Qualla: Pampilla Festival https://qualla.com/pampilla-festival en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:39:57 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/t/m/pampilla-festival-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Pampilla Festival https://qualla.com/pampilla-festival Pampilla Festival: Introduction https://qualla.com/pampilla-festival/ Photo credit FranSepulveda, CC BY-SA 3.0. Weeks before the music starts, the hills above Coquimbo begin to fill with tents. Families stake out the same patches of dirt their parents and grandparents claimed, and by mid-September the esplanade called La Pampilla has become a temporary city of canvas, woodsmoke, and anticipation. This is Chile's Fiestas Patrias at its most enormous — the largest gathering of the country's Independence holiday, and a tradition Coquimbo has guarded for two centuries.

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Image: FranSepulveda | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/t/m/pampilla-festival-wp/66tm-pampilla-festival-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Pampilla Festival: Why the Twentieth, Not the Eighteenth https://qualla.com/pampilla-festival/ Photo credit FranSepulveda, CC BY-SA 3.0. Most of Chile marks Independence on 18 September, the day the First Government Junta formed in 1810. Coquimbo celebrates two days later, and the reason is pure distance. News of the junta's establishment in Santiago had to travel hundreds of kilometers north, and it did not reach...

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Image: FranSepulveda | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/t/m/pampilla-festival-wp/66tm-pampilla-festival-why-the-twentieth-not-the-eighteenth.mp3 0:06 2 full Pampilla Festival: From Horse Races to a City of Tents https://qualla.com/pampilla-festival/ Photo credit FranSepulveda, CC BY-SA 3.0. The festival's roots run back to 1823, when the annual celebrations began. By the late nineteenth century, horse races were being run on these grounds each September. The land itself passed through private hands — acquired in 1870 by José del Carmen Vicuña Lavigne, who opened it ...

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Image: FranSepulveda | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/t/m/pampilla-festival-wp/66tm-pampilla-festival-from-horse-races-to-a-city-of-tents.mp3 0:06 3 full Pampilla Festival: Fondas, Fireworks, and a Hundred Thousand Neighbors https://qualla.com/pampilla-festival/ Photo credit FranSepulveda, CC BY-SA 3.0. During the celebration, fondas and ramadas — open-sided stalls of branches and cloth — sell empanadas, grilled meat, and terremotos, the potent wine cocktail whose name means earthquake. A monumental stage rises in a moat at the western end; for years its predecessor was shaped l...

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Image: FranSepulveda | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/t/m/pampilla-festival-wp/66tm-pampilla-festival-fondas-fireworks-and-a-hundred-thousand-neighbors.mp3 0:06 4 full Pampilla Festival: When the Music Stopped https://qualla.com/pampilla-festival/ Photo credit FranSepulveda, CC BY-SA 3.0. Twice the festival has fallen silent. In 1973 it was simply not held; the country was under a state of siege following the 11 September coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende, and celebration was impossible. In 2015 a powerful earthquake struck near Illapel the day before...

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Image: FranSepulveda | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/t/m/pampilla-festival-wp/66tm-pampilla-festival-when-the-music-stopped.mp3 0:06 5 full