We arrived in Chile after getting a painful 30 hour bus from Bolivia. I had the worst seat on the bus with no window but instead had this to look at......
My view for 30 hours. Jealous?
On my first day in Santiago, I was walking around the city taking photos when a man crept up behind me and grabbed my camera from my hands. Now, I wouldn’t call myself a violent person, however I am the kind of person who yells “fuck you” instinctively when someone stands on my foot. As soon as the words leave my mouth I regret it and recoil in terror, it’s an innate instinct of some sort that I can’t control. So, when I was mugged, I grabbed the camera back from the mugger, yelled “hey” and hit him. He ran like the wind but my camera was damaged in the scuffle. I’m not a good person to mug. This aggression comes from somewhere and is probably why I enjoyed boxing so much when I took it up last year. It may also have had something to do with the fact that the gym was ninety nine percent male and I one hundred percent enjoy looking at men with big muscles.
I needed to get a police report for my broken camera for insurance purposes. Two strapping Chilean cops came to my hostel. They both wore sunglasses and chewed gum, which I took as clarification of their authority. If only I could chew gum like them, I thought, hardly able to contain my jealousy. With no one there to translate for me, I had to reinact the entire scenario for them. I played both the part of the mugger and myself and said things in Spanish like “I photo”, “a man”, “he take” and did a grabbing action with one hand towards the pretend camera I was holding in the other. I gave either an Oscar winning performance or exhibited clear signs of schizophrenia. The police thought they saw some holes in my story and accused me of breaking the camera. “You”, said one of the cops whom I mentally pronounced the bad one of the two, “you” and he did a stamping action with his foot, trampling on the pretend camera I must have carelessly placed on the ground some seconds earlier. I shook my head at his statement and actions that I decided carried a slight yet distinct hint of accusation.
At this point, someone with Spanish turned up and interpreted for me although I was beginning to enjoy this game of charades I was playing with bad cop. Bad cop said that unless I actually had the man who mugged me that there was nothing they could do. Lesson for you, if you are ever mugged in Chile make sure you hang on to the mugger, perhaps take him back to your hostel and make him wait there until the police arrive. I realised then that Julie and I should have beaten the mugger to death, it seemed like the only possible solution.
I had given up all hope of getting anything from the police and wondered when would be a good time to mention that I had been the victim of another crime when a leprechaun recently stole my credit card. This wasn’t a theory that I’d want to stand up in court and testify to, however I accepted it as a perfectly acceptable one. The credit card company told me that the person (it wasn’t a person, it was a leprechaun) who stole my card had used it to buy a flight, a mobile phone and some groceries. I had visions of Dwendy sitting in first class on a plane bound for Ireland, eating his groceries whilst reclined in the seat with his tiny feet up on the dinner tray. “Bastard” I thought and regretted the kindness I had shown him in the past. Leprechauns are so dammed ungrateful.
The face of a cold blooded thief.
The policeman was still rabbiting on about something. I was only half listening at this point and instead had begun to imagine myself down the police station filling in a report about Dwendy and the stolen credit card. I imagined it would go something like this.
Description of Thief:
Approximately 30cm in height, wearing a little green jacket with green breeches buckled at the knee. Also wearing black stockings and a long coned hat, which is sometimes used as a weapon. Around his neck is an Eizabethian ruff and frills of lace at the wrists, which may be signs of a homosexual disposition. His voice is high and strange as if its been recorded and played back at faster speed. Likes to leap on walls and spin balancing himself on the point of the hat with his heels in the air. Sometimes stands upside down. Known to fix shoes in the night, traditionally interested in pots of gold, but recently progressed onto credit cards.
If there was any justice in this world Dwendy would be locked up in a prison cell only allowed an hours recreational time a day in order to play basket ball with the Boogie man.
I wondered how long Dwendy could withstand torture before he’d confess to the crime and considered asking bad cop if he enjoys torturing leprechauns. I imagined bad cop shining a bright white light in Dwendys eyes and asking him where he was the night the credit card was stolen. Beads of whiskey sweat dripping down his ruddy face as Dwendy would proclaim “I was mendin’ shoes” or “I was at de bottom of de rainbow”. Bad cop would pound the table and yell “There are holes in your story Mr. Dwendy, there are no rainbows at night!” At this point, the rubber glove might come out. I wondered how many shamrocks and stars bad cop would extract out of Dwendys rear end before either the credit card was found or he confessed. He’d then be hauled off to a maximum security prison where he might be picked on for only being 30cm tall or the even bigger infliction...having red hair. He might have to share a cell with a burley murderer named “Gnasher” who likes to cuddle and is attracted to small mythical creatures. One day, justice will be done Dwendy, one day.
On a more serious note, we made it out of Santiago and arrived in Pucon, a small Chilean town overlooked by a massive volcano. We climbed the volcano on our first day there, feeling lots and lots of vertigo. I realise now that I was dizzy due to tremors happening under the ground. I went to bed that night and was woken up around 3:30am by what I can only describe as a continuous and deafening rhythmic banging. Julie and I both woke up at the same time. “It’s an earthquake”, she said unfortunately stating the obvious. I told her that we needed to get out as the house was about to collapse. It (the building) was moving from side to side, violently. I tried to open the door, but it was jammed as it had obviously become dislodged in the quake. I had to really force it open, took about 5 attempts to do it and the quake was getting stronger and stronger the whole time. I got out of the room and had to hold onto the wall to stop from being flung about. It felt like being on a ship during a really bad storm. We reckon it took us about a minute to get out of the building. The woman who owns the hostel was outside screaming at us to come down (we were on the first floor), she was totally hysterical and hyperventilating, which in turn scared the shit out of me.
The earthquake passed and we gathered outside with the other guests in the hostel. I began to worry about the volcano and was asking anyone who knew anything about earthquakes if they thought the volcano could now erupt. I was also worried about a potential tsunami, every bad scenario runs through your head at a time like that. Another, albeit smaller earthquake hit when we were standing outside and all we could do was stand there and wait for it to pass. The ground was moving from side to side, trees were rocking, it was crazy. We slept in the sitting room on the floor after that, the moving floor. The ground continued to move all night.
The next day, we realised the extent and devastation that the quake caused throughout Chile and were warned that there was another, bigger one coming. The electricity came back on long enough for me to skype my Mom who obviously worried about me proclaimed "I never knew your voice could sound so sweet" followed by "today you are the favorite daughter!" We were advised to go out and get food and water supplies. There was a 20 minute queue for the supermarket and when we were in there stocking up another quake hit causing things to fall off shelves. Thankfully the anticipated bigger one never came. The smaller quakes continued for about three days. We were trapped in Pucon, all roads north and south were destroyed. It was a few days before we could get out and as soon as we could we got the bus to Argentina. It's been days since the quake, yet I still feel like I have sea sickness and think I feel the ground moving now and again (it's not). Lucky escape for us both and an all too eventful two weeks filled with crime, bad and good luck (good luck we weren’t hurt in the quake). Is someone up there trying to teach me a lesson I wonder? And if so, does it have anything to do with leprechauns?
The Volcano. It scared me.
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