You’d think that you would be hearing how great it is sunning ourselves on the beaches of Brazil, enjoying the culture and cuisines … well that is what you’d think. In reality we are stuck in Santiago, Chile. Ironic that whilst we were writing our last journal entry, and I had even moved our little man to Rio on the travel map of this website, that we were being robbed and in effect prevented from going to Rio.
After checking out of the hostel we had just under a 4 hour wait before our transfer to the airport arrived. So we thought we would be good and update our journal, read some emails, check out facebook and even book our accommodation in Madrid. While Nat was looking through Madrid hostels I went downstairs to grab a bite to eat. We were sitting on a 2 seater couch, Nat on the right, myself on the left with our computer bag beside me on the ground. When I returned and sat down we booked a nice new hostel to stay in Madrid and I went to grab the bag which contained a book that we write directions to and from the airport to the hostel and other significant areas.
“Hey Nat, where is the bag”
“What bag”
“The black Nike bag (with our passports, Brazilian tourist VISA, UK work VISA, vaccination documents - which are only required for entry into Brazil of course -, the two 4GB USB memory cards that we had backed up all of our photos/videos on, the cord that connects our camera to the computer (yes there will be no more photos on the journal) and a few presents and expensive clothes that we had bought – you know the one bag we can’t afford to lose), have you moved it?”
“NO”
A few choice 4 letter words later we realize we have been robbed, less than an hour before our transfer to the airport. Nat remembers some Chilean guy sitting near her and not doing anything but looking people over and she caught him staring at her a couple of times. Now he was gone!
We checked nearby bins, without any luck, in the hope that the thief was only after cash or things he could sell and had discarded the bag and our passports into one of them. We called the Aussie Embassy here in Chile and were told to file a report with the International Police.
3.30pm we head off to change our flight from Santiago to Rio at the nearest LAN Chile office, where we are told it will cost US$370 each to have our tickets reprinted – awesome! Also the Santiago – Rio flight had already caused us trouble as when we first arrived in Chile the next available flight was the 16th of August, so we were not surprised to find that the next available was the 27th of August, well actually that’s probably not the worst it could be.
4.30pm we head off to find the International Police station and upon arrival are told that it’s only open from 8-2pm (it is already after 5), so after a few more questions to the guard at the gate he eventually calls someone inside and then takes us into the waiting area. We meet Mr Moya (no relation to Carlos) and he informs us that we need 2 passport size photos for the report. Guess where we kept them??
6.00pm we had to run to the local mall and see if we could get photos taken there, of course the 3 photo places are all having problems with their machines and each one directs us to the one we just came from. We luckily stumble across this little dodgy joint and get the photos done, which don’t resemble anything of a passport photo, more body than head but they’ll do.
6.45pm we leg it back to the Police station and are questioned on our way in by some other people asking why we are there? (Well we think that’s what they’re asking as it’s all in Spanish, which we are both sick of hearing). So we just barge in to the room where we were spoken to in English before and wait for Mr Moya.
15 minutes
30 minutes
About 45 minutes later he finally shows up and asks us a few questions in his broken English and jots down a few notes hands them to the bloke who has been sitting with us the whole time and then leaves. You see Moya is just a translator and gives the notes to the detective we’ve been sitting with the last 45 minutes to write the report. He then does so, asking us only a few questions which we manage to answer as this bloke speaks zero English. We then have to sign something written completely in Spanish, God knows what it says but hopefully it’s what we need to get an Emergency Passport and get out of this God forsaken country.
Friday morning we head off to the Australian Embassy to get our new Passports and then we have to go to QANTAS and see if we can’t get the tickets printed cheaper and can we get on an earlier flight.
First thing the Embassy needs are new head shots as the ones from the night before are terrible, so they give us directions to the place and a sheet with instructions for the dude taking the photos. This all goes according to plan, except for a little red-eye in the photos, but hopefully we can get away with that!!
We then find out that the emergency Passport will only last 7 months and only has 4 pages in it. Quick calculation and that won’t be enough to get us anywhere, just going to Brazil will use up 1 and ½ pages. We get the emergency passport and then visit the QANTAS office and find out that they can reprint our tickets, which will take a few business days as this is done in Argentina and then sent to Chile (of course). This will be at no cost as we have the police report!
Ahead of us we have a few hurdles still to come; getting new tourist VISA’s for Brazil we hope won’t be too much of a problem. The same goes for getting a new UK work permit once we apply for a full passport in Brazil, full passport takes 10 business days which means delaying our exit from Brazil even further.
This is one of those times when you wish they would offer us each a few minutes alone with the guy who stole our passports, in a room with no windows and the door closed, so that I could fully express how much grief he has caused us.
Here’s hoping that this process can run a little smoother from here on and save us any more grief!
