In stark contrast to our time with friends, Andrew and I have had a traumatic twenty four hours to say the least. We had to get up early to catch the morning bus to Santiago, which was not entirely easy for me as we had stayed up late watching I am Legend, which of course left me restless and unable to sleep.
Got a small nap on the bus until I was rudely awoken by the SMASH of shattering glass and the cool breeze in my hair. Something very hard had hit the window covering our seat and the couple behind us. Moments before the attendant had gone past and pulled the shades across, which undoubtedly prevented serious injury from the glass. Thankfully we were able to move, but the entire bus ride was spent with the cool wind in our hair, seat hopping for people that boarded the bus from time to time, and a keen sense of alertness.
We arrived in Santiago a couple of hours before our next bus to San Pedro, so we grabbed a bite to eat and milled around. As our bus arrived for San Pedro we stood up and a nice young man asked us the time. I fumbled around with my poor Spanish to attempt to tell him, and after a couple of attempts he was satisfied and walked away. Well, I hope he was fricking satisfied because his friend got away with Andrew’s backpack. That backpack had EVERYTHING of Andrew’s in there – passport, credit cards, ipod, portable hard drive, food, and twenty million other valuable things. Andrew immediately went into a frenzy (which I didn’t actually think was possible) and frantically tried to follow the guy and find his backpack. He returned dejected, angry, frustrated and stressed. My poor, poor baby. Thankfully we were able to change our bus tickets to enable us another couple of days in Santiago so that we could go to the Australian embassy, the only one for Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. I guess we’re lucky it happened here and not somewhere else.
Thankfully we were able to contact our good friend Francisco, who is going to live in a mansion in heaven and be spoilt, because he was an absolute lifesaver. He helped us go the police station and file a police report, let us stay at his house that night, and drove us to the embassy this morning. We love you so much Francisco, you are our hero!!
So today Andrew got an emergency passport issued relatively easily but now has the long drawn out process of trying to replace that permanently, his cards, his valuables….aaargh! He has been unbelievably calm about the whole thing, I would have broken down into tears at least 7 or 8 times by now.
So, we are off to a hotel and going to start making BILLIONS of calls to start the ball rolling. Moral of the story: Don't keep your valuables all in one place, and ALWAYS make sure you have your hand on your bag - even if an innocuous looking person asks you the time. On the bright side, this shouldn't happen to us again - I don't think we'll ever take our eyes/hands off our valuables again, not for anybody!!
Hope you’re all doing better than us!
Love love.
