Feliz Ano Neuvo

In stark contrast to last year’s New Year’s where the sun set by 3pm and the temperature dipped below 0, we celebrated this year in true Chilean fashion – with pisco sours watching the sunset at 9pm, an Italian five course dinner and a Latin choreographed firework display on the roof deck of our hotel.

Our hotel in Valpo was owned and run by a Chilean man who had lived in Italy for 20 year and his Italian/Indian wife whom he met while living abroad.  (As a side note, every couple we met on our trip was intercontinental - Mexican / French, German / Chilean, American / Columbian, etc ).  As part of the reservation we made back in September, we opted to partake in their New Year’s Eve dinner at the hotel.  It allowed us to avoid having to make reservations in town, dealing with the crowds and guaranteed us an earlier night (we had an 8am start the following day).

Dinner was impeccable, with 15 guests, locals and travelers alike, all sharing a long table in the top floor sunroom of the hotel.  Each of the five courses (appetizers with bruschetta, mussels in tomato broth, white fish with capers and cream sauce and a perfectly cooked steak, followed by tiramisu) was gorgeously plated and heavenly to eat.  The conversations flowed endlessly with the wine, until dinner’s conclusions at 11:45pm, signaled by the warning fireworks…to ensure you didn’t miss a thing the city was kind enough to set off 3-4 fireworks at 11;30, 11:45 and 11;55.

We grabbed our glasses and headed out onto the roof deck to enjoy the show and ring in the new year!  And what a show it was –12 different platforms dotted along the 20 mile coastline all synchronized their fireworks to allow for an endless view of colorful bursts of flowers and waterfalls.  What would have been sufficient for one city was repeated 12 times over.  From start to finish, the fireworks lasted for over 20 minutes and the beauty of lights offset against the night sky was enough to make us forgot our previous few days and allowed us to enjoy the moment.

Forty minutes later, Martin and I were ready for bed, however the city showed no signs of closing down.  We woke up to our alarm at 7am and heard the distance sounds of the party still alive and well in the city below.  By 9am, while sitting at the bus stop, waiting to head back to Santiago, we were encircled by party-exhausted yet energized young adults wrapping up their celebrations of ringing in the new year.  My 20 year old self was impressed with their functioning state, my current self was ready to get out of dodge.