Last Days in Conce

Ciao Conce!

Conce at sunset.

Conce at peak hour.

So ten months have passed in the blink of an eye. That's what it feels like anyway. I moved to Chile in February, and Concepcion in March, and already it's time to pack up and hit the road. I've finished working and am spending my last bit of time here trying to enjoy the company of good friends and the sun at good beaches. Teaching in Chile has been tough at times - students don't really have a great attitude towards learning, even less with English. The poor teachers get paid very little here and have to deal with 40 or so kids in a class and very few resources. Apart from this, the Uni students always seem to be on 'toma' (strike) for things such as free education - yes, free everything would be nice right? How about stop playing your bongo drums in the square, sitting around drinking and smoking and actually go to class and learn? Wow, maybe I'm getting old... Anyway, I hope I have made a small difference to my students here, the kids and adults alike - it's important to have fun while learning in anything you do, otherwise you won't enjoy it and won't learn much. If you're not having fun, why are you doing it?

How I feel after a year of teaching...

Everyone knows that living in a country is very different to just passing through on holidays. Italy is a great example of this for me - I lived there in 2009/2010 and didn't have a great time. It was expensive, I earned crap money, bad working conditions (regularly late/wrong pay/drive a million miles for a class), terrible drivers that I had to face every day and a cold, dirty little house that was so cold that the water froze in the pipes during the winter. On the other hand, travelling around that sun-drenched countryside that is Tuscany, seeing places like Pisa, Florence, Venice and Rome (ah Roma!), just doesn't seem real sometimes, even when you have photos to prove it. Chile, sadly, can draw comparisons with my time in Italy, and there are quite a few things I won't miss about living here - but it was a big part of the experience right? There are whole Facebook groups for foreigners who are complaining about living conditions here in Chile - everyone needs a vent, and I am the first to complain about my own country too, so it's only fair!

Pelicans at Talcahuano.

Throw the wood!

Sailboats at Talcahuano.

The infrastructure here, even in a fairly modern city like Conce, is quite bad. The roads, as I have mentioned before, are badly built, flood with a drop of rain, and full of holes and bumps in which the buses seem to deliberately aim for. Rubbish is another beef I have here. There are garbage trucks, and they drive past my house at around 1am, but there are no real rubbish bins - plastic bags are either left on the ground (where the dogs eat from them and spread it everywhere), put in cage-like containers on the street (which the dogs still get at) or hung on your gate. Dogs also roam the streets at all hours, and although some are very sweet, packs of hungry street dogs are not, and can be downright scary. I have been 'escorted' home by a nice bunch of dogs on occasion - including my two favourite dogs - Peluco and Dennis. 'Hairy' and 3-legged 'Dennis (Hopper)' are just a few of the exceptions, as the rest wander around eating rubbish, peeing and whatnot everywhere, and barking - day and night, all day, every day. I read recently that street dogs here only live for a year on the street - a very sad story indeed, but nothing something people here concern themselves with much. There are a few other things that seem to annoy the hell out of me, but doesn't phase the locals. The car alarms here are ALL the same... that amusing-at-first, flash back from the 90s car alarm, which gets really annoying really quick. A good night's sleep is never a sure thing - late night drive-bys by flaite's playing the same 3-beat regaton tune, dogs barking or a car alarm.

Lobo Marinos at Tome beach.

Boats at Tome.

A sea lion enjoying the sun on the beach at Tome.

As the weather is finally better, the beach is the obvious choice for something to do on the weekend - although most people here stick to the malls on the weekends. Being on the coast, there are quite a few nice beaches, but all of them are cold. Being on the West coast of the continent, the current brings cold water from the south, so you just have to either stay out of the water, or do what I do and sprint in and deal with it! Being from Australia, where we basically worship the sun, I am used to people swimming and sunbathing - not so common here. The 'Chilean Bikini' as I like to call it is pretty much a jacket, jeans and shoes. They don't like to swim, and when the sun comes out and it warms up to 20c, the people in Conce hide in the shade and complain that it's too hot... this after nearly 6 months of cold, rainy weather (and complaining about that). I'd been waiting since June to lay in sun and feel warm, and so I jumped at the chance to do this on the green of the Uni before work - and was the only one. Their loss. It's generally the same at the beaches - kids swim, but the adults sit under umbrellas fully clothed. Tome is the standard go-to beach for most people here, but it's noisy and not the cleanest, but there are shops and places to buy food. I prefer places that are quiet and have good, clean sand - like Punta de Parra. No wind, a few waves, and no hordes of beach go-ers and dogs to annoy you! Just relax and soak it up - just like the Sea Lions do when they can, but the poor ones at Tome are constantly harassed by stray dogs.

