longer to heal.

I'm really busy at the moment so don't think I'll be posting much this week. I'll be in Mendoza next week for a short trip as well. Once I have more free time, I'll be back to more regular blogging.

Happy New Year! Enjoy the photos and videos.


This photo was taken without flash just before the end of the display. It was pretty bright.







Twilight mode on my camera created some pretty odd images.

Photos of Valparaiso at Night

So here are a few photos taken from my roof at New Year before the firework display. This'll be my last New Year post...for a little under 12 months of course...

The sort of triangular shaped lights in the middle of the photo towards the back are the boats that are used to launch the fireworks. They all sound their horns at midnight to signal the start of the display and then as soon as it's over they all turn around and sail off into the distance.

New Year in Valparaiso, Chile 2007 - 2008...More Fireworks

So here are a few of the photos I took of the firework display in Valparaiso. They came out quite well considering the light, the amount of champagne i'd drunk and the 35-odd people jumping up and down in front of and around me... :)



Here's half the guests at the fun table...the food we had was pretty special-a huge paella, empanadas, Argentine beef (we had an asado as well), salads galore and more not-quite-food veggie stuff, champagne, some really good red wine and then a load of different puddings...


And then the fireworks started...the sound of it all was incredible, each firework sounding like a gun-shot ricocheting around the bay. It was like a war-zone...A good time to commit gun-crime i should imagine...












They stretch all the way up and around about 30km up the coast, (although the main display is right in front of our house)...that last burst you can see is Con Con...







The party continued after the fireworks with the Chilean tradition of putting a load of cheap party goods on their heads and shouting 'eh! eh! eh! eh!' all night long...it's more fun than it sounds :)

New Year in Valparaiso, Chile 2007 - 2008...Fireworks...

It's 4.30 in the morning...i'm tired, not quite sober...but i thought i should let you experience New Year in Valparaiso, Chile with me. I'll post a little more later in the week but...suffice to say that New Year in Valparaiso is pretty spectacular and something i'd recommend that everyone experiences at least once in their lives. I hope you all had as good a time in your NYE as i did...Happy New Year..!

There are five videos below...watch them all-they build up until the last one. The full display was about 25 minutes long...so you can orientate yourselves, here's a photo of the view during the day...