New Year's Eve

We took a tour to Vina del Mar and Valparaiso for New Year's.  It is beautiful there and Valparaiso reminds me of a very large Bisbee, Arizona.  All the houses are built on the hills.  There are lots of steps and narrow steep streets.  (It reminded others of San Francisco, but I like Bisbee better!)  There are about 30 km of beach between the two cities and they set off fireworks from barges all along the beach.  There isn't a bad spot to watch them from.  The news said there were 1 1/2 million people there.  We didn't see very many where we watched from, but it took us 2 hours to make the car ride back to the hotel (normally it takes about 15 minutes).  Our hotel was clean, we had a private bath, but no toilet paper, soap or towels.  I was partially prepared, so we got along ok.  We enjoyed the company we were with and the chance to visit another beautiful area of Chile.

Valparaiso with the original Spanish fort where they checked everybody out who came to Chile (the original customs I guess.

This is a picture of Laguna de Luz, a manmade lake used to generate electrity, not far out of Valparaiso.  There are lots of eucalyptus trees around the lake, like southern California.