Punta de Parra, with Tome in the background.

Near Conce there is the port town of Talcahuano, and actually forms part of the greater Concepcion area. It is home to many fishing trawlers as well as Chile's Navy. Not much to look at really, and not a safe place to be at night unless you like to be robbed and stabbed. On a sunny day though, wandering around down by the port is quite pleasant - pelicans swimming around looking for scraps off the local fisherman, lobos marinos (literal translation is "Sea Wolves" but we call them lions) baking in the sun and trying to sleep, and small craft sailing around. There are also still signs of the 2010 tsunami that hit this part of the coast pretty badly. There are still overturned ships in the harbour, and some have been pulled in and tied up and just left to rust and rot. One ship that is still in good shape though, and is far older than the rest, is the Huáscar. This ship, a 19th Century, British built Ironclad, was captured by the Chileans in the War of The Pacific (but not the WWI one...) fought between Chile, Peru and Bolivia. The war was over taxes imposed on a Chilean mining company in the north by the Bolivians. Peru got dragged in as they had previously signed an alliance with Bolivia - so the three of them duked it out for 5 years with Chile the eventual winner. Coming up trumps, the winners took land - everything north of Antofagasta, including the Atacama Desert, now belongs to Chile because of this silly argument, and Bolivia also lost their access to the sea. Wars.

The spoils of war - the Huáscar. Bolivia won't be needing it anway...

The crazy Colo Colo fans.

The lone Conce fan. Be afraid...

For my last week of a 'normal' life before I head off travelling, I visited a friend in Santiago and got the chance to see the most popular team in the country play football. The team, Colo Colo, have a huge following, but mainly consist of 'flaites' and troublemakers. Flaites are basically people of low social status, who have a reputation for drinking cheap beer (Escudo), smoking weed and getting tattoos - 'Bogans' in Australia and 'Chavs' in the UK. They also love a bit of bling, basketball shoes (usually Nike Air) and their favourite tattoos are of their children (names and/or pictures) and their football team (Colo Colo of course!). There was a big crowd to get in, 31c heat, plenty of flag waving and singing, and people selling everything from hats and flags to drinks and 'putitos,' the very smelly 'meat' sandwiches they love here - don't ask what the meat is though. The game was a good one, even though I was expecting some problems from the local hooligans. The stadiums here in South America have more high walls and barbed wire than most prisons in Australia - there to stop fans from jumping into the expensive seats and also to stop them from getting onto the pitch. This does not stop them, and in fact the kick-off was delayed due to people climbing the barriers. Colo Colo won, and 99.99% of the crowd was ecstatic - the lone fan for the other team (which happened to be the University of Concepción!) quickly took off his jersey and ran. I met some of the other fans outside, all giving the Colo Colo salute (3 fingers, not 2 as that is the sign of their enemy University Catolica), and they were very happy for me to snap some pics of them - probably because I was dressed as one of them for the day!

My new friends at Stadium Monumental - thanks for the awesome photo guys!

Street art in Conce.

Eating a 'putito' sandwich.

Ok so I'm a bit tired of the city life and of working - but that's very normal after a year of teaching - time to hit the road. It has been tough in Chile, the noise, living in a student house with 1 bathroom and 8 other people who don't clean anything, the cultural differences and language, but this feeling of needing a big holiday happens every year for me. It's teaching that does it. Work for 10 months, then travel for two, then start again. That's the usual equation, but this time it's different - I have worked hard, scrimped and saved, eaten pasta and rice for months, all so I can have a big South American trip for 4 or 5 months! This will be my last post in Conce, the next one will be on the road somewhere down South!

"With the blonde and some Cristal (beer), we are the beach!" Ahhh summer advertising in Chile!