Concepcion Part II: La Santisima Concepcion

The city of Concepcion lies on a peninsula between the Biobio River and the sea. Like many Chilean towns, the Concepcion that we see now is really the second or third attempt at constructing a town in the harsh Chilean landscape. Shortly after Concepcion was founded, it was wiped off the map by a Mapuche Indian attack. Not to be deterred so easily, the Spaniards rebuilt and heavily fortified the town, and for years it was the last outpost of the Spanish Empire on the frontier with the fiercely independent Mapuche. The town was also subjected to a series of earthquakes, a common occurrence in Chile, the most seismically active country on the planet. Unreinforced adobe brick buildings don’t stand up well to tremors. The most recent disaster here happened the week before we arrived. Someone started a rumor that a tsunami was headed for Concepcion, and the rumor spread like wildfire via the near-universal medias of cell phones and text-messages. Thousands literally headed for the hills. At least three elderly men and women died of heart attacks.

In any case, the relentless forces of “modernization” have come to Concepcion, erecting glass high-rise buildings and modern transportation systems. As a result, the city remains charming, but a casual observer would never expect that it has been around for roughly twice as long as the United States of America has been a country.

Being the fine students that we are, we set out to learn more about the modern transportation systems that I mentioned before. The program arranged for us to have a presentation and guided tour from BioVias, the local government transportation agency that is currently in charge of the massive, modern development projects for the entire area. Chile’s current, left leaning government is very much determined to develop the country along humane lines, while still trying to maintain a competitive, free-market system (as I mentioned before, the Chilean economy is less regulated than even the United States’). The BioVias representative told us about how they wanted to eradicate the slum communities along the river and help move those families into apartments with electricity and clean, running water. There’s always a downside though; in some cases those new apartments are miles away, and the new tenants have to pay a small fee for rent. Sadly, this quickly become a problem for those on the very bottom rung of the economic ladder, who may make the rough equivalent of 200 US dollars a month. Nothing’s ever easy, is it? I can at least take some solace in the fact that the government is trying to make things better, which is more than I can say for plenty of other governments (both inside and outside of Latin America).

For our part, the hotel that we stayed at was quite nice. The best part (for me at least) was the selection of juices at breakfast every morning. It’s tough to beat fresh-squeezed raspberry juice. Incidentally, the word for “raspberry” is my new favorite word in the entire Spanish language. The word is ‘frambuesa” (pronounced frahm-BWAY-sah). Just picture Homer Simpson saying it and you’ll understand the word’s limitless appeal. Mmmm… frambuesa… gggggggaaaahhhhhhhh.

In the afternoon I played soccer in the park and was reminded of how rusty I am. In the evening, we went to the Festival Internacional de Jazz de San Pedro (International Jazz Festival at San Pedro) which featured an Argentine group with piano, bass, guitar, drums and Andean flute. After the concert ended, my friend Brian called a taxi. Hilarity ensued. “Si, estamos en la Ferria Internal de Jazz,” he said, which translates roughly to “yes, we’re at the Internal Jazz Fair.”

“Okay, what do you look like?” asked the dispatcher.

“Uh… gringos…” replied Brian. We laughed until we had tears in our eyes.