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 Temuco, Lindo y QueridoBack to A Few Days in TemucoBy Chris Thompson - 2009-06-08
Strangely enough, Temuco is the first Chilean city that I feel like I got to KNOW. So much of our time has been spent in small towns, where an hour’s worth of walking has shown you the whole town, or on the reverse side of things, in large un-approachable cities, where it seems easier to just spend time with the people we are staying with. Temuco had just the right amount of size and history, approachability, and hidden beauty to make exploring it a pleasure. Normally, I’m not the kind of person who likes spending time in cities. After a few days in the noise, smell, and general "city-ness" of most towns, I find myself yearning to return to the wilds.
Temuco was a good experience for me, finding out about the depth and history of a place where people are living. Learning to get a taste of the streets, wander through the alleyways, markets, and parks. Talking with shop vendors, soaking in the warmth at the end of the day. On one occasion, our friend Joel spent an afternoon taking us around town. We saw the house were Pablo Nerudo (a famous Chilean poet) lived, and the school he taught at. We walked through the quiet gardens above the city in Cerro Nielol. We passed the railroad station, where the last battle between the Spanish Conquistadors and the Mapuche Indians took place. I wandered through the twisting warrens of the city market, where the same Mapuche who fought the Spanish so hundreds of years ago are still working and living. Vendors selling bright fruits, old boots, and nearly anything else you can imagine. A million different colors, smells, and people dashing around, or sitting for hours on end doing nothing. Robbers and cops, old men and children. The entire city is a collage of the new and the old, of the drab and the colorful.
Into the graveyard, where on a Saturday afternoon, surrounded by all the dead, people were gathered together, families spending time cleaning graves, walking together, remembering loved ones that have passed on. Mike and I spent one leisurely Saturday afternoon wandering past the tombs and crumbling edifices. I guess it was a nice afternoon, and not all that scary; but for some other reason, the cemetery seemed like a place you would want to go to. In the cool shade of the mausoleums you could sit and think, and contemplate the cold grave, knowing that the warm sun, families, children, and the living were only a few steps away.
In Temuco, the old and the new are never far apart. Mapuche farmers bring dried seaweed to sell at the market with oxen and carts, a good four day walk from the coast. You find them slowly walking through the same city that is known for its modern universities,malls , casinos, expensive cars, and rich suburban neighborhoods . The contrast between the modern city, and the older way of life is sharp, but somehow in Temuco, it seems to work.
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