A New Year's in Valparaiso

Everyone should celebrate New Year's in Valparaiso. No one should remember all of it.

My memory is black, foggy. Valparaiso is known to be vibrantly colored and yet my only recollection of the events on New Year's pertain to the colorless, light absent void of a drunken stupor. Rum and Coke are to blame. Two vicious culprits when paired togther. They become even more mischevious on a stomach nourished only by a bag of potato chips, corte americano, that we called dinner.

Here's what I remember: We took an ancient ascensor to a plaza that overlooked the ocean. There weren't many others there, though the prime firework viewing locations were taken. Those that were there were from various parts of Chile, Argentina, Gringolandia. There were wealthy families, destitute teens, young lovers and barbecuing macho males. Everybody brought la buena onda, good vibes ushering in a night promising revelry.

We drank too much and after an hour of slap happy joking in the plaza my mind closed up, like the iris at the end of a black and white film that shrinks to a pinhole and disappears. The sceen of my mind holds on that black image and only randomely allows for a brief recollection to emerge, dreamlike, confusing. A Peruvian girl. A tree with the strong odor of urine. A japanese tourist fleeing. Vishal fell down. Sausages. Fireworks. A kiss.

That was it. That was my memory of the beginning of 2010. That and a feeling that despite not remembering anything in it's entirety, I had an amazing time. But why? The morning after, I asked Vishal what he remembered.

"Not much man...You remember that Peruvian girl? She was beautiful."

My mind was jarred a bit. Was she the same as the kiss? What happened with her. I wished I could remember.

"Oye. What a great night!" Yael was awake too. She's the epitome of kindness and hospitality, a Chilean friend who I met in Spain and who guided us through the maze of events the night before. "Did you guys have fun?"

Vishal and I looked at each other each clueless as to what had happened.

"I think so".

"Oh that poor Japanese guy."

My memory was jarred again. He kept running away from us, the Japanese guy. Why?

Vishal and I had to go. We had to get a friend at the airport and we didn't have time to piece together the night's events. Before we knew it we were out of Valparaiso, New Year's Eve even further behind us, and hope for a complete memory dashed.

Wait.

My camera! I had my camera with me! The secret link! Vishal and I sat together on a bus Santiago bound and went into our investigation. We recalled the night via the order the photos appeared on the LCD screen.

PHOTO 1: Drinks in the Plaza

This I remembered still. This was our spot in the plaza where we sat waiting until midnight in order to see the fireworks. We began as vigilant protectors of our spot, but as we passed through the hours of the night, our space became less fixed and more fluid with the movement of the crowd. We talked about life in increasingly slurred Spanish, about how we were meant to be wanderers, vagabonds and seekers of real happiness. It wasn't even dark yet and we were already getting lost in the night.

PHOTO 2: The Peruvian Girl

The Peruvian girl. In all my time in Peru I had met two Peruvian girls that I found attractive. Two. Then suddenly, in that plaza in Valparaiso, there was another. I remember daydreaming of watching fireworks with her and sneaking a midnight kiss under the bursting lights; of dancing in the morning with her; of plans to see her again. While talking with her, I remember glances and flirtatious smiles, hints at daydreams becoming real. And then I remember a sharp pain in my lower abdomen and the sudden realization that my body was in need of fluid expulsion. But the conversation was going so well and I yearned for the daydreams to become reality. I tried to repress the call of nature, silent it, but it screamed in my gut and I had no other option. I excused myself from the conversation, ran to a the nearest tree that everbody had decided was the area urinal, and released. Sweet release. Upon my return, the Peruvian girl was gone.

PHOTO 3: Fireworks

We didn't know that it was midnight. We had been pushed into a mass of bodies swelling the plaza. We became indistinguishable particles of a whole that surged and ebbed on the side of the mountain. Then suddenly the mass erupted as a the fireworks began, appearing in clusters that stretched down the coastline for miles. Champagne rained down on us and we danced in the beginning of 2010 to the rhythm of shouts for joy and screams of celebration. Couples kissed on rooftops and friends embraced beneath the vivid blur of the illuminated night sky. For a minute fraction of a second, I was quiet, relfecting on what I had done right in my life to be in that plaza at that moment. That was the only lucid thought that the night offered me.

PHOTO 4: The Kiss
I looked at Vishal.

"I don't remember that." He smirks after his remark. That bastard. He got a kiss on New Year's and I didn't. Lucky son of a..That was right before the mass started to pour out into the streets, with a direction toward somewhere that seemed important. Everybody was moving in that direction. Everybody was in a mood that was celebratory, loud, amorous and free of inhibitions. Vishal snagged a kiss. Lucky Vish. I wandered with the masses.

PHOTO 5: English

As we moved through the streets our journey to this important place that everybody was going was broken up with shouts of "Hello!". They came from Chileans recognizing an opportunity to speak with gringos. Apparently alcohol stimulates Chileans to speak English and since we were not in a state to speak Spanish, we obliged their salutations. "Hello!" we would shout in response and then engage in broken English conversations about the night. Once leaving a group that stopped us, not 2 minutes would go by and we'd hear, "Hello!" again and we'd commence with a new conversation.

PHOTO 6: The Concert

The direction of the mass was soon revealed to us. We approached a stage, and Spanish rock blared through the speakers. We began dancing over broken bottles and thick confetti waste. The plaza was filthy but no one cared. The point was to dance and celebrate and begin 2010 as free spirits. The rock was fast, pounding, and our dance movements were slow, staggered, right on beat in our minds if not not in the outside reality. Outside reality didn't exist anymore at this point. The world was Spanish rock. The world was broken bottles and confetti at our feet, the smell of rum and smoke in the air. The world was the seething mass.

Amidst the mass a girl caught my eye. A beautiful girl clearly staring my way. I stared back and she made her way toward me. It was clear that we both wanted our New Year's kiss. We moved closer together, a crowd dancing and singing around us. We were inches away from each other and a hand grabbed her arm, pulling her away from me. It was a man, perhaps her boyfriend, judging by the cold look he gave me. He took her back into the chaos. I was left alone.

PHOTO 7: The Japanese Guy

At one point Yael was clutching at the jacket of a guy in a hat who obviously didn't want to talk. She wondered why he had not been infused with the buena onda of the night.

"No, no, we want to take a picture with you!" No response. Everybody else who we had run into we wanted a picture with and now this guy was running away. Yael tried her best to coax him but he avoided us virulently, disgruntled and unfriendly. We managed this picture but that was it.

"I guess he didn't like us". We all paused for a second thinking that we might actually be annoying people during their New Year's celebration. Then we looked around us, saw the fiesta that ensued around us and heard a call of "Hello!". We burst out laughing and again became part of the joy filled crowd.

PHOTO 8: The Night's End

The music was over. Vishal, Yael and I were tired. They led the way to a sausage stand to buy something that might help the inevitable hangover. I stumbled behind them. Suddenly a hand grabbed me, spun me around and lips embraced mine. The girl had returned, no boyfriend in sight now. A New Year's kiss. We parted from each other. She looked at me, smiled and disappeared. I turned to catch up with my friends.