Day trip to Concepción

I had not intended to visit Concepción, Chile’s second largest city about 90 minutes away by bus, but it looked more interesting than Chillán, so on a whim I popped onto a bus for a day trip. I was pleased that I did so.

Before I left, I visited one of the few ‘tourist attractions’ (a term I am often troubled by, sometimes consisting of things built specially to attract tourists – and so rarely attract me) of Chillán, a large pair of murals in a nearby school. The school is called Escuala México as it was donated by the government of Mexico to Chillán after the 1939 earthquake devastated the town; two artists constructed wonderful murals inside. It’s still a functioning school, but they are happy for visitors to see the murals.

As you can see in the first two photos, the murals depict graphically and symbolically the conquest of Latin America by the Europeans (the Spanish) and the struggle for independence that followed. I was very impressed; each takes up an entire wall of a large library. The mural in the stairwell is rather more sedate, reflecting mutual friendship between two Latin American countries.

My trip to Concepción was partly motivated by a mural too, as I knew of a very large mural by a Mexican artist Camarena, and is called La Presencia de América Latina. It represents the struggles for freedom by indigenous peoples in Latin America against European invaders and colonialists. It is huge and an extraordinary piece of work, housed in a university art museum. It was wonderful and worth every cent of the return trip from Chillán (which, incidentally, was only about $10!).

The mural is of course deeply symbolic, and fiercely ;political, representing several hundred years of oppression, development and life towards independence in this interesting continent. It is a masterful piece of work technically, as well as conceptually, as you can see from the close-up of the women sleeping above.

The university art collection also had some interesting Chilean paintings, which I enjoyed browsing as well. There are clear European roots in some (no more obviously than the painting of the paintings of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence!), but interesting renditions of local people and of course political changes as well. Politics is much more in your face here than in Australia, maybe because they have had to fight to gain their independence from colonial masters; we’ve not really done that yet. Here is a small sample of some paintings that caught my eye:

I was intrigued when I had come about 100 km to see the large mural, that when I asked a young woman (presumably a student) outside the building where it was, or even where the building was (La Casa del Arte) she had no idea, and directed me  to the university administration! It was no more than 20 m from where she was standing!

I wandered around the lovely campus a bit; it was nice to back on a university campus – they say that youth is wasted on the young, and that the undergraduate years are the best years of your life. I saw young people enjoying themselves here in the spring sunshine; what I first thought was a noisy political demonstration, on closer inspection was a table tennis match! The aerobics class was in full flight too!

Apart from a nice environment, there were some lovely campus murals around, some with political messages. There are a couple of examples below. It reminded me of a (mis)quotation, I think from Bertrand Russell (but even that could be mistaken!) that it is important to be radical when young, so there is still a chance that you will be tolerable when you get old.

Near the university was a large hill and the beautiful Parque Ecuador, both of which I enjoyed. I missed the ascensores from Valparaiso, having to climb the hill on foot, but it was a lovely day and the environment was pleasant – albeit steep. The walk up the hill gave me some good views of the city and the Bio Bio river that runs through it (not included here, however).

The park had a couple of lovely kids’ playgrounds, which I have seen elsewhere in Chile as well. It is clear that families and children are of prime importance here, as money is invested in infrastructure like this. many looked quite new, so are possibly in this case parti of the post-earthquake reconstruction process? It must be awful to lose everything every few years to earthquakes, and maybe that makes people more sensitive to the needs of children? There were also people doing some laps of the park for midday exercise. i liked the separate walking and bicycle paths too.

Wandering elsewhere around town, I noticed some lovely statues, standing out in the beautiful blue skies I have come to take for granted here (as we do also in Perth). Here are four notable examples:

Two of these are from the Parque Ecuador, while the other two are from Independence Square. I think my favourites were the wonderful statue of the Mapuche warrior in the square and of the fireman in the park. Firemen are widely respected here, as heroes, unlike both the military and the police, who are regarded with more suspicion, susceptible to political influences. The warrior statue is magnificent, and a wonderfully defiant bearing; I gather that the unease between the original Mapuche people and those of more recent (colonial) descent is still ongoing, and expect to learn more of that as I go further south. The other two statues are of prominent early colonial governors, including the city founder,  Pedro de Valdivia.

In the commercial heart of the city, I spotted a one-man band, who at least was making a lot of noise, even if it wasn’t especially sonorous. He got my vote (and some coins) for trying. I often find it hard to walk past buskers, who at least are using their talents to survive and improving the environment around them, but less hard to walk past people asking for money. That is always uncomfortable, however, reminding me of how rich I am and of how poor others are, and not really knowing how that came to be. Everyone’s story is different …

Walking back to my bus, after a few other adventures too numerous to detail (but including some nice churches and even another Salvador Dali exhibition!), I was very surprised to find a dinosaur park! I have known some kids who would have found this the greatest place in the whole wide world, and I enjoyed wandering through it as well:

It turns out that the park was next to a Natural History museum – it was essentially the museum’s back yard. It was not quite closed, so I popped in briefly. It was an older-style museum, without any English signage (which is fair enough … there are not many English speakers here, after all!). I was interested to read a bit about the indigenous Mapuche people, and some of their traditional lifestyles, but the natural history things were less exciting.

I’ll see more of this later, further south I am sure, but enjoyed the very large wooden statue and the craft work shown above. (My spoken and hearing Spanish here has been a trial, partly because people speak very fast and also use a lazy form of Spanish, with words often cut short. But my reading is not too bad, and I can get my way around museum exhibits etc, with a little help from my translator.)

Right next to the bus stop to go home was the city’s recently renovated stadium, mostly used for football of course (as everyone here in Latin America is passionate about football), but also included a running track. I think it has been reconstructed post the last earthquake in 2010, and looked splendid in what I assume are the local football teams colours. The picture at the top of this blog shows it well. I was interested in the Singapore-like list of exclusions to bring into the stadium below:

I’m sure you can translate these for yourself, using the pictures as well as the words. It would be great to attend a football match here in Chile, and the sign makes it look relatively safe, but it’s the wrong season. However, I often see kids playing football in parks, getting ready for the next season.

Arriving back in Chillán (about 7:45, still daylight with daylight saving on), I went in search of my daily beer, and failed yet again, this time encountering another free concert at at he Teatro Municipal. It was a terrific event, with traditional songs, dances and drama, with a sad love story, but a great band and choir and some great principal performers.

I thoroughly enjoyed it – more than I would have enjoyed the beer!

This is my last day in Chillán, as I am off to Villarrica tomorrow on a longish bus trip. My day trip to Concepción was certainly worth the time and effort, so I am pleased that I decided to do it, on the spur of the moment. Sometimes that’s a good thing to do, even if it means that you miss out on some local things.